Myoyu Dojo Home Page

Welcome to the Myoyo Dojo home page. Myoyu Dojo is a judo club in the Washington, DC, suburbs. We're a traditional club with modern techniques.

News
Overview of the Club
Where We Are
Who We Are
Other Links

News

Cleaned Up "Other Links"

Classes at St. Paul's CDC

Overview of the Club

On hearing that we run a traditional club, someone once asked, "Do brownbelts have to wear white belts at your club?". No, we're not that traditional! In the American belt rank systems, all ranks above rokkyu now wear colored belts, and American judoists have come to expect this early recognition of accomplishment.

But we are traditional in the sense that we line up by rank, everyone is expected to bow to one another, Japanese terms are used, breakfall practice is mandatory, uchikomi (= "fitting", technique drills) are used extensively, the teachers may behave like drill sergeants from time to time, disobedient and/or lazy students will be punished, and we meditate at the end of every class. In addition, when 2 people work together, the higher ranking student always has the prerogative to decide who should be tori or uke first. (When the lower ranking person is still learning a technique, the higher ranking person is expected to pick being tori first, so that uke will learn the feel of the technique before being expected to do it.) Last but not least, our adherence to the samurai tradition is evidenced in the meaning of the word "myoyu".

But we're not traditional to the exclusion of modern techniques. For example, we practice yoko tomoenage, roughly 20 different versions of taiotoshi, the whole gamut of crossgrip throws and extensive matwork. For the more intellectually inclined, especially at the University of Maryland branch of the club, we analyze what make techniques work in terms of physics and mechanics, especially torque, composition and decomposition of forces, all 3 of Newton's laws of motion, and all of the simple machines (type 1, type 2 and type 3 levers, pulleys, inclined planes, wedges, etc). We use wrestling techniques freely, without disparaging them as base or crude compared to judo techniques. In fact, 4 of our people are current or former wrestling champions.

Myoyu Dojo is open to all judoka from all national organizations, but our primary club affiliation is with USJF. Judoka from other organizations will not be pressured to join USJF, and, to whatever extent possible, belt rank promotion via other organizations will be supported (preparation for examinations, promotional tournament information, etc).

Where We Are

We have worked out at 5 sites since 1974, and currently work out only at St. Paul's Community Development Corporation:

Who we are

All of the following lists are in order by judo rank first and then alphabetically by last name. 

We have 4 blackbelts/teachers:

We have the following competitor students, past and present, who have 
earned rank and/or won 1st place at the Eastern Invitationals:

Other Links

OFFICIAL JUDO SITES (listed by scope, and then alphabetically): Several web sites have been kind enough to list us among their hot links. You might want to give some of them a visit (listed alphabetically, by site name): If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail us at: myoyudojo@aol.com. NOTE: Due to excessive unsolicited commercial e-mail ("spam") from certain domain names, this e-mail address has been blocked against receiving ANY e-mail from ameritech.com, financial.as, juno.com, mailcity.com, smip.net, sprynet.com and usa.net. If your e-mail account is with one of these domain names, your e-mail will not get through and you should consider another mode of communication. (Because they've cleaned up their act, earthlink.net and hotmail.com have recently been removed from the blocked list.)

Last updated 04/01/2007.