Critical consideration on the concept of competition in judo: Focus on the manner of competition overcoming superiority and inferiority

Abstract

The “concept of competition” is at the heart of sporting activities. However, it is also true that the desire for victory that arises in the concept of competition has often become a subject of debate. Thus, social problems related to the idea of “winning at all costs” are a crucial issue in the world of sport, and efforts are also being implemented in the judo world to curb competition becoming too heated. However, an interesting aspect of this approach is that the intention to protect the healthy growth and development of the mind and body is combined with concerns about the inheritance of the cultural value of judo. This approach shows that aside from judo being a type of sport, it is also a physical activity that has the characteristics of a unique traditional culture. There have been numerous initiatives and discussions in recent years in the judo community to address this issue, but only a few discussions have focused on the competitive nature inherent in it. Therefore, this study critically examines the concept of competition in judo through a study of the literature. It also attempts to discuss the future of judo under the win (superiority) or lose (inferiority) structure.

Judo is positioned both as an “international sport” and form of “Japanese traditional culture,” but in both cases the way in which they are evaluated is different than the strength of competition. In other words, in judo’s concept of competition, “athlete strength” is sometimes assessed from a different perspective than “sporting strength”. In the original concept of competition, winning at all costs cannot be criticized. However, in modern sport, where victory and defeat are compared on the basis of superiority or inferiority, winning at all costs disrupts the equilibrium of the concept of competition, masking the cultural value of the sport. In other words, as the value of victory increases, the desire to win at all costs, which is intrinsic to the concept of competition, becomes a social problem, confirming a divergence between the values of victory and defeat. However, even in modern sport, judo still includes “aesthetics of emotional control” in which it is good to end a contest without a sense of superiority or inferiority in terms of victory or defeat. In this study, this is interpreted as “manner of competition”, which concludes that it is a behavior that overcomes superiority and inferiority in victory and defeat.