  Using a sample of 58 million $J/\psi$ events recorded in the BESII detector,
the decay $J/\psi \to \omega \pi^+ \pi^-$ is studied. There are conspicuous
$\omega f_2(1270)$ and $b_1(1235)\pi$ signals. At low $\pi \pi$ mass, a large
broad peak due to the $\sigma$ is observed, and its pole position is determined
to be $(541 \pm 39) $ - $i$ $(252 \pm 42)$ MeV from the mean of six analyses.
The errors are dominated by the systematic errors.
