was one of the earliest disciples of Judo. Saigo, together with Tsunejiro Tomita, became first in history of judo to be awarded Shodan by the founder of judo Jigoro Kano, who established the kyu-dan ranking system. He was one of the Kōdōkan Shitennō or Four Guardians of the Kodokan along with Yoshitsugu Yamashita, Sakujiro Yokoyama, and Tsunejiro Tomita. Biography Early life Shiro Saigo was born on Feb 4, 1866 in Aizuwakamatsu, in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan, the third son of a samurai, Shida Sadajiro. During his childhood, he trained in the fighting style of the Aizu clan, called oshikiuchi.In 1882, Saigo moved to Tokyo and in August of that year, he enrolled at the Kōdōkan, becoming Jigoro Kano's second student. In 1883, along with Tsunejiro Tomita, he became one of the first two to be awarded yudansha rank in any martial art. The very day of their graduation, he would take up the dojoyaburi challenge of Sakujiro Yokoyama, a much heavier jujutsuka, and defeated him, which moved Yokoyama to join the school as well. A man of extreme agility, Shiro was known for the nickname of "Cat" due to his skill to land on his feet when thrown, a skill he had observed in actual cats and that he trained by jumping off the second floor of a building. He was also known as "Octopus Feet" for his ability to avoid losing his footing. He developed a personal technique called "yama arashi", possibly related to the modern judo technique of the same name, though according to Tsunejiro Tomita it was lost after his death. Judo challenges Saigō was responsible for an early surge of popularity for Kodokan Judo, when he demonstrated its superiority by easily defeating a much larger opponent: Similarly, Saigō fought on behalf of Kodokan in 1884, when three fighters of the Yōshin-ryū jūjutsu school named Matsugoro Okuda, Daihachi Ichikawa and Morikichi Otake came to challenge their members. As Kano was out at the moment, they only found Shiro and his colleagues Yokoyama and Tsunejiro Tomita, but those decided to answer the challenge by themselves. Shiro defeated Okuda, throwing him down thrice before finishing him out with his yama arashi. Okuda suffered a concussion and had to be stretchered out. Kano was not pleased with their behavior when he found out, thinking they had shown themselves too eager to fight, but anyway their victories helped to increase