Black belts and heart-felts
Kawasaki Rendokan Judo Academy celebrates 50 years
Mark Newman
Published on
May 02, 2008
It will be a chance to share old times and fond memories.
More than 100 alumni and friends of the Kawasaki Rendokan Judo Academy are expected to gather in the academy's dojo at the Canadian Japanese Cultural Centre on Hempstead Road May 31st to celebrate the club's 50th anniversary.
"We're going to have an authentic five-course Japanese dinner," said Sensei Mitch Kawasaki, academy operator and well-known judo teacher in Hamilton.
Kawasaki said a chef will be brought in from Toronto to prepare the meal which will be served by current members of the academy's competitive team.
During the dinner a wireless microphone will be passed around to allow the alumni, including many from the early years, to tell some stories.
"It'll be old times and good memories," Kawasaki said.
The dinner will be followed by a dance.
The Kawasaki Rendokan Judo Academy has a long and storied history in Hamilton.
While it was founded in 1958 by Kawasaki's father Harry Masao Kawasaki, a fifth degree black belt, the roots of the academy can be traced back to a Second World War internment camp in Vancouver (one of many along the British Columbia coast) where Harry Kawasaki and thousands of Japanese Canadians like him were forced to live after being evicted from their homes and businesses and had their property confiscated by a fearful if not ignorant and xenophobic Canadian government.
It was during his time in the internment camp that the elder Kawasaki and many others began practicing the art of judo, usually in secret or at night by flashlight.
"Many of them grew to be very passionate about the sport, my father being one of them," Kawasaki said.
Following the war Harry Kawasaki was released and boarded a train, eventually coming to Hamilton, where he found work as an auto mechanic and auto body technician at north-end shop.
"(The government) said we can't give you back your land, we can't give you back your car, we can't give you back your house, what we can do is give you a train ticket," Kawasaki said.
In the late 40's Harry Kawasaki and Mas Ishibashi founded the Hamilton Kodokan Judo Club that worked out of a garage on Cannon Street near Wentworth. The club also practiced in church basements and other locations.
"Where ever somebody would allow us to put down...10 to 15 mats," recalled Kawasaki, who began taking lessons from his father as an eight-year-old in 1955.
"I remember getting thrown a lot and doing a lot of push-ups because I talked too much," said Kawasaki, who was born in Hamilton and attended school in the east-end.
He recalled that he always felt he had to work harder then other judo students to please his father during those early years.
"(I had) to do about five times (as much) work than all the rest of the club members and students," Kawasaki said. "I think (my father) wanted to (make) an example (of) me."
That example must have been a very good one, as Kawasaki and several other students went on to become national judo champions and international competitors.
Kawasaki said a key reason for his success, often against much larger opponents, was that his father taught him how to do judo left-handed.
"I'm right-handed in everything but judo," Kawasaki said.
"With that secret weapon I was able to confuse my opponents who were usually twice my size," Kawasaki said. "(My father) felt that if I couldn't match (an opponent) strength by strength, I had to at least out-condition them, so make them chase me around the mat for a couple of minutes and when they got tired I'd throw them or they'd fall down."
Knowing judo also helped Kawasaki to become a top notch amateur wrestler (despite two blown knees) and in 1976 he competed for Canada at the Olympics in Montreal where he lost to a wrestler from Japan in a controversial bronze medal match.
"Their coach protested that I threw the guy with an illegal judo move," said Kawasaki, who got into wrestling almost by accident.
As a physical education, sports medicine and geography student at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay on an "under the table" gymnastics scholarship (his father made him practice gymnastics to make him more agile for judo) in 1970, Kawasaki said the university's gymnastics coach quit early in the semester and with no judo club on campus, he decided to give wrestling a try.
Following the Montreal Olympics Kawasaki began to focus on judo and build the Hamilton club that his father began and he took over after Harry Kawasaki died in 1970. He also renamed the organization the Kawasaki Rendokan Judo Academy in honour of his father.
After working out of a variety of places, the academy, with about 20 members, found its first permanent home at the former Hamilton Jewish Community Centre on Sanford Avenue in the early 60's.
The dojo was located in the basement next to a sauna and it was not unusual for the students to work out in stifling heat.
In the late 60's with about 40 members the academy moved to the former YMCA/YWCA on Ottawa Street.
"My father made the mats out of felt," Kawasaki recalled. "We stuffed the felt into a vinyl cover that my dad sewed in his spare time."
It was while at the Y that the academy began producing national calibre competitors and it wasn't long before the school outgrew the facility, moving once again in the early 70's to the main floor of a building at 221 Kenilworth Avenue near Roxborough.
"It was a really long and old building and the people upstairs that were tenants often (over-flowed) their bathtubs, so we had water (dripping down)," Kawasaki said.
There was a further move to a store front on Barton Street across from the Normanhurst Community Centre and in 1979 to the gym of the Onteora school at Fennell and Upper Wellington that was being used by the Canadian Japanese Cultural Centre.
Mr. Kawasaki recalled that in 1970 Jim Kadonaga and Tim Oikawa approached him about joining the CJCC and in 1995 the academy moved to its current location, the CJCC building on Hempstead Drive.
At age 58 and a seventh degree black belt, Sensei Kawasaki has no plans to stop teaching judo and he's looking forward to meeting up again with some of the students from the early years, including many who were taught by his father.
He continues to make his way to the east Mountain dojo each evening after working at Lorex Technology Inc, a Markham firm that builds home security products that are sold in the large retail chains.
"This is where I feel the most comfortable," he said.
Kawasaki maintains judo is more than just a physical activity, it is a way of life that carries a significant mental aspect.
"It helps you get by some tough times," he said.
Tickets for the 50th reunion celebration are $30 for singles and $50 per couple. For more information see: www.kawasakirendokan.com