Did you start teaching at an early stage?

When I was still a blue belt, I had to move to Belgium because I was offered a job there. But in Belgium, there wasn’t much judo, just like in France. I searched for over a month for a club in Brussels and couldn’t find one. However, I needed to keep practising. One day, as I was walking down Rue de la Loi, I saw a sign that said “Judo Club de Belgique.” I went back that same evening to sign up. The instructor was a 3rd dan, but he didn’t really know judo; he only knew jujutsu. I didn’t realise this at the time. But from the first lesson, when he took me as his partner for demonstrations, he hurt me. That’s not supposed to happen in judo, and I made that clear to him. Following this incident, he suggested that we share the teaching: I would teach judo, and he would teach jujutsu.

Teaching judo without experience?

I had only been practising judo for two and a half years, but I had no choice; I had to teach if I wanted to continue practising judo. At the same time, I started a small club at the company where I worked. This allowed me to practise judo almost every day.

What type of company was it? What was your job?

It was one of my cousins by marriage who hired me. He manufactured standard service stations: a large sheet metal area at the back of a garage, with equipment in front for lubrication, oil changes, a compressed air lift, jacks, etc. He produced all this equipment. He made me the workshop manager to justify a slightly higher salary, which was just decent, nothing more. I quickly learned the ropes. It wasn’t very complicated; you just needed to know how things worked and how to fix them. They gave me a Jeep, and I travelled all over Belgium repairing stations that broke down. It wasn’t always the most exciting job, but I didn’t mind it. When I got married, my wife joined me, and we moved into an apartment above the factory, facing the Bois de la Cambre, on Chaussée de Waterloo. It was around this time that my eldest daughter was born.

Did your research in judo continue?

Without realising it, I became one of the pioneers of Belgian judo. I taught the first falls to people who later became very skilled judoka. Those two years of judo in Belgium were very fruitful, primarily thanks to two people I met. The first was a Dutchman who came to learn judo, which he knew nothing about. He had just returned from India, where he had practised yoga. He was about my age, 25, and he had an extraordinary experience. He taught me many things without realising it, and without me realising it either. Although he didn’t speak French very well, he told me many things. In India, he had learned to control his entire body. He could move each of his muscles independently. This struck me, and although I don’t do it entirely as he did, I’ve developed the habit of being able to control and move most of my muscles without doing extensive exercises, simply by working on contractions and relaxations. It has benefited me greatly. But he was impressive: he could swallow poison without harm, controlling it in his stomach. He demonstrated this with some food, which he expelled undigested. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t stay long, as he was travelling around the world.

Did he teach you yoga techniques?

No, he simply showed me what he did, and that inspired me to try it. I started to develop certain things. In return, I taught him the basics of falling and the little judo I knew. What I developed thanks to him helped me not only in judo but in many other areas. It was a very beneficial experience.

Then there was a black belt from England named Butcher. We trained a lot together. He wasn’t a great teacher, but there was something about him that I liked: it was the judo of Mr Yukio Tani. His body form was inherited from Yukio Tani. And Yukio Tani had an explosive, dynamic judo. He was famous for his hane-goshi, which he taught to Butcher. That’s what interested me. Butcher was the one who instilled in me the idea of mastering hane-goshi.

Why did you leave Belgium?

The working conditions no longer suited me, and there was also the problem of judo, which required me to return. I was teaching, but I wasn’t progressing enough. I returned to France in January 1948. I could say it like this: before going to Belgium, I loved judo, but at the same time, I was always apprehensive before going to training. It wasn’t really fear, more like a form of anxiety, a kind of shyness. It was also an excitement mixed with this apprehension. I was like a child. But from the moment I had to create a club at the factory to continue judo, that apprehension disappeared. I had to believe in what I was doing, to teach and perfect what I knew to make it real. I was no longer a child; I had become an adult.

Were you forced to teach?

I forced myself to teach because I needed partners. I did it for myself, but it opened the door for me. After that, it was no longer selfishness; it was the desire to share with others what I had learned. That desire stayed with me throughout my life. It shaped me and motivated me to teach. I also had faith, which is important. Faith in what I was doing, in the truth of what I was doing. Faith in judo.

Have you always had this faith?

Not from the beginning, no. At first, you don’t really know what you’re doing. It came with necessity. And necessity arose when I had to teach. Throughout my journey, I found myself having to teach to continue learning. It happened again when I returned from Belgium. I wanted to resume judo in Paris, but I was far from wealthy and had no job. I started helping my mother again in her restaurant: I would go to the market in the morning, and in the afternoon, I helped serve in the dining room. I still wasn’t earning a living. Since I couldn’t afford to pay for judo lessons, someone directed me to the FSGT.

What was the FSGT?

The Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail. It was an organisation affiliated with the Communist Party. One Saturday, I went to the FSGT headquarters for the Île-de-France region on Rue La Bruyère with a friend. I brought my kimono with me, got changed, and started practising. There was no instructor, nothing. Just people who came… Mats were laid out with a tarp in a large hall, and we did judo on that. I was happy to start training again.

Was it free then?

It wasn’t free, but it was very affordable. There was just a small annual fee to pay.

Had the FSGT been around for a long time?

I don’t know, but I had always known about it. It may have been created around the time of the Popular Front. All the sports associations of left-wing municipalities were part of the FSGT, which was quite extensive in the Paris region.

Did you have to be a Communist to join? Did you have to be a Party member?

No, no, it was a sports federation open to everyone. You registered just like with any other federation. Besides, judo was just one of the activities offered, and one of the least developed. There was only one training session on Saturdays. So I went several Saturdays in a row, still without seeing the instructor. People talked about him, but he didn’t come. Finally, one Saturday, a small man with boots, a leather jacket, a beret, and a whistle around his neck stepped onto the mat! When I saw him on the tatami with his boots, I went up to him and told him I wasn’t used to seeing that. He was, of course, the instructor. It turned out that he only stepped onto the mat to give speeches, never to teach. It was the same as in Belgium: he didn’t know much about judo, practised poorly, and eventually handed over the class to me. The following term, the FSGT opened a proper judo hall on Rue Chaudron, in a former post office. It was a club for the PTT. I went there to train, but the same situation repeated itself.

Did you have to teach again?

Yes, I found myself teaching again. I even had to equip the hall. We had to figure out how to make a mat: the social service provided us with dormitory mattresses, which we then had to cover with a tarp. We rented one from Trigano, the same person who later created Club Med. At the time, he rented tarps not far away, on Avenue Jean Jaurès. As soon as we set it up, we started training. I was as happy as could be. But when we got up from our first falls, our kimonos were all black! It was a tarp that had been used on a truck, and we cleaned it with our kimonos, and after a while…

It eventually became clean!

In short, there were many FSGT clubs in the Paris region where a few people practised judo. These people came to my association, the PTT sports club. Little by little, I got completely absorbed by it. By judo. I started teaching in all the FSGT clubs in the Paris suburbs. By necessity, I suddenly found myself at the forefront of FSGT judo, not as a leader but as a teacher. Our numbers grew significantly in the Paris region.

Were you still a blue belt?

Yes. And I thought that I needed to pass my grades, to progress. At least to teach better.

Were you unable to follow any formal teaching?

The FSGT organised annual advanced training courses. They paid for me to attend one. There were about twenty judoka. I arrived with a friend, and as soon as we arrived, the person in charge put us in charge of the course. We ended up leading the course, even though we had come to learn! And as a thank you at the end of the course, we were awarded brown belts! I found myself with a brown belt… and it didn’t change much.

Was it difficult to progress in those conditions?

I still tried to do as much judo as possible during the classes I taught. But also by going everywhere, to all the dojos, to all the events. I sought to improve myself so as not to teach just anything. In every class I taught, I would take at least half an hour before or after to train. I focused on doing uchi-komi. A few dedicated students helped me a lot.

Between the classes you took and the ones you taught, you must have spent your days practising?

I did judo every day, for several hours a day. It actually started taking up too much of my time. I managed to get by with a job as a sales representative and by continuing to help my mother in her restaurant. I realised I had to make a choice. So I asked the ASPTT to pay me. It wasn’t their usual practice, and they initially refused. Then they agreed to give me the membership fees. It was almost nothing. It was about 2,000 francs a month in today’s money.

That wasn’t enough to live on?

No. But when my mother closed her restaurant, I decided to open a dojo in the space. It was my first dojo. I also started making kimonos and tatami, which allowed me to earn a bit of money.

Did someone teach you how to design and cut kimonos?

I taught myself. I took apart a kimono and made templates. I still had those templates not long ago. From the kimono I took apart, I made small and large sizes. I equipped myself; I had electric scissors. I did it in my dojo, where I had space. I would spread out my fabric on the tatami, stack it, and then cut it.

How did you get started?

I made a kimono for myself first. Then I made some for my students, and I sold them to the ASPTT and in my own dojo. Gradually, people started asking me for them: friends who were instructors, their students…

What were the dimensions of your dojo on Île Saint-Louis?

It was tiny: about thirty-two square metres, something like that. The changing room took up part of the restaurant’s kitchen, I installed a shower in the other part, and the remaining space was the dojo.

For how many students?

I’m not sure, but a lot. On Sunday mornings, there were about forty of us.

With forty people in thirty-two square metres, not everyone could train at the same time?

We had to work in stages. It’s hard to imagine now: we developed a certain precision in that small space. We did randori, and yet there were never any injuries. The worst injury we had was a student who cut his hand on the bamboo I had put up to protect the walls. It wasn’t very serious. I had some good judoka.