<Begin Segment 10>

RP: When did you start studying judo?

RM: Eight.

RP: You would have been "Yonien"?

RM: Yonen.

RP: Yonen. That's twelve and under.

RM: Twelve and under.

RP: So how do you start out as a young...

RM: Just learning how to fall and going in the corner and sleeping. [Laughs] You know, you had a lot of big guys and lot of small. It's hard to do it. We did, I think we did one tournament. I only did one tournament before the war.

RP: You did?

RM: Yeah. That was, it was just a tie.

RP: Was that within the dojo?

RM: Uh-huh. No, no. Los Angeles. It was 1940, '40, somewhere in there. I don't know what month that was in. But it was a birthday, Japan's birthday or something like that. They even give you medals. I threw mine away but a lotta guys I know kept it.

RP: There was a, like a grand tournament held every year in Little Tokyo?

RM: No, not... there was a lot of grand tournaments.

RP: Was there a tournament...

RM: Most of the dojo, most of the dojos ran tournaments, unless it was a Nanka, black belts association, they throw big one because there was all these other schools coming together. Then they have visiting dignitaries and athletes. Then that's when you get...

RP: You get elevated?

RM: No.

RP: When do you, when do you progress? I mean, do you have...

RM: Oh, you win, you gotta win in the tournaments, yeah.

RP: You win in the tournaments and then you move up in rank.

RM: Yeah.

RP: So you started as a brown belt?

RM: No. I was a white belt. Then it went to green, purple... they don't have the colors that they, they have now. But anyway we was, I think purple... went to Manzanar we did purple, and the first tournament we had there I won. I got to throw five, I remember.

RP: Five opponents?

RM: Yeah. So that's, they call batsugun, five opponents you get, automatically go up in rank. So I got up into the brown belts. So I started there. I was thirteen, I think. No... twelve, thirteen, about fourteen, I think then.

RP: So you start with learning how to fall.

RM: Yeah.

RP: Then what comes next after that?

RM: Oh, learn how to fall, then next would be learning the throws. How to throw. What's... you gotta pull, what you gotta step in, you know, step around. They call it, we call it at our dojo right now is kuzushi, breaking my balance.

RP: That's right. That was mentioned a number of times.

RM: Yeah. That's the main thing we tried to get into... you have to do breaking balance and go into...

RP: How about the, the leg kicks?

RM: Oh, there's those, yeah, there's all kinds. As now I think there's sixty-nine throws, different kinds. But there's now modified, a lot of modified ones coming out, you know. Throws that's been on for years but they, they have changed it a little bit. They have different way to come in and technique. They have that.

RP: So did, did you want to take, start taking judo or was it something your father kind of...

RM: Then, yeah, I was young so I don't know. I guess I had to be full pushed, really. And then Manzanar, well, it was the thing to do because there's nothing else we could do. We used to walk in the snow. Come through the snow with our wooden geta. You know what the geta is? Well, you used to be on 4, so that's, you had to go past 10, and then the dojo. We'd get pea coats.

RP: You'd wear pea coats?

RM: Yeah.

RP: To go over there.

RM: Yeah. Well, it was cold. In fact the, the senseis, they would let us get on the mat and wear pea coat and sit if you had to sit with the pea coat on because it was cold. We had no heating. And the sliding doors sometimes lets the wind through it. But it was good. Just suffered that way.

RP: I'll never forget the story that one student told me. His name was Isamu Yamashita. And he said that, he said that when they weren't practicing hard enough that one of the senseis -- and I don't know if it was your dad or not -- would open up those, those sliding doors in the wintertime and a blast of cold air would come in and they'd start working really hard.

RM: Keep warm, yeah. I think that was one of the other senseis, yeah. Because my father didn't go every night.

RP: Probably Tashima, huh.

RM: Could be Tashima or one of the other ones. There was a lotta young ones there.

RP: Uh-huh.

RM: Gung ho kind, which is strong..

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.