The Kano Society

It is with great sadness that I have to report the death of Trevor Leggett - patron of the Kano Society. He died of a stroke at St Mary's Hospital in the early hours of Wednesday 2nd August 2000. He had been recovering from an infection brought on by an earlier admission and in typical Leggett style was asking for a room where he could get back to his work whilst in hospital. Trevor's funeral took place at Mortlake Crematorium on Friday 11th August 2000 at 11am. An appreciation of his life was read by Henry Curtis from the Buddhist society and by Malcolm Hodkinson. The hymns 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind'; and 'To be a Pilgrim' were complimented by readings including some of Trevor's favourite verses and the best epitaph there could be - a passage from his last book 'The Old Zen Master' - 

"We can learn a lot of other things from music. You do not hang on to a chord no matter how beautiful. You do not regret the end of a piece of music. The piece is played and comes to a natural end. In the same way a life is played."

I find it impossible to read this passage without breaking down - but that is not what TP would have wanted - he will now be rejoicing in 'wearing new robes' .

The service was attended by approximately 80 close friends. K Watanabe who had left the Japanese team in Thailand and flew over via Tokyo and Tony Sweeney who managed to attend despite leaving for Japan later in the day. Dickie Bowen and Ayako, Syd Hoare, Diana Birch, Malcolm Hodkinson, and Larry Ralph (Kano Society and Budokwai); Stan Brogan (Kano Society and OdoRyu); Percy Sekine (Judokan and Kano Society) Present were John Pinnell (Budokwai EC); Alan Zipeure (President of London Area BJA); Charles Mack (President British Shotokan Karate Assn); Ben Anderson and others from the Buddhist Society, and Bernard Alexander, Warwick Stevens and Pam, Ray Ross, Hyde, Harold Rhoda, Frank Ward, Malcolm Lister, Liz Newman, Michi Wyman, Dave Barnard (Renshuden); John Richie, Mick Leigh - (there were others - apologies if I cannot list everyone).

His message was do not be just a good judoka but be good at everything. It was always fatal to say to him…I am no good at (X) since he would abruptly say, ‘ Get good at it then’

It is with the greatest sadness we announce the death of Trevor Leggett. He died in the early hours of Wednesday 2nd August in his eighty-fifth year. TP as he was affectionately known was one of the great figures of the Budokwai.

He joined the club in 1932 at the age of eighteen and studied under Yukio Tani who was very famous around the beginning of the century for taking on all comers in public matches. Tani once said of himself that he was a third rate judoman but had unrivalled experience in beating boxers and wrestlers. Tani was a very strict teacher of the old samurai school and TP was brought up in that tradition In 1938 TP went to Japan to continue his training in judo and there he gained his 4th and fifth dans. At that time only one other foreigner –O’Neill – had got that high. The war in Europe started a year later and TP seeing the way things were going got himself attached to the British Embassy and when Japan entered the war in 1941 he was interned along with the other embassy staff. Eventually he left Japan as part of an exchange with London based Japanese embassy staff. He served in India from 1943 to 1945 at the British SE Asia Military HQ using his knowledge of Japanese.After the war he returned to London and began teaching at the Budokwai. During the 1950s he was responsible for lifting the standard of judo at the club. He himself was a fanatical trainer. He never rested during training and encouraged his students to do the same. We were instructed to get double figures in practice which meant ten or more randori a night. The sessions were not particularly organized so this meant training with somebody till you felt you had had enough then immediately looking around for someone else to train with. A randori with somebody might be five to ten minutes or longer so ten plus randori was quite a lot of work. Leggett was a great believer in clean technique and he was far and away the best teacher I have ever come across. He not only drew on his own experience of judo but made many translations from Japanese texts on judo. In particular he was famous for his Sunday class. This was always two hours long every Sunday afternoon. Participation was by invitation only and you had to be at least brown belt. These Sunday sessions were always packed and invitations to the class were greatly prized. Virtually all the key figures of British judo graduated from this class. The class itself was a mixture of grinding hard work, contest and instruction on every aspect of judo. For example usually once a year we had a Katsu (resuscitation) class. This was only for black belts. The class was always announced with the dreaded words – ‘All black belts down stairs to the lower dojo! Once in the lower dojo we were shown how to bring unconscious people round again and then we had to pair up, strangle our partner out and then revive him and he in turn did the same to you. TP also had the knack of knowing what and who you dreaded most in judo and he would make sure you confronted that and them in your training.TP once said that he tried to make the Sunday class as hard if not harder than the sessions in Japan since he wanted to prepare those who intended to go to Japan. This in fact was the case. I rarely came across a harder session in Japan and when I was in the British Army PT School at Aldershot and went through some particularly tough courses I never found them worse than those Sundays.

During the 1950s some sixteen British judomen (and a few women) followed TP’s example and went to train in Japan for about two to three years on average. Competition judo was not particularly developed then and so Japan was the natural place to go to further ones training. By about the mid-sixties this became less necessary as international competitions rapidly developed in Europe and elsewhere. The flow to Japan faded away. TP abruptly pulled out of Judo in the early sixties. He decided he had produced enough competitors and teachers. He turned his attention to writing mostly about judo, Budo, eastern philosophy (Adhyamata Yoga) and Zen Buddhism. In all he wrote over thirty books. His last one came out this year in March and when he died he was working on his next one despite the fact that he was virtually blind.  He was fluent in Japanese – he headed the BBC’s Japanese Service for twenty four years - and was also a Sanskrit scholar. He was a multi-faceted man with many interests including classical music. In his youth, he told me, he was almost good enough to be a classical concert pianist. He was a great inspiration to most of us at the Budokwai. His message was do not be just a good judoka but be good at everything. It was always fatal to say to him…I am no good at (X) since he would abruptly say, ‘ Get good at it then’.It is no exaggeration to say that one of the great figures of world judo has passed away.      Syd Hoare

Vol 1 Issue 1                         page 3

Many others can speak to the many varied achievements of this remarkable man. He was dauntingly able, but sometimes perceived, because of his intense application and seriousness of purpose, as a somewhat forbidding and stern personality. I base this appreciation on his last few years of poor heath when, as a retired physician, I was able to give regular practical support and came to know him more closely.

My memories are of an intensely warm and human person with an amazing sense of humour and who faced his illness with exemplary courage and adaptability and with far-ranging and undiminished intellectual curiosity. He made masterly use of well-chosen stories, often teaching by parable. I shall recount just a couple of such stories which highlight his intrinsic personality.

Trevor spoke of his first judo teacher, the legendary Yukio Tani. One day at the Budokwai a young man was injured in practice and lay on the mat making a great hullabaloo. After a short while Tani came over and simply said; “shall I send for your mother”. Subsequently, arriving at the Budokwai with a bad cold, Trevor told Tani that he was too unwell to practice. Tani said he should and, remembering; “shall I send for your mother”, Trevor did. After a short time Tani said Trevor could finish practice now; he had made his point - one should face adversity not be overcome by it - a lesson Trevor followed all his life, notably in his fortitude during his last years of illness.

My second story illustrates this. Trevor had had his left eye removed and I subsequently took him to Moorfields Hospital for the fitting of his prosthesis (false eye). This involved a gruelling morning during which umpteen different prostheses were tried, an uncomfortable procedure, given a recently healed socket which was still sore and sensitive. A couple of minutes into the journey home, rather than grumble or complain, Trevor came up with his appropriate story! In China many years ago, a man had been sentenced to death but appealed to the Emperor. The Emperor said he would pardon him if he could say which of his eyes was a glass eye. Unhesitatingly and correctly, the prisoner chose the left. The Emperor pardoned him, asking how he had chosen so unhesitatingly. The man replied; “I chose the eye showing the glimmer of compassion!” How many of us could hope to keep our humour and sense of perspective as well as Trevor?

Trevor was a valiant man. He had no fear of illness or death and his sole concern was that he be able to continue his work. His sudden death at a time he was actively planning his early return to work was ideal for him: a good death culminating a good life.

When Dr. Kano founded his Kodokan in 1882. Jujutsu had fallen into disrepute. Some masters were organising troupes of their pupils and matching them for money against other troupes. or even against the professional Sumo wrestlers. In this way. Dr. Kano says. the art had become degraded for financial gain. Furthermore. some Jujutsu men were well known as hired bullies. Dr. Kano called his system Kodokan Judo to distinguish it from Jujutsu. and made a strict rule that no Kodokan man should exhibit the art for profit. or co-operate with or be matched with anyone who did so. The Kodokan also expelled any member who abused his skill, inside or outside the practice hall. The new school attracted many students: and some Jujutsu teachers. finding their popularity affected, tried to discredit it. The~’ laughed at the Kodokan practice. where the students kept an upright posture and practised their attacks lightly and quickly. not bothering overmuch if they were thrown. This was compared unfavourably with the usual Jujutsu style. a defensive crouch with one arm generally thrust underneath the opponent’s armpit. and in which injuries were very common. especially to the junior students. Baseless stories were circulated about Dr. Kano and the Kodokan. and attempts were made to embroil Kodokan students in Street fights in order to destroy their good name.

These tactics were not successful: it was soon clear that the Kodokan Judo was better in every way. and most of the Jujutsu schools survive today only as relics. The art was no longer an entertainment put on by professionals for money before an audience of laymen. hut restored to its original purpose—a serious method of training. Shortly after World War II, a few Judo men left the Judo movement and formed a Professional Judo Association in Japan. One of them was the famous Mr. Masahiko Kimura, in his youth several times all-Japan champion. They organised a few matches among themselves. but no one joined them and they could not get matches with anyone in the Judo movement. The Association was not a success, and most of them turned to wrestling, where the proceedings could be enlivened by attacks on the referee or a chase up and down the auditorium aisles. In the West. different sports draw the line between amateur and professional at different points. In the boxing world, a professional at any other sport is automatically considered a professional at boxing as soon as he takes up this sport. In Judo the line is drawn at what can be called“display professionalism“. Judo men are amateurs provided they do not make profit from displays or co-operate with those who do: otherwise they are professionals (and outside the Judo movement). This is Dr. Kano’s principle, brought to Europe by Mr. Koizumi. and now adopted by the International Judo Federation which recently organised the first World Championships in Tokyo, to which entrants were flown from twenty-one countries all over the world. If we look at sports which encourage display professionalism, we cannot say it has done much to advance the sport. On the contrary, in America rules have had to he scrapped because boxing audiences were not willing to have fights “cut short” by a disqualification for fouling. Anyone who wants to understand what display professionalism can mean should read Lord Knebworth’s authoritative book “Boxing” in the Lonsdale Library series. He says that it scattered the fine traditions and splendid ideals of the sport to the four quarters. “A boxer became either a business man, or a commodity for the manipulation of other and more competent business men.” “The public which attended boxing contests was no longer either interested, well informed or enthusiastic so much as a great herd of ignorant people . . fooled by the Press, by the promoter. by the boxer, and by every bookmaker. ”In brief, sports based on display professionalism have to cater for a public who know and care nothing for the sport except as an entertainment. Doubtless some performers and promoters try to educate them but in the end they are absolutely at the mercy of the public’s tastes and whims .In Judo, on the contrary, the sport is entirely supported by its own enthusiasts and quite independent of what the general uninformed public thinks or wants. Displays when given are for the purpose of attracting students, not to extract profits by amusing people who have no serious interest in Judo. Contests are for self-training and not for pot-hunting.

In the finals of the recent all-Japan Championships, the Champion (Mr. Natsui) had an injured right leg, and the runner-up (MrSone, 5th Dan) deliberately abstained from any persistent attacks on it. One Japanese commentator (a former champion himself) says that this was taking chivalry too far either a man is injured and should retire, or he goes on and must be prepared to meet any possible attack. I personally agree with this comment. but at the same time feel a deep admiration for Mr. Sone. If we compare this incident with the recent death of the professional boxer Elliott just after a match in South Africa, we can see something of the difference between the Judo spirit and the results of display professionalism, and can understand why Dr. Kano excluded the latter so rigidly

Bulletin 1 part 3