Judo, poetry and friendship
While cleaning out my closet in preparation to move, I came across an old poem a friend of mine wrote. Before sharing the poem, I will provide some context. I first met my friend, Joe Kronen, when I started Judo at The University of Connecticut in 1988. We essentially started and shared our judo journey together. We both trained for several years at UCONN judo and both earned our black belts. Joe then moved to Japan for work. A year later I too moved to Japan to teach English and continue studying judo. It was about this time we started to notice differences in our respective approach to life in Japan, judo and life in general. Joe was not a natural at judo. Learning new technique was difficult for him and required a lot of practice. Joe made up for this with hard work, determination and a no-quit attitude. Though no elite athlete, judo came easier for me. Consequently, when Joe was doggedly drilling technique. I was playing around on the mat and doing rondori (sparring). Our approach to learning the language took a similar route. Again, this was not easy for Joe. He took classes and studied hard to learn proper grammar and structure. I on the other hand enjoy socializing and with a few Japanese words under my belt, began talking with everyone. I’m sure my grammar and structure were horrible, but I do believe most understood the basics of what I was communicating. Our differences worked well together. When in a group setting, Joe would quietly tell me how to say one thing or another and I would be the front man talking to the group. But this was not the case on the mat. The mat was our arena to determine which approach to life was superior. ON THE MAT Two former adversaries met on the mat, Friends they have become, but this was not to chat. The surrounding people could not see what was about to start. For this was not Chinese checkers, but rather – a martial art. Mr Black, a Judo veteran [...]
