Those Days Were A Time of My Life That Seem Nostalgic But I Realize Now That They Were Probably
The Most Important Part of My Judo Career.

Note: These series of articles were first published in 1980 in the Judo Ontario Newsletter. Other than some grammatical changes, they have not been revised and contain the original content.

The Ishikawa Judo School publishes a very impressive magazine called the Judo Journal Magazine. It is rather unlike any other judo publication and contains mostly photographs along with reprints of correspondence, some of which goes back to the 1940s and 50s. Thumbing through these old pictures and stories,  I began reminiscing about my early years in judo.

I remember watching over a period of months a series about judo on television many years ago and my father telling me that I should give judo a try. We both enjoyed any kind of contact sport, especially wrestling, and while judo was certainly this, it also had the appeal of being fun.

It was a Sunday sometime in November of 1962 that my father took me down to the Kitchener-Waterloo Hatashita Judo Club which was then located on Ontario Street in Kitchener. The front entrance was at the end of a narrow alley between Boehmer’s Gas and a travel agency, and across the street from Jamieson Toys and Gordon’s Optical. It wasn’t the easiest place to find. The membership at the time was a nominal $5.00 and lessons were $1.00 per week.

I progressed rather rapidly through my yellow and orange belts until I hit the green belt stage. At that grade, I managed to win a medal at the CNE  (Note: Canadian National Exhibition) which was a still a big competition then. I was even teaching other junior classes.

Monthly grading tournaments were quite a regular item at our dojo in those days and I would attend every one. There was one tournament I particularly remember because it reminded me that having a green belt did not automatically make you the ‘head cheese.’ I was competing against a sturdy, muscular judoka named Jim Little of Brantford who at the time was an orange belt, and since I was a green belt, I figured I would have no trouble with him.

A few seconds after hajime, I did the most beautiful breakfall for the most beautiful okuri-ashi-barai. It is difficult to describe the disappointment and shame I felt at that time. I had disgraced my self and my sensei, John Hatashita, who had recently promoted me.

This was a difficult time for me because I became dissatisfied with judo. I went to the Saturday morning classes only once every three or four weeks and would miss the monthly grading tournaments. I would be nervous for days and could not sleep the night before worrying about whether I would compete or not. This continued for a few months and finally through sheer will power, I went back to regular classes.

Sensei told me that I should also be going to the senior classes during the week in order to build up my strength and weight. At about this time, another rugged kid started judo and after a few short weeks of instruction, managed to drag me all over the place because of his natural strength. He didn’t return for a few weeks after that but when he did, he never left, and has been with the club ever since. His name was Wayne Erdman.

The two of us became inseparable and trained whenever we could – almost every evening and Saturdays and Sundays. Sensei noticed our dedication to training and entrusted us with a key to the dojo so we could train at any time. On one occasion, we stayed overnight and happened to have a film of the early world championships  and a rented projector from the public library. We already knew how these matches had turned out because we had read about them in the now-defunct Judo World magazines. They always contained the results of the All-Japan and World championships from the early years – 1956, 1958, 1961, etc. These champions lived on through us. On this occasion, we watched the film over and over again and were so spurred on by what we saw that we held our own ‘World Championships’ at 3 o’clock in the morning. I still don’t remember who won more matches – Geesink or Inokuma.

Our dojo was not a fancy one but it held about 50 tatami which were broken up by a big post. This post was a real thorn in our sides because it took away about 1/4 of the mat area. But because it held up the building and would’ve been too expensive to remove, we gave it as much abuse as possible. We did uchikomi on it; the karate class punched and kicked it; we dressed it up in kendo equipment and beat it with sticks. One night though it got its revenge on us, or I should say on Wayne.

We were playing tag in the dark with another friend, Angelo Casella who unfortunately returned to Argentina soon afterwards, and as we chased Wayne in the semi-darkness along the tatami. he ran full-force backwards into the post. With a resounding crack, he almost succeeded in removing the post single-handedly. Poor Wayne. He was still woozy from his encounter with the immovable object and we were just laughing ourselves silly.

There was also the time we helped ourselves to the pop machine one night, and between the two of us, Wayne and I managed to drink 28 bottles! Saturdays became more interesting as time went on. We held many different parties not soon to be forgotten – birthday parties, endurance contests, photography sessions, randori contests, candy scrabbles and others. After the practices, Sensei would often take us for milkshakes in hopes of fattening us up.

But we trained hard in the spartan conditions. Snow came in through the front door and there was always cold air coming in from a broken pane of glass. The pilot light on the water heater was continually turning itself off and the shower was then reduced to a trickle of cold water. These were the days of marathon situp and pushup contests. One night after a workout, I remember doing 1,000 squats (I had heard that Hindu wrestlers did 500 a day) and then falling down a flight of stairs the next day because my legs gave out on me. One Monday morning following a situp contest during a Saturday morning class, I woke up in a fetal position and stayed like that for the next two days. My abdominal muscles had completely cramped up on me. And on the days after doing too many pushups between benches, I couldn’t push open a door – it was too painful.

We did uchikomi and randori night and day, and we did all kinds of ukemi. The record for distance rolling breakfall was 12 people and that stopped only because we ran out of running room. Training was done to an extreme, and while it contradicted many of today’s scientific training principles, it gave us that one thing that today’s training so often lacks – mental toughness. It prepared me for my training in Japan and Montreal. While others complained about too much this and too much that, I was able to accept it because of my previous training. I was remembering the old champions and the spirit they had in those days.

Our dojo has since moved across town to the Waterloo Square. (Note: It is also gone now.) The Ontario Street building was condemned and replaced by a parking lot. The eighth parking spot from the street now rests where our infamous post used to be. Somehow I had  expected it to be standing in the middle of the lot. Those days were a time of my life that seem nostalgic but I realize now that they were probably the most important part of my judo career.

Stay tuned for Japan – The Rough Years (Part Two).