Shintaro Higashi, a high-level judoka and one of the most popular voices in the grappling community through his YouTube channel, has spoken out about the challenges facing Judo’s growth in the United States.

Known as one of the art’s most active ambassadors, Higashi recently identified three major issues preventing Judo from expanding its reach.

The first one is the lack of education. According to Higashi, most Americans have little understanding of what Judo actually is. He noted that many people lump it together with Karate or other traditional martial arts, showing that practitioners and school owners aren’t doing enough to educate the public.

The second one, in Higashi’s opinion, is poor marketing. For example, he pointed out the disparity in visibility between Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
While BJJ gyms are common across the U.S., Judo schools are far harder to find:

If you go to any town in the United States now you can see Jiu-Jitsu is very accessible.
It’s not the same with Judo.

Then, there is the issue of perception of danger. It is how Judo is perceived by grapplers outside the art, particularly BJJ practitioners.
Many avoid training Judo due to fears of injury, especially from throws, which creates an image of Judo as unnecessarily risky.

Despite these challenges, Higashi believes there are simple steps to reverse the trend.

He suggests Judo schools should create safer training environments to counter negative perceptions.
By doing so, they would attract not only newcomers but also Jiu-Jitsu athletes looking to improve their stand-up skills.

As Higashi sees it, better branding and safer training could benefit both arts.
Judo would expand its presence in the U.S., while BJJ practitioners would strengthen weak areas like posture, grips, and stance:

Addressing these problems will improve Judo’s branding and help them reach more potential students.

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