In your life, did the question of having a profession, of exercising a trade, ever arise?

No, not really. I did like everyone else, I tried to earn my living. I did a bit of anything, without ever saying to myself, “I am going to do this to make a living.”

Yet you had begun studies in law?

I did not know what to do, and since it was easy I started a basic law course. One had to do something, but I had no conviction at all. It was the refuge of the poor student.

You did not have a vocation?

No, I did not have a vocation. I did not have the idea of doing a specific thing to earn my living. I did not have the idea of exercising a profession in order to become rich or to be comfortable. I had the idea of working in order to survive.

But in the end there was a moment when you managed to live from teaching judo?

Poorly, but yes, I managed to live from it. Today I no longer have a family to support, I live well, but nothing more. I live well because I teach a lot. I teach a lot because I enjoy it.

So you became a judo teacher without having done specific studies or obtained a diploma?

At the time when I started, there was no need for a diploma. Anyone could teach judo. Besides, it was not risky, if someone opened a dojo and taught without good knowledge of judo, the first judoka to come along would ridicule them and force them to close their hall. That was how it was. If someone did not know, they were put up against the wall by practitioners, it was impossible for them to last, it was over. There was no need for a diploma for that. Even today in Japan, anyone can teach.

Do you know how the state diploma came about in France?

I know this story very well. I was very close to it, because it happened in a hall where I had given classes, one of the first clubs I ran, in Boulogne, right next to the Renault factories. A group of Vietnamese had taken over the hall to practise viet-vo-dao. It must have been around 1954. There was a young man called Tran-Trung-Huong. He was a labourer at Renault, and also an orange belt in judo. He passed himself off as a 6th or 7th dan and started giving classes there. One day, while Tran-Trung-Huong was having his students work on the ground, one of them practised applying a strangle on him. He encouraged the student to tighten, boasting that he could resist any strangle. The poor lad did not know, he tightened, and at a certain moment the teacher stopped moving. He had been strangled.

Dead?

He was not completely dead, he had been strangled. The caretaker of the hall was one of my students. He knew kwatsu, he would have been able to revive him. But unfortunately he was absent, and instead of applying the appropriate kwatsu, the people who were there called a doctor. The doctor injected Tran-Trung-Huong with adrenaline, but it was too late, he died. Then the press seized on the story, “A great judo master strangled by his student!” “This profession must absolutely be regulated.” “Anyone can teach anything…” And that was that. That is how the decision was made to create the state diploma. The state diploma only became compulsory later. People who had been teaching for a long time, like me and others, obtained an equivalence. The last ones who passed their black belt in 1957 obtained this equivalence. After that, others were obliged to take an examination.

For you, judo was never a profession?

No, I never considered it a profession. I began to give and follow many classes, it took up all my time, and since it prevented me from earning a living otherwise, I had to earn money through that activity. Later, when I began to manufacture judo mats and judogi, that was not my profession either.

Does it seem appropriate to you to choose teaching judo as one chooses a career?

No. Someone who establishes themselves as a judo teacher must be someone who has faith, who has the desire to help others become better, more effective. Moreover, I have always said to my students, “You pay me, you pay for your class because I need to live, but I do not sell you judo. I refuse to sell judo.” The monetary exchange concerns the rental of the premises, and then I need to eat.

So you keep judo outside of monetary exchange? It is not a commodity?

It is not a commodity. At a difficult time, I gave private lessons. There were many requests, and I could easily have started selling judo. But I did it in an honest way, with the desire not to have just anyone in private lessons. I accepted few students. I enjoyed teaching those who loved it.

I have the impression that you were one of the teachers who travelled the most. You taught all over France, but also in Spain and Belgium?

Yes, with the few means I had. Today I have difficulty understanding how it was possible. I realised it during a trip I made to see a student who was seriously ill. I left Paris by car towards Toulon. And on the way there and back, in every city I passed through, either one of my former students was teaching, or I had helped to open a dojo, or been a teacher, or given a seminar. I had a relationship to judo in every city.

You went everywhere, to all the dojos?

You know, to be credible one must demonstrate. I understood that a long time ago.

In what way?

I understood it the very first time I was sent to teach in a club that was not mine. I had been asked to go and straighten out the situation of a club whose teacher was not serious. When I arrived, the students were very hostile. I went up onto the tatami, I gave explanations about judo. The students were aggressive, violent. I remained indifferent. I announced that before the class we would do randori. There were about thirty students. I bowed to them one by one, and I practised with everyone. After the randori I had everyone sit down, I gave a class, and it worked on its own. There is only that way to succeed. I had not cheated, people had fallen. It was the first time they had taken real falls.

Is it this position, that of the teacher on the tatami, that you always adopted to spread judo? You could at some point have taken more institutional, more honorary and spectacular positions?

That was not my aim. What would I have achieved? I would not have succeeded in spreading judo by having a pre-eminent position as president or anything like that. It is only on the ground that one can make people understand and believe. Not with words, you realise that.

In total, have you taught thousands of people?

Perhaps, yes. The more people practise judo, the more judo will evolve.

Yet today, the discipline you teach is no longer called judo, but ju-no-michi. Why?

I use the term ju-no-michi to differentiate the judo I teach from current judo, which is no longer judo. It is a way of stepping out of what is practised today. Ju-no-michi is original judo, Kano’s judo. Ju-no-michi and judo are two Japanese ways of saying the same thing, that is to say “the way of suppleness”. Ju means “suppleness”, no means “of”, and michi is another way of pronouncing dō, “the way”.

Where does this form of judo come from for you?

I learned it from my teachers, from Mr Andrivet first, then from Mr Philippe, who showed what judo was like. Later I undertook research in the same direction. Without using the words I use today, of course, but I did that research. My teachers knew many things. By searching, I found even more. Simple words say well what they mean, maximum efficiency, minimum effort. There are principles into which it is enough to immerse oneself to realise that they are true. One can progress in that direction. One can even reach points where one goes beyond Kano’s idea.

Today, among your students, some consider you a master?

Yes, many do.

How do you receive that?

It does not bother me, but it does not suit me. I am not your master, I am your teacher. Possibly your friendly adviser.