Fukuda is the highest ranked women in the world at ninth degree and the only living student of judo's founder Jigoro Kano who opened his first judo school in 1882. Thursday July 21, 2011.

After 98 years, the phone call finally came. Last week, Sensei Keiko Fukuda of San Francisco became the first woman to be promoted to judo's highest level: 10th degree black belt.

Her grandfather was a samurai master of jujitsu who taught the martial art to Jigoro Kano, who went on to create judo. When Fukuda was 21, Kano invited her to join a women's division at the Kodokan.