Daily Archives: February 6, 2014


The Letters of Sarah Mayer 1

For those who don’t know, Sarah Mayer was the first non-Japanese woman to earn the rank of Shodan (first degree black belt) in judo, which she did in 1935 after less than a year of training. She is a very interesting and important figure in martial arts history, but most martial artists (judoka included) don’t know anything about her. I […]