Great figures who went through “Clashing with a mentor”

Figures who went through this

• Kano Jigoro — The Man Who Never Said "I'm Tired"

  "How do you do that move?" Every time he asked, the young man got thrown instead of answered. He was small, hated losing, and left the whole household to his wife. Even on a ship at seventy-seven, it is said, he answered that it did not hurt. The life of the father of judo.

• Kitasato Shibasaburo — The Man Who Wouldn't Listen

  "Being a doctor or a monk is no work for a grown man with arms and legs." That, it is said, was how a young man felt when he entered a medical school only as a trick. Later he snapped at his bosses, cut down his own teacher's theory, and quit with all his staff when his institute was moved to a government office. What was the one piece of advice this man who never listened finally kept?

• Makino Tomitaro — The Man Who Spared Nothing

  "One who begrudges money cannot be a plant scientist." So wrote the only son of a sake shop when he was about twenty. He poured the family fortune into plants, and wrote about plants at a desk while court officers seized the furniture beside him. What held that life together was his wife, who joked that she was raising a spoiled son who wasted money on his hobby.

• Masaoka Shiki — The Greedy Invalid

  "My sickbed of six feet: this is my world." He sent his friend the bill for the eel, was turned down by the pupil he chose, and screamed when it hurt. Even so, five days before he died, he looked at his garden that morning and cheered on a natto seller. The story of a greedy haiku poet.