“It is a huge achievement, I must admit,” says George Kerr when pushed, with a slight note of reticence in his Scottish accent.
On Saturday, Kerr was given the status of 10th dan in judo at a ceremony in Paris — one of only seven living judokas in the world, and only the second Briton, to have achieved the highest level in the sport. (All but five of the 19 people who have won the honor since 1935 have been Japanese.)
“I used to read the [judo] books when I was a kid, and see these old people in them who were ninth and 10th dan,” he says, “but I never dreamt I would one day be one of them.”
At 72, Kerr is also the youngest of this elite group — “a very young 72,” he points out — chosen by the International Judo Federation, the sport’s governing body.
What do you have to do to reach 10th dan (to put its dizzying height in perspective, someone who is a “black belt” in judo is only a first dan)? You don’t need to be able to beat a 22-year-old — most are elevated to 10th dan in their 80s, and even posthumously.
“I think I just ticked all the boxes,” says Kerr, who was European judo champion in 1957, twice won the British Open championship and is president of the British Judo Association.
He first tried the sport when he was eight — his father, an amateur boxer, had tried to get him to do boxing, but he lost his heart to judo. At 18, he won a scholarship to train in Japan and lived there for four years.
“Judo has been my life,” he says, adding that it’s more than just a sport. “There is the whole moral code you need to live by as well — honor, integrity, discipline, politeness, not picking on people who are weaker than you. You have to live up to things such as looking after people. It’s the way of the samurai, really.”
Kerr teaches all this — as well as some sharp moves — at the Edinburgh club he now runs for children.
Asked if he has any plans to retire, he laughs: “Don’t be silly. If you retire, you die. I can’t imagine it; this is just in my blood.”
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