Fighting is what happens when people carry on playing after you have taken away the ball
Do it right and you are Becker, you are Beckham; do it wrong and you are Tom – after Jerry has given him the exploding cigar
‘Well, Mark, he made you look a bit of an idiot.’ But I knew I would soon be boasting about the day I fought Hirotaka Okada, twice champion of the whole flipping world
In their effort to turn their athletes into virtual fighting machines it was inevitable that the East Germans wuld make them fight real ones
The Samurai code in which judo is rooted coincided with the chivalric values espoused by the English gentleman
‘If they could see on my face what I feel in my heart no one would ever fight me’ – Yasuhiro Yamashita
I felt that, even in sporting terms, this was an extraordinary world. And I had landed in the middle of it
‘I had no choice but to keep on twisting the arm . . . finally the sound of bone breaking echoed through the Maracana stadium’
– Masahiko Kimura
– Masahiko Kimura
Anyone who struggles to believe that judo builds character might find it easier to accept that judo certainly reveals it
This ancient learning and eastern mysticism offered an appealing cocktail of violence and good manners
‘If people could see on my face what i feel in my heart, no one would ever fight me’
–Yasuhiro Yamashita
Fighting is what happens when people carry on playing after you’ve taken away the ball
I suspected that, even in sporting terms, this was an extraordinary world. And I had landed in the middle of it
Anyone who struggles to believe that judo builds character might find it easier to accept that judo certainly reveals it.
The Samurai code coincided with the chivalric values espoused by the English gentleman: the gentle way for the gentle man
This ancient learning and eastern mysticism offered an appealing cocktail of violence and good manners