What was your mindset when you first started practising judo, beyond the initial discovery?

I felt like I was embarking on a quest; it was like learning a science. Most judoka, in fact, considered judo to be a scientific discipline.

How was this science presented?

Feldenkrais, for example, wrote a treatise in English where he explained judo in an entirely rational way, with diagrams of the forces at play, weights, and so on. There were quite a few engineers like him who believed that judo was a matter of mechanics. This approach was one of the reasons judo became so successful here in Europe. I was also drawn to the idea of judo as a science.

Did Kawaishi’s method also contribute to understanding judo as a science, with his way of classifying movements according to parts of the body: arm movements, leg movements…?

My instructor, Mr Andrivet, like others, insisted on the importance of knowing Mr Kawaishi’s syllabus. This meant a dozen hip movements, as many leg movements, four or five shoulder movements, four or five arm movements, and a few sutemi. We had to know them, but we only repeated them mechanically without being able to apply them. In reality, we only applied two or three movements.

Why repeat so many movements and apply so few?

Some movements, like the hip movements, were impossible. Mr Andrivet told us, because Kawaishi had said it: “We Europeans don’t have the same morphology as the Japanese, so we can’t do hip movements.” We had to learn them; they were part of the syllabus, but we couldn’t perform them. That’s how it was. We repeated them diligently, but we couldn’t manage. Until one day, around 1945 or 1946, we saw the English succeeding in performing hip movements in competitions. The best French judoka thought that if the English could do it, they could too. And from that moment, they started working on it.

Did they succeed?

They worked together for a year to achieve this. It was exceptional because, usually, instructors don’t like to work together. And the following year, they succeeded in performing hip movements. It was extraordinary; it helped open my eyes. I began working on it myself; I started searching.

Still with that scientific mindset?

Gradually, it stopped being a science; it became, for me, a physical means of self-improvement.