This is the ‘unfinished kata,’ the form without names. Kano, who devoted his life to refining the structure and soul of Kodokan Judo, never named the techniques of Itsutsu-no-kata before his passing, not by neglect, but by intent. Naming them, he believed, would confine their meaning. To Kano, this kata was not simply a sequence of shapes to be learned but a philosophical testament, a way to understand the principles of judo on a cosmic scale. It is a bridge between the microcosm, the body and the macrocosm, the universe.
Through its five techniques, Itsutsu-no-kata explores the essential forces of existence, earth, fire, wind, water and void. Each movement, stripped of violence, stripped even of labels, reveals a principle:
- Ippon-me (earth) shows how a smaller force can overcome a larger one through continuity and logic.
- Nihon-me (fire) teaches how to use an opponent’s power to defeat them, the spark that consumes the greater flame.
- Sanbon-me (wind) captures the circular current, the centre holding the power to engulf the outer.
- Yonhon-me (water) moves like the tide, advancing, retreating, wearing everything away in time.
- Gohon-me (void) dares to face the wave head-on, yielding only for a moment, escaping danger by accepting it.
Seen in this way, kata is not repetition, it is revelation, not an exercise in dominance, but a reminder of equilibrium.
In Itsutsu-no-kata, tori and uke do not fight, they communicate. They harmonise breath, timing, rhythm. They erase the line between attack and defence, between intention and response. There is no victor here, no medal, no score, only joint expression, two beings sharing movement to reveal what cannot be defined in words.
For Kano, this was the heart of judo; maximum efficiency, minimum effort, not just in physical movement but in the very flow of life. “The body obeys technique. Technique obeys principles. Principles obey nature.”
Outside of this kata, the same principles reappear in named forms: uchi-mata, tai-otoshi, hiza-guruma, reflections of the five elements distilled into practical movement. Yet in Itsutsu, they are set free, no longer techniques but currents, phenomena, echoes of something older than judo itself.
Itsutsu-no-kata is therefore not an ending, nor even a beginning. It is the still point, the place where movement and meaning merge. To study it is to stand at the edge of the tatami and feel the universe breathe. To practise it is to realise that judo was never just a martial art, it was always a way of being, a way of thinking, a way of listening to what flows through us and beyond us.
It is, quite simply, a kata not of the body alone but of the soul in motion.