Judo in the United States however, the lecture had little effect on mainstream judo growth. The first American to actually study judo was Prof. Ladd from Yale University, in 1889. He trained at the Kodokan in Japan for about ten years; by 1908 about 13 Americans were training there. In 1919, Prof. John Dewey of Columbia University came to visit Prof. Ladd and Master Kano, many years later he took his knowledge back to Columbia and began the first U.S. college judo program. While some students were training in Japan there was some action in the U.S. Perhaps one of the most important figures in
Judo in Canada be promoted after five years in the previous grade, but a 'good' candidate would have to wait eight. There have only been seventeen "judan" (tenth dan) judoka in history, fifteen promoted by the Kodokan and two by the International Judo Federation. None of them are Canadian, but Canada does have a group of more than 100 "kōdansha" (high dan holders), all of whom have devoted much of their lives to Canadian Judo. The late Yoshio Senda became Canada's first "kudan" (ninth dan) in 2007, and since then three more Canadians have been promoted to "kudan" by Judo Canada: Yeiji Inouye