We work here in a very restricted space. All your dojos have in common that they have been small. What interest is there in having so little space?

One is obliged to be constantly vigilant, if only to avoid injuring others, to avoid throwing partners against the walls. One must train to throw very short, within a small perimeter. At the Quai d’Anjou, it often happened that at the end of the class I would line my students up to work in that direction.

Indeed, the judo we practise with you is very short?

It is still not short enough, I always tell you that.

What is so important about that?

If it is short, it is very powerful. Time and energy are the same thing. The greater the amplitude of the movement, the longer the movement lasts and the greater the loss of energy. With large amplitudes one loses a considerable amount of time and energy.

To expend the minimum of energy, would the ideal be to throw the partner on the spot?

On the spot is not possible, there is a question of the angle of the fall. What is needed is that they fall outside of oneself and inside a circle. But it is very close. The main mistake is to take big steps. When one takes big steps, one moves the centre of gravity over a large distance, which prevents having power and speed. Many people think that to be stable one must have the legs wide apart and be well planted. Yes, that is true, but what is the point of being stable? One might as well sit down and stay still. One cannot be effective while being stable. One must be mobile all the time. With a wide stance one is stable, one falls less easily, but it takes much longer to attack, not to mention the energy needed to transfer the body weight from one foot to the other.

How does one educate the body towards economy of time and energy?

The first thing, which is essential, is attitude. It is very important. If you have not the slightest notion of it, even if you go to training you will do nothing, you will spend an enormous amount of time doing anything at all. You will spend your time doing things to please yourself, strategy for example. One must enjoy oneself of course, but one must not spend time looking for ways to please oneself. It has to be immediately effective. One cannot reach maximum efficiency with just any body form or any state of mind. The state of mind is being attentive. It is very broad, one must see everything, hear everything, feel everything. Being awake and available, then you can act immediately. You are ready to function straight away.

How does one acquire availability?

It is part of training. First of all, the will to always have a serious, strict, and vigilant behaviour. I cannot say it better than vigilant. Vigilant towards oneself, so as not to let oneself go, not to slacken, not to start amusing oneself with one thing when there are others that are important to absorb. From the moment one steps onto the tatami, one is present, one is there. One pays attention to everything. Entering a dojo is something different. When you arrive on the tatami, you bow to the dojo, you are dressed, barefoot, in a judogi. You have a concentration.

Does the dojo contribute to this concentration?

Now it has taken another geographical form, which changes its meaning. Today I teach all over France, and there are dojos I go to reluctantly because I do not like them. Something is missing. People do not have the same attitude, the same concentration, nor the same seriousness in a real dojo as in vast halls, in a gymnasium where tatami have simply been laid down. The first times I practised judo outdoors I felt uncomfortable, I realised that everything I said, everything I did evaporated into the air. There was no longer any possibility of concentration. It was because there was too much space. When the tatami is one hundred square metres, people start a randori and end up walking once around the tatami without any action at all. They have space, they wander. They are distracted, nothing obliges them to be vigilant and to work immediately. It is not only a physical aspect, it is a question of concentration of mind. There is also the noise, which spreads and becomes deafening. Whereas here, the sound of a fall, “bang!”, is very short. A word, an action, anything is far more concentrated than in the open air.

If judo allows one to understand all these things, why separate it so much from life? Why go and isolate oneself in a particular place? Why put on special clothing?

No, not separate. One must be in a different attitude to practise judo, but this attitude must serve throughout life, not only in the dojo. If you know how to maintain this attitude in a small space, on an open beach, under the open sky, you keep the same possibilities within yourself.

Yet one always feels the need, when returning to judo, to isolate oneself again, to separate oneself?

Because one does not keep it. If one were sufficiently vigilant to always have that attitude, wherever one came from one would not need to change in order to step onto the tatami.

Yet you teach us that when beginning a kata, at the moment of the first step – when one is already in the dojo – one must change one’s attitude again?

Yes, because you do not have that attitude. If you had it, you would not need to change. At the beginning of the exercise, before randori, in competition, you bow. You must then have a presence, because you are facing someone. It is a fight for life, a fight to the death, so you must have another attitude, an attitude you perhaps did not have before. It is to say, we are going to confront each other, one of the two will die, but we take the risk. One does not arrive in any old way, neither indifferent nor afraid.

Does body posture enter into this attitude? We are used to thinking, as you said, that a judoka must stand very stable, slightly crouched, legs wide apart. You in fact teach us something quite different. It is even the opposite…

Yes.

That is, not crouched, but with legs and back upright, the body slightly inclined forward so that the weight is on the toes.

Yes, but think about it, we are made like this. Our spine does not bend backwards, it bends forwards, it is oriented like that. Behind us we have no protection, we are active in front. In everyday life, when you start to run, you do not run with your head back and your heels forward, otherwise you run more slowly and you are uncomfortable. When you jump, you do not jump by holding your body back, you throw your body forward. In everything you do in life, you throw your body forward. To move, you are obliged to have that attitude. You do not realise it because you do it naturally.

It happens just as naturally to be backwards. One sees it in the street, many people…

They walk on their heels instead of walking on the front of the feet. Yes, absolutely. Not children, rarely children. They have a much more intelligent way of standing, because as soon as they start walking they learn that if they are not forward, they fall.

What changes as one grows up? How do you understand that adults start walking backwards when they used to walk forwards?

Because they forget, it is negligence in their behaviour. If one wanted to be at maximum efficiency all the time, one would be vigilant, one would never be on the heels.

Lack of vigilance in everyday life is one thing, but how does one come to do this in judo? Why in judo do we find people who lean back, stiffen their arms, and block?

That is defensive judo. It is negative judo.

But why do people defend?

Because they do not want to lose. Because they have placed the stake on winning or losing, whereas the stake is neither winning nor losing.

Is it living or dying?

Well, since there are laws and rules, one does not die as such. When one meets someone, one confronts them in an open way. One does not have the desire to kill. One takes the risk of dying, that is all.