Watch the young Koga, Suzuki, Inoue, Yoshida, etc, in the 1982 Setagaya Gakuen Highschool Tournament finals !!

Again marvelous footage, no IJF disco judo with stupid blue gi and ridiculous yellow tatami.

FAntastic ! Great find, thanks for sharing.

We recently received some tatami from Japan (donated by the people of Japan) and it was refreshing to be able to get stitched, proper tatami, in green and red. Traditional and awesome.

When put next to the blue and yellow puzzle "modern" mats, the class of the Japanese tatami really comes to the fore. We are forever grateful for them.

(Apologies for the off-topic hijack, but CK sensei's comment about the mats is the reason)

Davaro wrote:We recently received some tatami from Japan (donated by the people of Japan) and it was refreshing to be able to get stitched, proper tatami, in green and red. Traditional and awesome.

When put next to the blue and yellow puzzle "modern" mats, the class of the Japanese tatami really comes to the fore. We are forever grateful for them.

(Apologies for the off-topic hijack, but CK sensei's comment about the mats is the reason)

Davaro, mate, you are really lucky ! Indeed, real Japanese tatami are of much better quality. I have mentioned this many times before. In the West they simply glue them together, but the Japanese ones are stitched through. Inside the canvas the material is also different; in the West they quickly put a single piece of polyurethane in side, but in Japan you have several layers of different material carefully chosen for its properties and density. The problem in the West is that judo clubs usually don't have a lot of money, so they look for the cheapest options and if you have to buy in Japan that is always more expensive because you will be charged import taxes in addition to huge transportation costs. So, you are really lucky !

Cichorei Kano wrote:

Davaro wrote:We recently received some tatami from Japan (donated by the people of Japan) and it was refreshing to be able to get stitched, proper tatami, in green and red. Traditional and awesome.

When put next to the blue and yellow puzzle "modern" mats, the class of the Japanese tatami really comes to the fore. We are forever grateful for them.

(Apologies for the off-topic hijack, but CK sensei's comment about the mats is the reason)

Davaro, mate, you are really lucky !  Indeed, real Japanese tatami are of much better quality. I have mentioned this many times before. In the West they simply glue them together, but the Japanese ones are stitched through. Inside the canvas the material is also different; in the West they quickly put a single piece of polyurethane in side, but in Japan you have several layers of different material carefully chosen for its properties and density. The problem in the West is that judo clubs usually don't have a lot of money, so they look for the cheapest options and if you have to buy in Japan that is always more expensive because you will be charged import taxes in addition to huge transportation costs. So, you are really lucky !

Absolutely. The quality of these tatami are superb. The only "negative" is that the green is rather bright but that is probably due to it being brand new.
The red is also not just the red "line" but all areas outside the competition area are red to account for dynamic edge I assume.

The full-size mat is 32 Green and 66 Red tatami and takes up quite a space. We are very lucky indeed.

One of the mats got a tear on the side during transport and therein I can see what you are talking about with regard to the inside. There are several layers of different material inside. The tatami is sewn with industrial strength cotton and all the cotton joints are not only knotted but glued as well.

The underside is also covered with a non-slip rubbery material.   

the team with izumi, muneta and ofuji must be one of the greatest teams ever.
what a final! suzuki and takai for kokushikan, vs muneta, izumi and ofuji for setagaya.

also....very interesting that the senpo of koga's team did a near identical seoinage to the one koga is famous for. i always assumed that koga was taught that seoinage by his father, but it seems he must have learned it after relocating to tokyo.