Martial Art of the Month: Japan - Kudo

I met a Russian guy at my sports club recently, who told me that back home he practiced Kudo. And showed me a video of it. I'd never seen or heard of it before (I am slightly obsessive about martial arts, so new things are always interesting!) But apparently it's very popular in Russia. The sparring video showed a fast, aggressive sport - including takedowns, ground work (ground and pound?!) submissions and strikes (and actually quite a few kicks I recognised directly from taekwondo).

Kudo is a form of Japanese full-contact karate. There are many, many variations of full-contact karate - nearly all developed in the late 20th century and using different permitted techniques and scoring systems. These styles formed the basis of the popular Japanese MMA movement (in the years before UFC and co became big). From what I can gather, Kudo is the competitive sparring system of the Daido Juku style of karate developed in the 1980s. It combines a broad range of standup and groundwork (I think ground time is limited in competition, however) and allows any strike - including elbows, knees, kicks to the groin and head-butting.

What separates Kudo from mainstream modern MMA (apart from the groin, and usually head butt thing) is that it still adheres to the traditional martial arts principles of etiquette, discipline, spirituality, education, life-long dedication and journey, (known collectively as Budo: 'way of life'). 'Ku' stands for adherence to three philosophical principles, roughly: life as transient/things as formless; interdependence of all things; liberalism/open-mind. 'Do' means 'the way of' as in juDo, kenDo, aikiDo etc. Also like traditional martial arts, there is a belt system for Kudoka (students and practitioners of Kudo).

In competition, fighters wear gi, with a head/face protector and mitts (and I would strongly hope, groin protection!) In some countries there is additional shin and body protection required for females and juniors. Victory is obtained by bringing down your opponent through strikes, or submitting them. The rules info I can find is sketchy, but it seems you can submit more than once during a round and also win by scoring points. A match (or a round in a match?) lasts three minutes, with extra time given if a decision cannot be made during the bout. 

**If anyone knows the rules of Kudo with more clarity, please do post them in Comments!

Anyway, I kinda like this sport. Here's a video - see what you think!

Photo credit: Kudo Federation of Australia

More martial arts of the month:
Martial Art of the Month: South Korea - Yongmudo 
Martial Art of the Month: Cambodia - Pradal Serey (Khmer Boxing) 
Martial art of the month: Indonesia / Malaysia - Silat 
Martial art of the month: Japan - Sumo 
Martial Art of the Month: Korea - Taekwondo