They were ridiculous times. After I won my world championship in 1976, I went to Japan.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I might have played a little bit more in Europe than I have in Japan.
I became number one just after the World Championships in India. I was very young then, and I remember it was just a great feeling, my first World Championship.
I feel like winning a world championship was a hurdle I had to get over.
I was in the U.S. about 15 years. Especially in New York. And then I came back to Japan.
And in nineteen seventy two I almost wasn't, on the team, but I knew about it just before Olympic Games for three months before this why this is was not very good for me. I'd been ready to go, you know.
The 1984 European Championships were held in France and that was something important. I felt on form then, even though I was practically always injured at all the World Cups. It's a great memory. But in any case, the past is past.
I grew up watching Super J-Cup tournaments and things like that, and those were pretty cool.
In 1977 we played America and Europe three times, and Japan - my marriage suffered as a result. My then wife took the kids to Canada to be near her parents.
I played against the Brazilians in '82, who were definitely the best team never to have won the World Cup.
It wasn't until '79 I won my first amateur championship, and then, by '81, I was 14, and I won my first world championship, which was amazing to me, and in a very real sense, that was the first real victory I had.