Rachid Merkache is smiling today and does not hide his joy at being back with his judoka students, on the tatami of the small and modest Lionel-Joudain room in Sully.
A little over a year ago, however, morale was at half mast. “I took antidepressants, says this judo teacher from Sully. I was really not well. In addition, this was happening during a complicated period at the family level, my parents having fallen ill.
He was fired on December 12, 2020 of the former judo section of the Sully municipal sports club (CSMS) for “serious misconduct”. Following a strong mobilization of students and parents of the club, the former presidency had ended up resigning, without denying its decision.
industrial tribunal on hold
Michel Playe and Jean-Pierre Amelin, respectively presidents of the judo section and the CSMS, had sent a letter to the press and on the Facebook page “CSM Sully Sections Sportives”, on January 16, 2021, explaining their position.
The case between the two parties is not yet over, sincea procedure has been initiated with the Prud’hommes. The conciliation hearing was held last November. Everyone had to send their response at the start of 2022, before the hearing, the date of which has not yet been set.
While waiting for this decision of the Prud’hommes, Rachid Merkache savors this rebirth under the benevolent gaze of the portrait of Jigoro Kano, the founder of this martial art which constitutes his whole life, since his childhood in Seine-Saint-Denis, at the Blanc-Mesnil club. “I had an interregional level, he confides. It was one of the leading clubs in the Paris region. I was lucky to have great coaches.”
Coaches who have fed his ambition of instruction more than competition. Though he could have been aiming for sixth dan, he says, now 49 years old, the sensei (a respectful title used in Japan to denote a person with great knowledge or skill) stuck with it. to his second dan, “the union minimum” to be a state patent.
Since its arrival, some twenty years ago, the number of members has skyrocketed.
“It never tickled me,” says the one who is not the most demanding teacher in the world. He prefers the pleasure and nobility of martial art to performance. A credo that seems to have succeeded, as evidenced by the skyrocketing number of licensees, from 35 when he arrived at the start of the century, to 266 three years ago.
The club has dropped to a hundred members since the health crisis. “I’m not very competitive. In some clubs, it wouldn’t have happened. But if Rachid saw him, he didn’t force the students to go. It’s reassuring,” says Thomas Guillet.
At the Loiret judo committee, we want to “return to the level before the health crisis”
Upcoming hiring
The current president of the Judo Club Sullylois, the new club created following the dissolution of the CSMS, was a student of Rachid Merkache when he was only a child.
“He is a good teacher, he teaches us well and puts into practice what he has seenhe argues.
What he sometimes sees on social networks, he sends them to us in private message to show us the technique he taught us during the day to perfect it.
Thomas Guillet underlines his desire to fully reintegrate the teacher into the club. Rachid Merkache had first returned as a simple volunteer unemployed for six monthssupported by Laurent Barruet, who then took over as club president.
A “decompression valve”
If the situation was hardly satisfactory financially, it had the merit of making him regain his footing. “That’s been my decompression valve, he bounces. The smiles of the children and the kindness of the parents, that’s what kept me going. I will never forget that support.”
After these six months, Rachid Merkache put himself under the status of autoentrepreneur and was able to resume remuneration as an independent teacher. Thomas Guillet ensures that “from next season, when everything will be clarified with the Federation, we will rehire him as an employee of the association“.
Thomas Derais
