My Job at the Sugito Shirayuri Kindergarten

Louise here,

So what do I do when I'm not gainfully employed doing karate? No, I don't lead a life of idleness and dissipation, but have various part-time English teaching jobs, picked up from Carl and Amy, the previous interns. On Monday and Tuesday mornings, and Friday afternoons I work at the Sugito Shirayuri Kindergarten, which is very near to the Shiramizu dojo.

Entrance to the Sugito Shirayuri Kindergarten

I ride one of the buses for an hour or so, saying good morning to the kids as they are picked up.

In the kindergarten bus

Then, depending on the weather, I might play outside with the kids, or help get them sorted for the day in one of the classrooms.

Me and the red hat class (a.k.a. Kobato) of four and five year olds

I usually give one or two half-hour English lessons, but for the past month, the entire kindergarten has been preparing for their sports festival, so I've been tagging along and distracting the kids as they practice. The festival is taking place this Saturday (the 10^th of October), at the kindergarten's sports' ground, so by now everyone is looking pretty good. I'm quite looking forward to it.

Practice in the hall

Seiritsu's 36th Cultural Festival

Louise here,

On Sunday Richard Mosdell (internship director) invited Erica and I to the school he teaches at, Seiritsu Gakuen Junior & Senior High School. All weekend the school had its cultural festival. The first and second year students set up stalls and entertainment in their home rooms, while various performances were put on in the middle of the school, on a stage on the school's tennis courts.

Seiritsu's cultural festival: main stage

Erica and I wandered around the school a bit, and had a go at a quiz that we didn't understand either the questions or answers (luckily it was multi-choice, so we could point and grunt). Strangely enough we didn't do very well. We also met Nick Smith, a turbaned, fortune-telling international teacher. My fortune was 'Fix your uniform', and I'm still waiting for inspiration about what it means.

We watched some very interesting hip hop on the main stage (one routine was done to the theme music of 'Pirates of the Caribbean'). Then came the event we'd all been waiting for: Richard's karate club demonstration. Five girls performed Empi, a Shotokan kata similar Wado's Wanshu. Then after a rather amusing demonstration of kumite rules and how to get penalised, two kumite bouts were refereed by Richard. Finally, they demonstrated board-breaking, Richard finishing it with a flying side kick and a spinning roundhouse kick.

Richard in full flight

Kai seki ryori

Erica here.

Last weekend, Louise and I were treated to a traditional Kyoto type dinner by one of my English students. We were told that this type of cuisine is called Kai seki yori which loosely translates to Tea Ceremony Cuisine. All the waitresses there were dressed in kimonos and we were seated in a room with a low table and sliding door.

The meal consisted of 2 appetizers and many small entrees including sashimi, tempura, soup that came in a teapot and many other dishes I cannot recalled the names of. At the end, there was pound cake and ice cream for dessert. Not only was each dish, delicious but the presentation was beautiful. Regrettably, we did not get any pictures because we ate all the food before realizing we should have taken some pictures. Maybe next time!

2009 Japan Wado Kai Championships - Erica's report

Erica (in her Shiramizu t-shirt) in front the tournament sign which states;

''dai yon-ju-go kai wadokai zen-nippon karatedo kyogi taikai''

''45th Annual Wadokai National Athletic Championships''

Erica here.

The second day I got to Japan, I was told that I had been entered into the Wadokai National Championships. At the time, I still had 2 months to prepare so I was not as nervous as I should have been. But time went by very quickly and before I knew it, it was the weekend before the tournament already!

Like Louise, I had not participated in a tournament for quite some time. I think the last one I entered was while I was still in high school (which is about 7-8 years ago). The mandatory preliminary kata for my division was Kushanku and I practiced it at every class before the competition.

Unlike Louise, neither my kata nor kumite scores very close to winning. In fact, it was quite the opposite. All 5 flags in kata were for the other girl and in kumite, I lost 6-0. In all fairness, my sparring partner went on to winning gold for kata. These results were expected, so I wasn’t too upset. I know there is much I need to work on and that is why I’m here.

It was a little heartbreaking to see some of the younger kids burst into tears when they didn’t make it to the next round because you could tell that they had trained very hard and put all their efforts in. Even some of the older competitors shed tears when they didn’t make it through. I guess those are the ones who had very high expectations for themselves.

The second day, we were at the Nippon Budokan and I was a spectator. It was fun sitting with all the parents and watching the different rings and cheering as members from the dojo were up. Before the demonstration performed by Shiramizu members, there was a mass warm-up where all the competitors were lined up and lead by Arakawa Sensei. After that, they all did kata which was really cool to watch. At the end of the day, although none of the Shiramizu competitors received gold, some of them went home with silver and bronze and each one of them knowing they had done their best.

All competitors participating in Pinan Nidan

Masatoshi getting his hair done by Yuki before the competition

Group picture!

The Grand Fuji-san Expedition

Louise here,

This a rather belated and rather long blog of a very important event I took part in straight after the Wado-Kai Nationals (drum roll please): the international assault of Fuji-san. Our team consisted of Carl (holding the banner for England), Chris Heinmiller, our Canadian friend, and myself (from the land of the long white cloud). For better or worse, we decided to climb through the night in order to catch the sunrise from the top. We caught a bus from Shinjuku station, arriving at Fuji-san's Kawaguchi-ko-guchi Hachi-gome (Eighth Station). After mucking around for a bit, doing important things like buying walking sticks and taking photos, we set off into the unknown at 9 p.m.

The Culprits at Base Camp (L-R: Carl, Louise, Chris)

As it was dark by then, we were relying on our trusty head torches for guidance. It wasn't too difficult however, as we could've driven a car down the track, it was so wide. Nonetheless, my fellow team-mates began to cast aspersions on my route-finding skills, as the track went down the mountain for a little way. They shouldn't have worried: the path soon began climbing, and didn't stop climbing until the top.

Chris and one smart salesperson

We had fun at every hut we passed, persuading Chris to spend money on getting his walking stick branded (each hut had a different brand to prove that you'd reached it). Sometimes we were helped in our persuasion by a hut attendant.

Does this mean they sell hot water along with something else unspecified?

After midnight, we began to be joined on the trail by all the people who'd stayed in the huts spread up the mountain. We spent a lot of time trying to get in front of groups who were moving slower than the pace we wanted to go. By about two or three in the morning, the trail was one mass of people, with a slow queue on the inside, a slightly faster queue in the middle and the people like us who were overtaking on the outside. I must say it was one of the most surreal experiences I've had climbing a mountain, doing it at the same time as the population of a small town. Looking back down the trail, there was just one long line of lights zig-zagging up the slope, broken up by the bigger lights of the huts.

We arrived at the top at 4 a.m., and sat for an hour watching the dawn develop and the sun rise. It was quite cold by that time.

The sun appears

Superman strikes again

I think that we probably climbed too fast, and with the high altitude and lack of sleep, I wasn't feeling too well at the top. We had intended to walk most of the way around the crater rim to the track we were going to take down, but we decided it'd be best to lose some altitude as soon as possible. So we took the short way round, and after getting diverted a little by rocks and taking photos, we started down the Gotemba-guchi track.

Cool rocks + Carl

Over the edge

Now, why weren't we going back down the track we came up, along with the rest of Japan, and why had we chosen the longest track down? Well, the attraction of the Gotemba-guchi track was the sunabashiri, a giant sand slide that stretches maybe five kilometres down the lower slopes of the volcano. Besides falling, this is the fastest way down the mountain.

After taking two hours to cover one and a half kilometres, stumbling over loose rocks, I was beginning to worry that it would take all day to get to the bottom. But then …. we reached the sunabashiri.

Scree walkers' heaven

Imagine gliding smoothly down over an ankle-deep bed of small stones, the cool wind in your face and dust in your eyes, a barren landscape stretching on either side, and in front of you the track disappearing over the edge and into the clouds. Then imagine getting to the bottom and being covered in dust (yes, literally), with sore knees and stones in your shoes (if you didn't wear gaiters). That was the sunabashiri. We covered five kilometres in one and a half hours. Grand total: seven hours up, three hours at the top, three and a half hours down, zero hours sleep. Woo!

Climbing Fuji-san was certainly an experience of a lifetime. We probably did it the hard way, climbing when normal people are asleep, and I don't think I'd do it that way again. However, we saw the sun rise from the top of the tallest mountain in Japan, and had a lot of fun on the way.

Update Interview with Paul (intern #2)

Intern #2 Paul with his girlfriend Natsumi.

Erica here.

For those of you faithful readers who have been following the blog since the beginning, you will remember Paul Atkin. For the recent blog readers, Paul was intern #2 (2006-2007). He’s from Kelowna BC, Canada (a town not too far from my hometown Vancouver!) and he has come back to visit for one month. I took this opportunity to meet up with him and spring an interview. So if you ever wonder what happens to the interns after they leave the internship, well keep reading!

What have you been doing since the internship?

I went back and I have been enhancing my karate dojo (Kelowna Shotokan Karate). My father retired and I’ve taken over the dojo. Since returning, I went from 30 students to 90. I have about 50 kids and I’ve also opened up a second branch location of the dojo.

Aside from the dojo, I competed in the Canadian ShotoCanada Shotokan Nationals. I got gold in kumite and silver in kata.

What brings you back to Japan? The Wado Kai Nationals?

I’ve come back to visit all the friends I’ve made here, plus visit with my girlfriend's family.

What do you miss most about Japan?

The kids that I taught and the sense of purpose that the Japanese people hold. That respect and loyalty are very prominent. I find that if I ever get off track at home, coming back here puts me right back.

What do you miss least?

The weather. The hot, hot heat. That’s it.

What was the most memorable moment/event for you?

I got take part in a Budo martial arts festival. Arakawa Sensei’s dojo was chosen to represent Karate at the Nippon Budokan for the Kagami Biraki Festival in January 2007 when I was here (see post when later interns Carl Intern #4 & Lawrence Intern #3 attended the festival). I went to watch the event, but I got to partake in it. There were sumo wrestlers and people representing Judo. They broke a huge mochi (rice cake) and pieces were passed around to everyone. I stood amidst all these Japanese people representing different styles of martial arts and it was such an honour to be able to be a part of it...being non-Japanese and all.

What advice or words of wisdom do you have for Louise and I?

Just always try your best. Remember that you’re carrying something that someone else had started and you are trying to make it better for the next person. If we keep finding the right people, I don’t see why that's not going to happen. Oh and never quit.

Thank you Paul for those encouraging words and the best of luck at the Shotokan World’s!

Coming soon: An interview with Carl Jorgenson, intern #4!!

Carl Came Back!

Louise here,

Carl, Intern #4.0 (2008-2009) has recently visited Japan again. I took the opportunity to interview him:

How long have you been away?

About 40 days and 40 nights…

What did you do while you were at home?

I was quite busy actually. Amy and I had selections for the England Wadokai National Team a few days after we got back to the UK. We were both selected for kumite and to our surprise and more so to our horror, also for kata.

The week after that, we entered the Central England Karate Championships, Amy got 3rd place in Team Kumite and I got 3rd in Individual Kumite. It wasn’t a bad result considering that we were accustomed to fighting in Japanese events.

I ran a three week summer school for my club, Hartlepool Wadokai and started teaching some of the things I learned whilst training in Japan. I also had a lot of meetings with schools and sports centres arranging new Branch Dojo to start in September.

My dad also waited until I got back to the UK to start some major building work in his big old house. Whilst digging in the back yard we found a lot of human bones. So, it turned into a really big drama with lots of Police. Eventually, a university professor turned up to tell everyone that our family aren’t serial killers. It then turned into a two day archaeological dig that I helped with. It was really quite interesting, it turns out that my parents house was built on an Anglo-Saxon Monastery dating to about 640AD, and that the bones we found probably belonged to medieval nuns who were some of the first Christians in England.

Finally, over the weekend, we moved back into our house and started fixing 18 months of damage done by our tenants.

A busy 40 days…!

Why have you come back to Japan?

Well, when it came time to buy the flights home at the end of the internship, it was cheaper to buy a return ticket than one-way. So, I decided to make the return ticket good to compete in the JKF-Wadokai Nationals. I really wanted to see if I could improve on my ‘best-16’ placing in last year’s kumite event.

So, with my ego well and truly making the calls, I asked Arakawa Sensei to enter me into the competition again this year.

Update on the competition: I managed to crash out of kumite in the first round which naturally gave my ego a battering. I really don’t know what went wrong, my preparation was good; I was in relatively good shape and I got into the fight early, leading most of the way but eventually losing 4-3.

Carl in action

In kata, I also didn’t make it through which I really didn’t expect. I thought my kata performance was the best I’ve ever done, until I lost my balance and wobbled a bit, which lost me the bout.

The trip wasn’t all a complete waste though, because I got to climb Mount Fuji and catch the sunrise with my karate sister, Louise Fisk (New Zealand Wadokai) who is half of this year’s internship. This is something that we really wanted to do during the internship but we didn’t have time.

Where is Amy?

You’re not the first one to ask that question….! Amy is busy making our home suitable for human habitation and is already back at work with the Police, earning money to pay for everything etc… She wanted to come too, but we had a game of ‘rock-paper-scissors’ to decide who got to come back, and I won with my secret move ‘Sensei Scissors’. Amy does send her love though and she’ll be back next year for the Wado World Cup.

What do you miss about Japan?

The biggest thing is the feeling when you’re training at Shiramizu; it’s hard to put into words. The dojo has such a great atmosphere; everyone is working hard but having a great time doing it. Also, because everyone is at such a high technical standard, it makes everyone, even a cave-troll like me, perform better.

What did you most look forward to going back home?

A garlic sauce vegetarian Pizza from Mario’s pizza place in Church Street. No really!

What was the best experience you had while you were an Intern?

The best experience would have to be when Amy and I climbed Nantai-san in the Nikko national park. We had such a great time doing it, and it was the first time in ages that we had spent the day together after working and training so much. You should read the blog post that I wrote about it.

What do you think of the internship looking back on it?

I’m glad I did it and had the opportunity to meet so many nice people. If I had never applied, I probably would never have been introduced to Arakawa Sensei or got to know him. I think he’s a really nice guy who’s created something special at Shiramizu. I hope to learn from his example and re-create that feeling at my own dojo.

I think the internship is ideal for someone fresh out of university/college, before they get settled into the workplace. I think, looking back on last year, I had too many responsibilities at home to step away completely for 12 months; it really doesn’t help that I’m a total control freak either! Towards the end of the internship, I ended up micro-managing my dojo from Japan, I also took on more responsibilities within Sakagami Sensei’s association in England. This in addition to my intern duties and training made me a very busy guy…!

What’s next for you then?

We have an England Wadokai Kata Squad training session on Saturday 22nd (I get home at night on Thursday 20th), so I have a day to get over my jet-lag! Then hopefully, if I’m still awake, I’ll be able to attend the Sensei Bob Nash (US Wadokai) seminar which he is teaching in England on the Sunday too.

After that, I’ll have a few days off then Amy and I will get ready for the British Karate Federation (BKF) Championships in Edinburgh on 5th & 6th September. We’ve arranged quite a few seminars at our dojo with some of our association’s top instructors, then we fly out to Dublin, Ireland on 20th October for the FEW European Wadokai Championships.
I’m planning to come back in July next year, to have a long build up at Shiramizu before transferring to Nagoya City for the Wado World Cup. I’d also like another crack at the JKF-Wadokai Nationals again (the week after the World Cup) if that’s possible.

See you all next year…!