<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Well, that's what I was gonna ask, because 1964 Olympics are in Tokyo where they introduced judo as one of the competitions.

YU: Right, yeah. But then we said, "Let's get into judo as an Olympic sport." I said, "Gee, I don't know how to get it in." And Henry Stone, at that time he knew the International Olympic Committee chair, Avery Brundage, and Avery Brundage, Henry Stone talked to him and Avery Brundage said, "It's not gonna be easy," but he says, "Let me, just leave it to me and I'll work it for you." So, and this is the part that everybody thinks Japan had a hand in it. Japan had nothing to do with it. United States did all the work. Avery Brundage was a fellow from New York, and somebody said that, Henry Stone said he had a home in Santa Barbara and he had lots of Japanese paintings and things. He had a feeling for Japanese culture. So Mr. Brundage said, "Leave it to me. I will soon see what I can do." So he talked with the European, Europe had been in war for many years and they were tired and they didn't have time to devote to such thing as sports and things. They said, "Okay, whatever you do, Mr. Brundage, we'll accept." So then he talked with South American leaders, and they were on revolution or something all the time, so they said, "Go ahead, do what you want." And then the big problem was Asia and Australia, because Australia, New Zealand had fought the Japanese and they were, there was no love in there. The, all the countries in Asia, Japan had invaded every one of 'em, so there was no love in there. And they were gonna vote no, so Avery Brundage, he was a real sports politician. He talked with them and he was able to convince 'em how important it is to get judo into the Olympics at this time and not to oppose it, because later on they would also have a chance to get the Olympics and they would, they'd certainly need Japan's support. I guess, I'm sure that's the way he explained it. And they went along with it, and so that's how judo got into sports, as an Olympic sport.

TI: But he was doing all this really without the support of Japan. I mean, Japan wasn't pushing him to do this. It was more from --

YU: Yeah, Japan did, wasn't, Japan, they would, they thought that it would be nice if they got judo into it, but...

TI: But it wasn't like they were...

YU: No, no, because if Japan had pushed it, it would never have gone.

TI: Interesting. Now, so I'm curious, in the Olympics, did they use this weight class division?

YU: No, they, they used something similar to that, but not quite. But they used sixty kilos and I think it was fifty or sixty, sixty kilos and sixty-six kilos, and eighty, some... no, yeah, seventy-something kilos. But it was close, it was close to it, so it was okay.

TI: But by this time, this was over ten years after you, when they were kind of giving you a bad time about doing this, and they adopted it.

YU: Yeah, but I said, so I said okay, but as time went on and it started to grow and grow, I went to the world championship one time, and man, they were really giving me a bad time. He was sitting next to me, he says, "Look at this." [Laughs] So I think when I go to Japan they, okay, I think I sort of feel that, a little bit of arrogance. "Look what we did for you." Because sometimes they say... [Laughs]

TI: Well, that was kind of the question I was gonna ask, because, are they appreciative of what you've done in terms of the sport of judo?

YU: Yeah, I think many people are. United States, I know it has grown real big, not real big, but it's grown very well and we have many people competing. And also, one of the things it brought on was a social, you might say socialization of people from East to the West and they get to know each other, and it's a lot more fun because if there was, in the system that they had, they would never had a national championship or anything like that because, and the kids would not have associated from Miami to Seattle or anything like that.

TI: Yeah, no, in Seattle judo's pretty big.

YU: Very good, yeah.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.