Isao Inokuma - 1938 to 2001

Obituary

        1959 All Japan Champion                      

        1963 All Japan Champion

        1964 Olympic Heavyweight Judo Champion

        1965 World Open weight Judo Champion

Isao Inokuma, past Olympic and World Judo Champion, died on September 28^th 2001 at the age of 63. He had taken his own life while at his office in Tokyo.

Born in Yokosuka in 1938, just outside Tokyo, Isao Inokuma started judo at the age of 15 and grew to be one of the most feared fighters in the sport. He wrote in Best Judo (Kodansha) that as a child “I was rather sickly and did not have much of a physique.” but he had spirit and said, “It gave me the confidence that I would not be defeated by anyone.” This helped him considerably in his judo and by the time he was studying at Tokyo University, now University of Tsukuba, he had reached his 4^th dan at 18 and had decided to concentrate all of his efforts and enthusiasm on judo.

Throughout his adult life, Isao Inokuma’s motto was “Fighting Spirit”. Against the odds it ensured that he became the youngest person to win the open weight All Japan Judo Championships in 1959 at the age of 21 and the first person to do it at the first attempt even though he was only 83kgs. He held this record until his protégé and the World’s greatest competitive judoman, Yasuhiro Yamashita, won the title at age 18 in 1977. The day before the 1959 championships a fellow student had asked Inokuma if he would win and he replied “No chance”. However, against the odds he reached the final defeating one of the favourites, Oda, on the way. In the final against Akio Kaminaga, 1958 World Silver Medallist, he was behind until the twentieth and final minute of the contest when he threw the experienced Kaminaga with seoinage for a wazari and the title.

In middle age Isao Inokuma described his judo life as fitting into three periods. The first period, as a youngster, was under the guidance of his first judo sensei at the Yokosuka dojo, Riichiro Watanabe, who oversaw his formative years and prepared him for his senior competition career.

His second period included preparation for his first All Japan title and his senior competition career through to his retirement in 1966 as Olympic and reigning World Champion. In 1957 he was introduced to weight training by the American judoka and author Donn F Draeger 6^th dan. Inokuma had used weights before but never with the planning and systematic progression taught by Draeger. He developed his physical strength and increased his body weight from 73 kgs to 87 kgs by the 1964 Olympics using a system described by George Kerr, a fellow Kenshusei student (special research student) at the Kodakan and coach to double Olympic Champion Peter Seisenbacher, as ‘Power Training’. Even so he was still the lightest heavy weight in the category and under the current weight system he would have weighed in at a near middleweight. In the final he gave away an enormous 33 kgs to Doug Rogers of Canada.

Rogers towered above Inokuma throughout the fifteen-minute final. There were minor attacks from both and Inokuma actually launched Rogers off the mat for no score but the match was very slow as both men were training partners and each knew the other’s style. The referee Charles Palmer, a strong minded individual, found this passivity disturbing. With a few minutes to go he stopped the contest and warned both fighters that unless they started ‘doing judo’ he would disqualify each and neither would get a medal! The tempo increased but not one could score the minimum requirement of a wazari, the lowest score needed in those days. At time the judges had to give their decision and it was Inokuma’s  ‘spirit’ that tipped the balance in his favour. All of this took place in the presence of the Japanese Emperor who had attended the judo on that day only, to specifically watch Inokuma. 

Twice a year, in early autumn and mid-spring, just before the All Japan Championships, Inokuma trained intensely with weights for a period of five weeks while at other times he continued to use them systematically, but with less intensity. The stamina that Inokuma developed with such concentrated training programmes enabled him to attack continuously and aggressively with his favourite techniques of ippon seoi nage and taiotoshi throughout those early long contests. In fact he became renowned for his relentless aggression and wrote, “The spirit of a combative sport is that one does not give up relentlessly attacking the opponent, and as long as you have fighting spirit and the desire to win you will always discover a way to victory”.

At the 1965 Rio de Janeiro World Championships the Japanese had such confidence in Inokuma that they entered him into the prestigious Openweight division. It was their expectation that he would meet the legendary giant Anton Geesink of Holland who, a year earlier had taken the Olympic Openweight title shattering the Japanese dream of all four gold medals on their home soil. Geesink was skilful and a full 40 kgs heavier than Inokuma but after winning the heavyweight title the previous day and only just defeating both Japanese fighters, Sakaguchi and Matsunaga, by decisions, Geesink surprised the world and announced his retirement. Inokuma was left with a much easier task and convincingly emerged as the Openweight World Champion.

After retiring from competitive judo at the height of his career and only 27 years old, Inokuma considered that he had entered his third phase in life. He became manager of the Tokyo University Judo Club and concentrated on discovering and nurturing other promising fighters. He coached Nobuyuki Sato to win his first world title in 1967 at Salt Lake City. Sato wrote of Isao Inokuma, “By practicing with him and by watching the contests in which he participated, I came to know his brand of judo, which overflowed with vitality. But at the same time I felt privileged to have Inokuma-sensei as my instructor, I also felt that I must become as strong as he was.” 

In 1969 Isao Inokuma became professor of physical education at Tokai University, a private university, under the presidency of Dr Shigeyoshi Matsumae, a 6^th dan at judo. Dr Matsumae was a wealthy man and in 1945 had been the scientist, with a doctorate in engineering, chosen by the Japanese government to visit the devastated cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to confirm that the destruction had been caused by atomic bombs.

Isao Inokuma, under the guidance of Dr Matsumae, established a new martial arts department at the University focusing predominantly on judo and he brought with him Nobuyuki Sato as the chief judo instructor. Under Inokuma’s leadership the judo club was built up from practically nothing to one of the foremost in Japan. The partnership led further, to Sato winning his second world title in 1973, and then the dominance of world heavyweight judo by Yasuhiro Yamashita until 1985 when he retired.

In 1965 Charles Palmer of Great Britain took the leadership of the International Judo Federation away from Japan. He modernised the Federation, took the sport into the Olympics on a permanent basis, formalised the rules and considerably reduced the influence of Japan on the sport. He also made several enemies, including Japan, following his cancellation of the 1977 World Championships with his principled dismissal of politics in Sport.

Dr Shigeyoshi Matsumae then vowed to return the presidency of the International Judo Federation to Japan. As his envoy to promote his candidacy for the 1979 elections he chose Isao Inokuma, at considerable cost, to travel the world meeting national and continental associations to promote Dr Matsumae’s candidacy. It is a fitting tribute to the advocacy of Inokuma and the respect that he generated that Dr Matsumae took the presidency from Charles Palmer by 67 votes to 26.

At his death Isao Inokuma was President of Tokai Kensetsu, a construction company in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo.  He was also a trustee of the International Budo University and had served as a member of the All-Japan Judo Federation. His funeral was held on the 30^Th September 2001 at Sogenji Temple in Yokosuka. He left a wife and children.