Judd Reid shihan, I don’t know if i should thank you or not. I kept your book for my vacation but i now really regret it! This is causing me tremendous pain right now. 😉 Going through the pages one by one got my heart pumping like hell. I can feel anxiety building up inside because i don’t have my gi with me to let all these emotions out of my body. So many of them have been kept locked inside since those days…
if i could just feel the honbu dojo floors under my feet once again while advancing in zenkutsu-dachi, or even smell that awful odour of the downstairs showers (my daily chore) and say hi to my little friends the cockroaches! 😜
I may not have gone through the same hardships during my stay at the young lion’s dormitory in 1995, but i can relate to most of the things you are telling. And it’s giving me goosebumps! I wish that i could go back in time and do the whole thing again, and this time for the whole 1000 days! I also wish i’d made it a few years before so I could’ve had the opportunity to train with you and Nicolas senpai. Nothing in my life has ever challenged me « psychologically » more than that first experience in Japan in 1995… oK, except maybe a « divorce » after 15 years!! 😂 but hey, i am still here, kyokushin spirit works magic there too. Lol
It’s also crazy how both our personal stories have many things in common -same with my brother Robert Daoust! From growing up, to joining Kyokushin karate by « coïncidence », to make it to Japan, and later trying to live our lives upholding the ideals of Budo wich few understand (mostly non-kyokushin people).
Without kyokushin i have no idea who and where i’d be today. I sincerely believe i owe my four kids and most of my entire adult life to the kyokushin spirit -thus to Oyama sosai. And isn’t it beautiful that we are millions in this situation worldwide?! Like my old shihan use to say; « kyokushin is a state of mind. Although we are now in different times, the true kyokushin spirit will never die! » Osu!!
Thank you for sharing your experience in this great book my friend. Osu shihan!
spiritgym514 