Badass! Check out this rad San Francisco Chronicle story on Sensei Keiko Fukuda, who has become the first woman to be promoted to judo's highest level: 10th degree black belt. She may be 98 years old, but she could still drop your ass to the ground: Judo master makes 10th degree black belt.
Only three people in the world, all men living in Japan, have ever reached that mark.That is friggin' awesome. Fukuda is apparently the only living student of Kano Jigoro -- the founder of judo -- who opened his first judo school in 1882. Here's another Chronicle profile on the sensei from last month: Keiko Fukuda - judo master. Congratulations, Sensei Fukuda.
The martial arts promotion by USA Judo brought 98-year-old Fukuda to tears at the women's dojo where she still teaches in Noe Valley. (Fukuda was the subject of a Chronicle Datebook profile on July 25.)
She gave up marriage and left her homeland to dedicate her life to judo, fighting gender discrimination that kept her at lower belt levels decades longer than men less skilled than she.
