Initially, I had no intention of taking on disciples. I didn’t like “learning,” nor did I enjoy “teaching.” However, there were two young boys who wanted to learn Go from me. They went to stay with my brother Cho Sho-yon in Korea and settled there.
At first, I kept refusing them, but they didn’t give up easily. In the end, I compromised and accepted these two boys. One of them later became Kim Soo-jun, who achieved 700 wins at the Nihon Ki-in, and the other became Kim Kwang-sik, who went on to become a professional player at the Korean Baduk Association. This was in 1992.
I renovated a Go salon next to my house so a few people could live there. Since I had already accepted these two disciples, I thought I might as well take in a few more. Coincidentally, a newspaper company was organizing an activity to mentor children from other prefectures, and from among these kids, I selected a few who showed potential. That’s how Atsushi Tsuruyama, Takehisa Matsumoto, and others became my disciples, bringing the number of live-in disciples to seven.
At its peak, including commuting disciples, there were more than 20 students gathering at the Go salon. At the time, there was a Go training center of the Nihon Ki-in in Makuhari, Chiba, which wasn’t far, so many of the children split their time between the center and learning from me.
Mostly, they improved by playing against each other. I never gave direct instruction. I might say, “That move isn’t good,” but I would never say, “You should play here.” This was because I lacked confidence in my own guidance, which may have been different from Go Seigen or Koichi Kobayashi.
I created league tables for them and joined the games myself. Back then, I hardly ever lost because I still held titles, but playing against the young students was stimulating for me as well.
We also played baseball to relax and exercise, just like at the Kitani Dojo. Sometimes, we disturbed the neighbors and got scolded by the local landowners. We would also go jogging in the mornings, and when someone got promoted, we celebrated with barbecues in the yard.
There were times when parents were unhappy with how I educated their children, which could be troublesome. My wife and mother-in-law worked hard preparing lunch boxes for the kids when they went to school, but overall, I have many fond memories of those times.
However, after all the disciples had improved, I began to doubt whether this method was truly effective. Even when I said something, they just quietly listened and didn’t express their own opinions. I believe young people learn more when they freely exchange ideas among themselves.
Therefore, after 15 years, I decided to stop this method of raising disciples. The main reason was that my own ability had declined, and the young people no longer came to me to learn. Additionally, the Nihon Ki-in Go training center moved from Makuhari to Ichigaya, Tokyo, which made it less convenient for students to come to me for lessons.
In the end, only three of my disciples went on to become professional players at the Nihon Ki-in. Each of them has their own strengths, and I am especially proud of Atsushi Tsuruyama, who entered the Honinbo league. He is a player I take great pride in, and as a teacher, I feel deeply gratified.
When it comes to raising disciples, I have no regrets about starting or stopping. But I do have some regrets about my own children’s Go education.
My eldest daughter stopped studying Go when she was in her second year of high school, and my eldest son quit in sixth grade. I especially regret it with my daughter. If she had continued, she might have achieved something in Go. After all, I had forbidden her from studying her school subjects at home until her second year of high school, but afterward, she spent just one year preparing for exams and got accepted into both Keio University and Waseda University—two of Japan’s top universities. This shows she is very smart. I think perhaps I taught her too strictly, and that made her lose interest in Go. Sometimes, I dislike how I lose my temper and become irrational when I get angry.