Dan Rubin

Excerpts from Falling Hard: A Journey Into the World of Judo by Mark Law (2009), pp. 91-93:

In the minds of many who come to the sport, there persists a vague notion that judo is character-building. It is a nice-sounding idea, but what exactly does it mean?...

We can declaim that self-discipline, initiative, confidence, and courage are all fostered by judo, while we neglect to remind ourselves that these are also the very qualities required to be a successful bank robber....

The sport is fraught with skullduggery both on and off the mat. Maybe the answer is the same as the response to criticism of appalling behavior by those who are apparently religious: "Think how much worse they'd be if they didn't go to church!"...

Anyone who struggles to believe that judo builds character might find it easier to accept that judo certainly reveals it....

Some claim that judo can imbue its adherents with new qualities, but Geof Gleeson, a former British coach and one of the sport's philosophers, dismisses such claims as exaggerated. The confidence imbued by judo, he argues, is often mere brashness concealing timidity. A tendency to bully is exacerbated as often as it is suppressed. Judo, he argues, tends to emphasize what's there already.