The Presidents of the USJA and USJF, with the assistance of their boards and staff, have signed a bilateral agreement of cooperation which includes the ability to attend each other’s tournaments and to accept each other’s ranks and certifications. Nothing changes in the relationship between USJA and USJF.
We know that you have a multitude of questions as to the state of Judo in the United States. We wish we could answer all of them now, but we can’t. This will be the first of several emails you will be receiving. We will continue to share information as it becomes available.
On March 10th, 2023, USA Judo announced it was terminating the American Judo Alliance Agreement with the United States Judo Association (USJA) and the United States Judo Federation (USJF). As such, the historic agreement that was a step towards unifying Judo in the United States was scrapped.
Please know that the USJA and the USJF did everything possible to preserve the agreement. Unfortunately, we were as surprised as others when USA Judo unilaterally announced the termination of our agreement. But as judoka, we know how to fall, and we certainly know how to get back up, so we redirected our efforts from preserving the triad agreement to creating a new bilateral agreement with the USJF.
We will preserve the former benefits of the triad agreement, albeit without the participation of USA Judo. While USA Judo has decided to go it alone, the USJA and the USJF will continue to work together toward the mutual benefit and welfare of all judoka in the United States. While we are disappointed by the decision of USA Judo, our door will remain open towards future negotiations that hopefully bring USA Judo back into the fold.
We are still working through the details of how this affects all of us. But we can share that:
USA Judo will not insure their members at USJA or USJF events. Neither the USJA nor the USJF has changed anything in this regard. This is the decision of USA Judo.
We understand that there are many upcoming events, and we want to see USA Judo members participate. We will be offering a membership for USA Judo members for $25, giving them full membership until August 1st. We feel that is enough time for the smoke to settle, which will minimize the effect on imminent upcoming USJA and USJF events. USA Judo members can use the coupon code of JUDO4ALL at checkout when joining on USJA.NET
SafeSport will still be required as it was in the past. We are working with the US Center for SafeSport regarding this.
We ask for your understanding that the office staff is a few days behind in processing applications, promotions, and sanctions. The workload has tripled in the past few days.
Several people need to be acknowledged, for without their effort, there would be no USJA/USJF agreement. We apologize if we missed anyone who was instrumental in this historic agreement. In alphabetical order:
Walter Dean
Michael Goldsmith
Michael Hall
David Matsumoto
Mitchell Palacio
We will update you as more information comes to light. We expect that will be before the end of the week.