Rena Kanokogi

Kanokogi was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her family home in Coney Island was not a stable one, and she began working in various jobs at the age of seven. In her adolescence, she led a street gang known as the Apaches. In the 1950s, she used her brother's weights for weight training and also worked out on the punching bag at the gymnasium. She bore a son, Chris Stewart, Kanokogi and her first husband divorced after a short period of marriage. She was working as a switchboard operator at this time. In 1955, a male friend showed Kanokogi a judo technique that he had learned, and she immediately became interested in the martial art. Kanokogi recalled that she was attracted to the art because it calmed her down and helped her develop self-control. She learned judo in her local neighborhood and tried to fight in judo competitions, but was barred because she was a woman. She acquired the nickname "Rusty" after a local stray dog. ==Judo career==

In 1959, Kanokogi competed at the YMCA judo championship in Utica, New York, disguised as a man. Women were not explicitly barred from the competition, but no woman had ever tried to participate before, and there was no place on the tournament application to indicate gender. After "pulverizing" the other students in the women's training group, she became the first woman allowed to train in the men's group at the Kodokan. was the best man at the Kanokogis' wedding. which included several of the top women in the 1970s: Amy Kublin, Delores Brodie, and Maureen Braziel. In 1965, Kanokogi directed the first junior judo tournament held in New York: the New York City YMCA Junior Judo Championships. In 1977, she organized a team of Jewish–American women to compete at the Maccabiah Games in Israel. In 1980, Kanokogi organized the first women's judo world championship in Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum, sponsoring it through the mortgage of her own home. She was the driving force behind the introduction of women's judo as an exhibition sport at the 1988 Summer Olympics—she had threatened to sue the International Olympic Committee for not accepting women’s judo as an Olympic sport. In 1988, Kanokogi was Coach of the first United States Olympic Women's Judo Team. She would coach her personal student Margaret Castro to a bronze medal at this Olympic Games. In 1991, she was inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. ==Later life==

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Kanokogi was a commentator for NBC's coverage of judo. In April 2009, she was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. She was survived by her husband, children Ted Kanokogi and Jean Kanokogi, and two grandchildren according to one newspaper article, as well as eldest son Chris Stewart Kanokogi and a third grandchild. ==References==