50 Great Judo Champions celebrates these outstanding individuals whose talent, ambitions, determination and courage drove them to produce their best at the moments of highest tension.

Each champion has a dedicated section containing key biographic material - their background, their major competition successes, and their favourite techniques. There is also an extended essay on their personalities and principal victories in competition.

Among them are the biographies of the two greatest heavyweights - Yasuhiro Yamashita, champion of the 1970's/1980's and David Douillet, champion of the 90's. As well as Karen Briggs and Ryoko Tamura, two of the greatest women fighters of the 1980's/1990's in Judo's lightest category.

And each of these champions is illustrated by a series of outstanding pictures from the archives of specialist Judo photographers David Finch and Bob Willingham.

50 Great Judo Champions celebrates the founding of the International Judo Federation in 1951. Although there were international matches before then, and Judo had already spread throughout the World, that date sets the official seal on international Judo. The first European championships were held in Paris in 1951. The World Championships followed in 1956. The Asian Games, the Pan-American Games and the Oceana Games took their regular place in the international competition calendar. And in 1964 judo was seen in the Olympic Games for the first time.

From its beginnings in a small Buddhist temple in 1882, judo is now truly international. Competition, and the champions it produced, have played a significant role in achieving this. Here, in this exciting volume of words and pictures, are 50 of the greatest.

ISBN: 1 8745729 1 7

When in the early 1960s Russian Judo first appeared in the international arena, no one had any doubts that what they were seeing was nothing else than Judo, albeit quite amazing in its approach. However, whilst similarities between conventional Judo and the so called Russian Judo style were so openly displayed, it remained beyond any body's imagination to set about its conceptual framework. Hence almost everyone appeared content to accept any extravagant explanation of this phenomenon, which finally had been accommodated in the minds of coaches and Judo experts all over the world in the form of accumulated uncertainty and even misconceptions.

The reader will find in : JUDO FROM A RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Background of Russian Judo

Performance Judo Concepts of Permanent Combat and advantage Exclusion Strategy

Total Domination Game plan with Take downs, Transitions and Limitating Grips

Judo Education Concepts of Situational Learning and Assisted Learning

Unorthodox Essentials including a new vision of Stances, Grips and Balance breaking

Comprehensive review of a Multinational Mosaic of Russian Judo

Syd Hoare is admirably placed to write about this subject. His Judo career began when there were no weight categories and when contest times were often fifteen minutes or more. He competed during Judo's early transitional period, when the first Soviet fighters came on the scene and shocked traditional fighters with their different approach, and when Judo first became a weight category sport. He saw the decline of Japanese hegemony, Judo's development into an Olympic sport and the addition of the smaller scores of koka and yuko.

ISBN 1-874572-02-X

'Judo Through The Looking Glass' is a collection of short Judo stories by British artist, teacher, sportsman and environmentalist Jerry Hicks, MBE, RWA, 7th Dan.
Largely lighthearted and often hilarious they chronicle his own involvement in the sport from his pre World War II adolescence through to the 90's.

These stories are entertaining and fascinating in themselves, but each has a strongly instructive element.

Judo can be as much about character development as about combat on the mat - a concept originally envisioned by the founder of judo, Dr Jigoro Kano.

Contents:

Judo and the ways
Introduction
Outer and inner balance
Judo and shuji
The cherry tree
Question
Efficiency of the heart
Specialisation
Help
Limits of technique
Humble
Dr Kano's washing
Ingenuity
The tradition of judo
Judo koan
Beginners
Kind-hearted
Hard and soft
Irrelevances
Ippon-yari
Run-up
Sacrifices
Special duties
Excuses
The dragon mask I
The dragon mask II
Onshi
Tricks
Manners
The killer instinct
A lovely style
Cutting off the bull's horns
Tigers and Rabbits
Specialities
Predicting the result
The new black belt
Inspiration
Kangeiko
Disadvantages
The learning process
Surprise
Falling
Faith
Endurance
Quick
Even effort
Hold

ISBN 1-874572-16-X

Contents:

How to achieve maximum power
Nage-Waza
Contest Tips
Tsurite and Hikite
The Importance of Uchikomi
Grip Fighting
Movement
Katame-Waza
Contest Tips
How to finish it quickly
Combinations
Training
A Coach's View
Path of Victory

ISBN 1-874572-15-1

When Mark Law joined his local Judo club he was able to observe at close quarters the sport practised at its highest level. He even found himself having to face some of the finest fighters in the business - World Champions and Olympic medallists from Japan and Europe, men like Brian Jacks, one of the all time greats of British judo (whose superhuman fitness and strength also saw him to the BBC's Sporting Superstars title in the 70s). He went to Osaka, Japan to see the World Championships and to Athens for the Olympics. And he explored the history of this martial art rooted in the traditions of the 17th-century Samurai warriors through such legendary figures as Jigoro Kano, who created the basis for the modern sport of judo, Anton Geesink, the Dutchman who was first to shatter the hegemony of the Japanese, and Yamashita, the greatest of modern champions.

The result is a fascinating journey into this most enigmatic of sports which, in its own ferocious but highly codified regime, feeds man's immutable warrior instinct for combat. It tells the story of how Judo conquered the world, and how the world has tried to conquer Japan. We are taken behind the scenes of the international tournament circuit populated by some of the most fearsomely single minded and self-denying competitors of all time - men and women who have arrived at the apex of a sport from thousands of ordinary Judo clubs all over the world. Through a series of colourful encounters - sublime, grotesque, comic and tragic - we experience the irresistable drama of tournament Judo as figures grapple, whirl and fly through the air or stuggle for armlocks and chokes, each contest reaching its conclusion in that symbolic death.

Funny, alarming and mesmerising, The Pyjama Game is one of the best sports books of recent years.

ISBN 978-1-84513-090-9

Read about:

What makes them tick.
The rivalry and support.
How they handle defeat.
How they handle winning.
The psychology of champions.
Behind the scenes information.
How they prepared mentally and physically.
The insights into their attitudes and expectations. What makes all those years of training worthwhile.

"Fantastic piece of work. The Interviews were very insightful. A fantastic contribution to qualitative research."
Professor John Amtmann, Montana Tech

"You have developed a close complicity with the athletes that allowed you to capture their real feelings. Outstanding work."
Professor Michel Brousse, Bordeaux University

"The results of the Psychological study were great, specific and clear, and I liked it very much."
Daniela Y. Krukower -63kg World Champion 2003

ISBN 978-0-9555351-1-6