I found this during some research for a post I made on a different forum:

http://judoinfo.com/oda.htm

It is an absolutely wonderful article. It brings many things to mind for me. It humbles me to think of the level of dedication that these people have for their chosen art.

No doubt.

Can you imagine getting in 3 workouts a day, having dinner at the gym and finally falling to sleep on the dojo mats. That's awesome.

I think in American Culture, the idea of carrying your instructor's gi, is generally frowned upon as being old fashioned and overly zealous bordering on hero worship. But I think it's a cool sign of respect. Like you said, something that is vanishing in the modern times.