 Maeda was born in <unk> Village , Hirosaki City , <unk> Prefecture , Japan , on November 18 , 1878 . He attended <unk> <unk> high school ( currently <unk> — a Hirosaki school ) . As a child , he was known as <unk> . He practiced sumo as a teenager , but lacked the ideal build for the sport . Because of the interest generated by stories about the success of judo at contests between judo and jujutsu that were occurring at the time , he changed from sumo to judo . In 1894 , at seventeen years of age , his parents sent him to Tokyo to enroll in <unk> University . He took up Kodokan judo the following year . 
