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Copyright 2003 Newspaper Publishing PLC ?The Independent (London) September 20, 2003, Saturday SECTION: SPORT; Pg. 10LENGTH: 830 wordsHEADLINE: JUDO: TRADITIONALISTS THROWN BY THE SHOWMEN;?JAPANS PROUD VALUES UNDER THREAT FROM NEW BREED OF FIGHTER WITHBYLINE: PHILIP NICKSAN IN OSAKA Yuta Yazaki, who according to a Japanese newspaper, came in to fight looking as red as a rooster and, having lost, left making a sound like a forlorn cock Bob WillinghamBODY:IN HYPER-TECHNOLOGICAL Japan, with its sci-fi buildings, video mobile phones with full orchestral tone rings and bizarre fashion in the heart of the cities, judo has been one of the few bastions of tradition and old values.Training was (and largely remains) strict and harsh - starting with early- morning runs come rain, shine, snow or hail followed by arduous three- hour fighting practice where no quarter is given. Hierarchy was everything - older students battered the young students - the long-standing way to learn; everyone bowed on coming into the judo dojo (training hall); everyone wore the same white suits with black belts; those at the bottom of the ladder (kohei) carried the bags of their seniors (sempai). And Japan won the major medals at the international championships. This was the order of things and no real judo man - because judo was synonymous with men - broke ranks. Curiously, there was never a shortage of Western aspirants arriving in the land of the rising sun to partake of this Spartan existence. It was demanding, it was gruelling, but it shaped men.When womens international judo got going in the 1980s, the same orthodox values continued to be applied in Japan. Cauliflower ears and all. By and large, this had been responsible for the Japanese judo that still dominated the world and produced the medals.But no one who attended the World Judo Championships here last week could miss the fact that this proud and established system is being threatened. Even scandal is penetrating the