I met Kenshiro Abbe Sensei for the first time on November 1960: then I lost touch with him and I could meet him again on April 1969 in Milan. Since then I had numerous opportunities to study judo under him until June 1971 when he left Italy and went back to Japan. Over almost three years he taught for extensive periods in Milan, in Genoa, in a few dojos in the Italian west coast, and in the French Blue Coast, mostly Menton, where his pupil Armand Botton would put him up. I’m sure many people have known him better and for longer periods than I have: I have no pretensions to say anything new about Kenshiro Abbe Sensei but considering the outstanding personality of his I think it maybe important to establish a record of his stay in Italy.

RECORD OF HIS STAY

1. ★Kenshiro Abbe Sensei came in Italy for the first time in 1958 introduced by his French pupil Armand Botton 4th dan of judo and 1st dan of Aikido. Botton organised a three day seminar in Imperia (Liguria west coast)
   

2. ★In 1958 Kenshiro Abbe Sensei and Armand Botton visited Turin with the view of creating the International Butokukai. The initiative did not have any follow up
   

3. ★In 1959 a second seminar with Abbe Sensei was held in Sanremo, again organised by Mr Botton, to which took part Mr Tadashi Abe who showed the effectiveness of Aikido. At that time Aikido was almost unknown in Italy. The police national team of judo and one of the most outstanding Italian judoka Cesare Barioli attended the seminar
   

4. ★In November 1960 Abbe Sensei was invited for the first time in Genoa where he taught for three days. He was the first Japanese expert ever come to Genoa and it was the first time Genoa’s judokas ever saw what true judo was like
   

5. ★In 1965 Andrea Doria Judo Club of Genoa got in touch with British Judo Council of London with the purpose to bring in Abbe Sensei for a seminar but it was told that Abbe Sensei came back to Japan for the 1964 Olympics and had not come back to England since. The BJC instead proposed a seminar with Mr Cloynes but the offer was politely declined
   

6. ★In 1969 Cesare Barioli of the Busen Milan brought in Abbe Sensei for a seminar in Milan. After Milan he held several seminars in Genoa, Savona, Imperia and Menton (France) where Armand Botton put him up until he left for Japan in June 1971.
   

MEMORIES

Over almost three years I had the chance to know Abbe Sensei’s opinions about judo and other subjects that, considering his remarkable stature, are worth to be mentioned. He didn’t have a great consideration for Jigoro Kano as a judoka: he would acknowledge to him a special talent for organisation. He didn’t feel any admiration for Mr. Kawaishi, nobody knows why, while he felt a real devotion for Morihei Ueshiba who said to him said the last time they met “you and I are the last samurais”. When he came back to Japan for the 1964 Olympics he offered his advice to Kaminaga on how to beat Antoon Geesink but the offer was turned down. He subsequently sneered at Kaminaga and the way he tried to escape from Geesink’s osaekomi-waza.

While teaching Abbe Sensei didn’t use to follow a standard syllabus: sometimes he would teach kendo with rolled newspapers or would organize sumo tournaments. After one of such sessions, we had dinner together and at 2am, under the deserted town arcades of Genoa, he showed us his formidable harai-goshi. That was Kenshiro Abbe Sensei: a genius and as all the geniuses he was unpredictable.

SOME ENTERTAINING STORIES

Abbe Sensei, as on the mat, outside the dojo was a very nice and entertaining person to be with. The following stories are from the period in Menton.

While in Menton he would live at Botton’s house; it so happened that Botton’s house was to be redecorated and for a few nights we were accommodated in a vacant flat owned by Mr Acolan, President of the Menton Judo Club. Abbe Sensei loved birds and whenever he had a chance he would buy some. But he didn’t want to shut them in a cage, so he would leave them free to fly inside the flat, damaging the wall-paper and dirtying the floor.  Needless to mention that Mr Acolan had us back to Botton’s right away.

Once we were on a beach and he organised a tournament of “stone-throwing” on the sea and the winner was the one who was able to bounce the stone on the water the most times. It was funny the way he would take this seriously. He had a real passion for teaching, and not only martial arts: he taught swimming to guys completely unapt to that, he showed us forward dives and gave us lessons on sumo.

Whenever we would cross the frontier between Italy and France and the police officers would check our identifications and he would say “the sky is the same, so the sun and the sea, so why do we have to show our IDs” Seldom the police officers agreed with him.

His relationship with money was very weird: several time we got the feeling he didn’t consider money important even though he was making his living out of teaching martial arts. He used to spend a lot of money at the stationery shop buying pencils, pens, boxes of colour pastels, drawing paper in such large amount that he didn’t know where to keep them: so he went to an appliance shop and bought a refrigerator and solved the storage problem.

Botton had the front house just painted and he was asked by Abbe Sensei if he would have liked a painting with the writing “Sekai Butokukai” on it. “Okay” Botton said “provided that you paint it in small characters”. By the time he finished, the painting covered up all the front of the house and Botton had to get the decorators in to paint the front house again. Botton and Abbe Sensei were a very funny pair: Abbe was an early riser and first thing every morning was to pray while Botton would have liked to sleep longer. One morning Botton sorted the problem out shooting in the air with his gun and Abbe Sensei realised it was better to keep the praying for later.

KIMOCHI

Could students of Kenshiro Abbe say that the Sensei was a friend of theirs? No they could not. They should be proud enough to have been considered students of his. The fact is that in the Budo tradition the relationship between teacher and pupil is called with one word that doesn’t find an exact equal in English and it would take long explain extensively. Such a word is kimochi; it isn’t “love” and it isn’t “friendship” but is complete trust and deep esteem and it is peculiar to Budo.

Even though Abbe Sensei had travelled a lot, and he had met a lot of students of many different nationalities he still was able to be satisfied when people of different background were together both in the dojo and outside the dojo. One night after training, Abbe Sensei, Botton and I were walking together through Menton and he expressed exactly that feeling, saying “Three people of different nationalities united by judo”

Elio Lamagna

1st dan awarded by Abbe Sensei (1969)