02/09/2026
Judo leaders from the birthplace of judo come to Perth to mark 50 years of Japan–Australia friendship
Three of Hyogo Prefecture’s most senior judo teachers will visit Perth from 24 to 29 September 2026 as guests of the UWA Judo Club, in one of the few Western Australian events on the Australian Government’s official calendar for the fiftieth anniversary of the Japan–Australia Basic Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation.
Judo was founded in 1882 by Kano Jigoro, who was born in 1860 at Mikage — today part of Higashinada- ku, Kobe, in Hyogo Prefecture. Forty-five years ago, Hyogo became Western Australia’s first sister state.
This September, judo leaders from Kano’s home prefecture will come to Perth to mark both. anniversaries.
The delegation comprises Shunsuke Yamasaki Sensei (8th dan), President of the Hyogo Prefecture Student Judo Federation and a former Head Coach of Konan University;
Akitoshi Sogabe Sensei (7th dan),
Head Coach of Konan University; and Kazumasa Sawada Sensei (6th dan) of Kobe High School and the Hyogo Prefecture High School Judo Federation. Between them they lead university and secondary-school
judo in Hyogo — the institutions that have hosted, coached and trained Western Australian judoka since 1991.
The visit is a thank you, and a beginning. The UWA Judo Club was founded in 1988 with about twenty members and now has 300+, a five-star club rating from Judo Australia, one of the largest permanently sprung tatami areas in the country, and an exchange network of eight Japanese high schools and
universities across Tokyo, Aichi and Hyogo. It remains entirely volunteer-run.
Over thirty-five years the club has hosted Japanese delegations of twenty to forty judoka and staff, sent Western Australian teams to Japan — including nineteen UWA judoka and ten UWA sport science
students to the University of Tsukuba in 2019 under the New Colombo Plan — and hosted long-term. exchange coaches from Kokushikan, Sendai and Tsukuba in Perth. The Japanese Foreign Minister commended the UWAJC founder, Mr Stockley Davis, in 2020, and club’s Honorary Chairman, Mr Arun R
Krishnan was appointed to the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, in 2024.
· UWA Judo Club · Legacy Japan–Australia Judo Exchange Visit, Perth, 24–29 September 2026
“These teachers coached our members, hosted our young people in their dojos and sent their own coaches to Perth for thirty-five years, and we have never once put any of it in writing at the level of governments,” Mr Stockley Davis, founder of the UWA Judo Club, said. “Judo’s founder was born in Kobe. Hyogo has been Western Australia’s sister state since 1981. Everything needed for a formal judo relationship between the two is already here — except the document.”
The visit is listed on the Australian Government’s Anniversary Events Calendar for the fiftieth anniversary of the Basic Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation and is recognised by the Consulate-General of Japan in Perth.
Sponsors are Saferight Training Pty Ltd and the UWA Judo Club.
