THE teenager was slouched against the wall.

Straggly hair protruded from under his beanie hat and a skateboard lay discarded at his side as he gawped giddily at the grappling going on around him. International judokas such as Euan Burton and Sarah Clark were engaged in a gruelling session on the mat and the 16-year-old - he had spent the previous couple of hours being "thrown around by little kids" after joining in with a junior class - found himself transfixed by their dedication to excellence. "I was a bit naive about what I was watching and was a bit bemused but I remember just being really impressed," recalls Patrick Dawson.

They would soon come to consider him a colleague, but quite what the vaunted members of The Edinburgh Club made of the skater boy back then is something the 25-year-old dare not think about. Indeed, it is with some caution that he describes his teenage self. "I was pretty dedicated to chucking myself off high stuff," he says of the years before a chance conversation with a British cadet champion on the bus home from school led to that initial visit. "I was fanatical about skateboarding even if I wasn't as good as I'd like to have been. I broke an arm once; another time I jumped down some stairs, fell, kicked the board away and broke both feet. I had to be wheeled home . . ."

The anecdote can be delivered with a rueful smile, his youthful disregard for danger having eroded in tandem with the advancement of his career as a judoka. A couple of years ago, a girlfriend bought him a skateboard as a gift, only for Dawson's bottle to crash as he attempted to mount a kerb on its first outing. He has not stepped on it since. The long hair has gone, too, the Leith-born athlete having eventually tired of it being stood on by opponents during bouts.

Yet while his appearance might have changed, Dawson's dedication has not. The ferocity with which he approached skateboarding has been applied instead to judo, and has been rewarded with a clutch of hugely-encouraging results over the past 12 months. A bronze medal at the Pan-American Open in El Salvador in June was preceded by a gold at Buenos Aires' staging of the same event in March, with those two podium places bookending a strong showing at the British Open and ensuring the Scot ends October ranked 44th in the world in the 73kg category.

Unfortunately, his success against Olympic champion Mansur Isaev in Argentina came before the beginning of the qualification period for the Commonwealth Games. However, with space for the seven highest-ranked Scottish men across the different weights in Glasgow, Dawson is well placed even if a disappointing showing at the European Open at The Emirates Arena last weekend means he will likely drop behind Burton into third on the list. "It was hugely disappointing," he admits, having comprehensively lost his second fight, then been beaten again in the repechage. "I know what I'm capable of and that is winning, or at least medalling, in these tournaments and I didn't do it. One of my coaches said to me that 'sometimes you've got to go out and learn what not to do so you can learn what you do need to do next time' and maybe last weekend is a bit like that."

While he is unwilling to make excuses, it should be noted Dawson only returned from a demanding six-week training block in Japan during the days before the event, so was understandably fatigued - mentally and physically - and had little time to adapt to the change in styles between Asian and European players.

Still, while annoyed at leaving himself disadvantaged, he has no regrets about making his fifth trip to the home of judo, pointing towards the gains in terms of fitness, technique and tactics he was able to make by concentrating solely on his sport for a sustained spell at the feted Tsukuba University. "It's a massive culture shock but if you're away on a training block anywhere - be it Japan, Korea, France or anywhere else - the best thing is that you just eat, train and sleep . . . and occasionally go to the odd karaoke bar," says Dawson, before proudly disclosing that he took his visiting father out one evening and treated him to a eye-watering version of Kanye West's Gold Digger.

Even though that trip was funded by a combination of bursaries and support from the sports scholarship programme at Heriot-Watt University, Judo Scotland and the Institute of Sport - as well as Dawson's own contribution - and a similar arrangement was struck for his trips to the Pan-American Open, the Commonwealth contender could certainly do with a sugar-daddy. His involvement in the Grand Prix event in Abu Dhabi is contingent on his ability to generate enough backing to pay for the trip, while paying for a busy schedule of training camps and competitions in the run-up to Glasgow will not be easy for the first-year accountancy student.

His demanding timetable of training and studying precludes any supplementary employment but Dawson is eager to recognise the support that he and his team-mates receive from Judo Scotland, sportscotland and the Institute of Sport. "The Commonwealth Games are our only chance to compete for Scotland and that's not lost on anybody at Ratho," he says, referring to the national training centre in the west of Edinburgh. "These guys don't really get the recognition in medals that they deserve because we usually represent Britain. Besides, we don't want people coming to our own turf and winning gold medals."