In 1954, a book titled Les Fondements du Judo by Yves Klein was published. There’s a picture of you demonstrating the ju-no-kata with Klein. How did this book project come about?

Klein was a very intelligent person; he observed a lot. During his stay in Japan, he took photos and started this book on kata. When he returned, he asked me to help him finish it. He was missing the images for the ju-no-kata, so we made them together. We took the photos on the roof of La Coupole in Montparnasse. Then we spent a lot of time working on the book, making corrections. I spent quite a bit of time helping him because he was struggling with it. He finally published his book, and it was good that he did.

Did the book have an impact on judoka?

No, it didn’t. Very few books have really had an impact on judoka.

Did Kawaishi’s Method gain popularity?

Kawaishi’s book was widely distributed because it served as a handbook for his method: the classification of movements by categories, the kata, self-defense, etc. It was just a memory aid, that’s all it was. It sold a lot among the instructors who taught his method. Once no one was teaching it anymore, it stopped selling completely.

What about Jean-Lucien Jazarin’s books?

Conversations with My Master and The Spirit of Judo attracted many new practitioners. They were really good. Thanks to them, people came to practice a different form of judo, which was ours.

How was Klein’s book composed?

He had brought back photos from Japan, and he had written texts there. They were more like notes, and they needed to be clarified. So, he started writing his book. It needed to be properly written in French. We would sometimes meet in a café, sometimes in my dojo. We spent time sitting on the tatami correcting his manuscript. It may have taken about six months or a little more before the book was published. We corrected it as he wrote. Then he managed to have it printed through his parents’ connections.

Were you his instructor?

Klein was my student at the ASPTT. He was from Nice and had started judo with Robert Boucher, who was a student of Robert Robecchi. I had become friends with the Robecchi brothers during a course I gave in Montpellier. Robert and René were both judo instructors at Gaz de France in Nice. I had many connections with them. So when Klein came to Paris with his parents, they sent him to me.

In Puteaux?

Yes. He came to do judo at the ASPTT around 1951; he must have been a blue belt. In 1952, he saw Mr. Beaujean, who had returned from Japan, and that gave him the desire to go there to improve. He left shortly after. His aunt was financing it, but it wasn’t enough. Since I was making and selling kimonos at the time, he offered to send me kimonos from Japan. I would sell them in France and send him the money. That’s what we did.

How long did he stay in Japan?

About two years. He left for Japan as a brown belt, and after two years, he returned as a 4th dan.

Was that a rapid progression?

When I went to pick him up at the airport, and he told me he had achieved 4th dan in such a short time, I told him that it wasn’t serious. He replied that he had worked hard. Before he left, to know exactly how he had progressed, I had asked him to promise that I would be the last person he trained with before leaving and the first when he returned. That was our agreement. But he didn’t keep his promise. He couldn’t resist: a few days after his arrival, he went to spar with the stars of the College of Black Belts. I regretted that he didn’t keep his promise.

And when you finally trained with him?

At the College, he was quickly put in his place by Awazu. He hadn’t progressed much; he had progressed normally. I could see that when we practised together. He had the level of a first dan. After two years, that was normal. He continued to come to train with me at Quai d’Anjou. He also attended my classes at the ASPTT. One day during training, he asked me to organise a line-up for him. He wanted a line-up of seven or eight people. I set up the judoka I had available. He greeted the first in line and started working with him. The other guy took him to the ground and choked him. He was strangled! We had to revive him! I couldn’t help but laugh. “What am I doing? Where am I? You got strangled, Klein.” But anyway, he continued. He eventually managed to throw the second person.

What kind of judoka was he?

He didn’t do much in judo: he would attack as if to do ashi-guruma on the right leg, then he would turn slightly with his heel behind his partner’s knee and push to do a sort of o-soto-otoshi. It couldn’t hurt anyone, but it wasn’t very effective. From time to time, he managed something with that, but it wasn’t an explosive movement. In a line-up of seven or eight, he finally got one ippon, had three or four scored against him, and the rest were inconclusive matches. I was surprised by his judo. I told him he would have to work a bit to justify his 4th dan.

What was his approach to judo?

He wasn’t really determined to progress. He did judo in a somewhat relaxed manner. Going to Japan hadn’t changed him much. In fact, it was quite clear; his favorite movement was very relaxed, very slow. He would grab his partner and drag them. His temperament wasn’t explosive. His judo was a bit cool, a bit soft. He was like that. He always laughed. He had an excellent character, and he really laughed a lot!

Did he eventually open his own dojo?

One day, he told me that his aunt was going to buy Mr. Beaujean’s dojo near the Moulin Rouge for him. He wanted to open a club there. Above the dojo, there was a mezzanine, and Klein set it up so he could sleep there. It was a bedroom and a workshop, and he settled in there. One morning, I went to see him and asked if he had any students. He had been there for a few months, and he didn’t have many. He invited me to see his mezzanine. I went up, not paying much attention. There were two trestles, a board on top, some pieces of wood, and some paint pots. It was only when I was coming back down the stairs, at the bottom of the steps, that I saw an orange painting. A completely orange painting that was about sixty by forty centimeters. I asked him, “What are you doing with that? Are you trying to make a rank board?” He laughed as usual: “Oh no, these are my works!” I said, “Works, you?” Then he invited me to go back up to the mezzanine. I looked at the trestles and the board differently: he was buying moulding, stretching a canvas over it, and painting it with a roller. And that was Klein’s monochrome painting. There was orange, there was blue…

Did you get to know his painting better later on?

One evening, he invited me to a gallery opening near Montparnasse. Klein’s father was there; he greeted me at the entrance. I knew him well, and I was happy to see him again. He said to me, “Mr. Corréa, you have some influence over Yves; can’t you tell him to stop this nonsense? It’s not possible to continue like this.” I replied that I had influence when it came to judo, but not beyond that. I still tried to talk to Klein: “You went to Japan; try doing lacquer work, try doing something else…” His father told me, “Mr. Corréa, I’m ashamed; I’m his father, and I’m ashamed to see Yves doing this.” I walked around the gallery, had a drink… His father was a bit upset. For his mother, it was less serious; she was more lighthearted. Despite everything, it was thanks to his father that he got the opportunity to paint a chapel wall in Cologne, Germany. That was what launched his career. After that, I didn’t see him anymore; he more or less quit judo. He didn’t have enough students at his club. He would arrive late for class, the students would be waiting outside, and sometimes he would tell them, “We’re not doing judo today; let’s go have a drink.” It couldn’t work out. Eventually, he had to give up his club. He didn’t have any students. I lost track of him. I wasn’t even informed of his death. I learned about it from the newspapers. He had completely cut ties with the judo community; he was only around art people, critics, and so on.

Did he shoot films in Japan?

Yes, he brought back films from Japan. He had met some very good judoka, and he filmed each one in their specialty. He would take specialists of a particular technique and film that technique. There was one called Asami, who did ippon-seoi-nage and kata-guruma very well. His films were very good. Sometimes, he would lend them to me so I could show them to my students at my club. Once, he came to screen them himself. Otherwise, I would go pick them up. The first time he showed them, he organised a screening one evening at his parents’ house. On his invitation, I brought a few of my students.

What happened to those films?

I don’t know. I tried to get them back, but his wife didn’t even know where they were. Someone must have taken them, probably. It’s a shame… One of the last times I saw Klein was when I had gone to borrow his films. It had been a long time since he had quit judo. He was living on Rue Campagne-Première near the Montparnasse station at that time.

Do you think he had faith in judo?

Yes, I think he did. But he was mostly driven by ambition, which ultimately led him to leave judo. Klein had dreamed of being famous, and he wanted to be famous by any means. He thought he would become famous through judo. He might have been able to achieve that, but he would have needed to work harder and for longer. You can’t become a very good judoka in a short time. It takes a lot of work. It’s a shame because it’s likely that if he hadn’t quit judo, he would still be alive. They said he died of a heart attack. After his death, I saw his wife. I told her that Klein had nothing wrong with his heart. She told me that indeed, he had nothing wrong with his heart, that he was healthy. I didn’t press the issue. I had heard it was an overdose, and I didn’t want to discuss it with her. I saw his wife several times afterward; she came to ask me for information about Klein’s life in judo. But I couldn’t tell her much because he didn’t really have a life in judo.

There’s a famous photo of Klein where he’s seen jumping off a wall, arms outstretched, straight toward the asphalt. He titled this photo Leap into the Void. Do you know it?

No. The wall must have been a meter high. It’s probably a doctored photo.

When you saw him return from Japan, did he talk about the concept of “void” in judo?

He didn’t really have any deep ideas about the practice of judo. Not really. I actually regretted that he had spent two years there without learning much. His approach was different. He didn’t do the physical work that he should have done. He preferred to do only intellectual documentation work, to exploit when he returned. I had hoped that perhaps the publication of the book would motivate him to continue judo, but no.