num_pages: 256
description: Judo is a strange unfathomable such courtesy and formality - and at the same time animal brutality. But no one until now has tried to write a considered literary exploration of it. Mark Law watches the 2004 Olympic judo competition in Athens fights the former British judo superstar (and BBC Superstars champion!) Brian Jacks at his local club celebrates the Japanese grand masters who effectively defined the modern sport and examines the Samurai history that shaped judo's unique sensibility. Here is the Japanese world champion who after an unexpected Olympic defeat asked his trainer for permission to kill himself and another top competitor who fought on with a broken arm. Humorous and perplexed this is a sports book from left field scrutinising a sport that demands of its practitioners the total commitment of their whole life in which defeat can symbolise calamity in a single sudden throw.
language: English
title: The Pyjama Game
publisher: Aurum Press Ltd