Keiko Fukuda studied under judo founder Jigoro Kano

Feb 18, 2013 12:29 GMT  ·  By
Keiko Fukuda taught judo at the Soko Joshi Club in Noe Valley, San Francisco for 40 years
   Keiko Fukuda taught judo at the Soko Joshi Club in Noe Valley, San Francisco for 40 years

Keiko Fukuda, the highest-ranked female master of judo, has died at the age of 99, reports say. According to the San Francisco Gate, Fukuda was taught by master and judo founder Jigoro Kano.

She is pictured above teaching the sport at the Soko Joshi Judo Club in Noe Valley, San Francisco. This picture was snapped in 2011, when she was 98 years old, and Fukuda has taught judo at the club for 40 years.

The same year, she was awarded her sixth dan, a sixth degree black belt distinction which had never been awarded to a woman before. She had to wait decades for it, receiving her fifth dan in the early 1950s.

"The kind of judo I teach is an old one, it comes from the samurais, and there aren't many of the older generation left who can teach these katas," Ms. Fukuda told reporters at the time.

"She was the last living student of the founder of judo. No one else can say that," her student Shelley Fernandez says.