Day 3, first day at work...

Day 3 – 2nd July 2008
Up bright and early for my first day’s work, i will be shadowing Lawrence-San.
I had to get up very early and dress in full business attire, to make a good impression at my interview (this turned out to be an informal chat). As it turned out, i got up far too early, so i had a bit more of a sleep. I had to wake Amy up and get her to take me to the Wado train station (our local one) because i wasn’t too sure about how to get there, and i didnt think it would be very good to be late for my first day at work!.

We made it in about 10 minutes, we had a bit of a sit down and then i bought my first ticket @ 140 Yen and made my way through the turnstiles , under the walkway and onto the platform. The train arrived exactly when it was supposed to and i got on for the 5 min ride to Kuki station. At Kuki, i bought another ticket @ 740 Yen. I took this train on a 40 min ride to Akabane station where i met up with Lawrence, he had came out of work early to show me where to go. I bought another ticket @ 170 Yen, following the Siebu Ikebukuru line. I’m not sure how long i was on this train for, but we got off at Nerima Station. We came out of the station, which happens to be in the middle of Tokyo into what seems to be a busy business area. We took a short walk and entered the I.C.E building (the name of the company).

It was interesting to see NOVA are back in business after such a high profile forced closure of the company by the Japanese Government (they weren’t paying their staff!).

We arrived at our workplace @ 11.00am, which turns out to just be a sort of office room, in a tower block. I think i was expecting some sort of traditional school, never mind. Theres loads of resources, toys and books etc...
Lawrence introduced me to Oguchi Sensei – the owner of the school, she doesn’t speak much English and to Muyami, Oguchi Sensei’s daughter, who also works at the school.
The two ladies were concerned that i didn’t speak with a Canadian or American accent, and that is what they’re used to (Muyami-San is married to a Canadian). The interview basically consisted of Lawrence explaining why i wasn’t Canadian, he won them over by saying that i was a proper English perso whilst he is simply a `pretend` English person! which was funny.

After the brief introduction, we had a slow start, i watched Lawrence fix some wonky tables and chairs. Meanwhile, i was busying myself reading through the student profiles and some of the lesson course books etc... Whilst we were getting ourselves organised, Renee, daughter of Muyami-san was brought in. She is only 4 years old, and really cute, with a cheeky grin. She was acting all shy ‘cos there was a Gaigin (foreigner / white man!) in the room, but i soon won her over and we were mucking around and playing – i even got her to tell me her name.

The first teaching class was 1:30-2:20, It was a private lesson and went by very quickly and without incident.

We finished for lunch, Lawrence took me to a cheap Japanese food place. It cost less than £2.50 for the meal – bargain! The only problem is that its all meat, no vegetarian options. Its not really a problem though, because i pretty much gave up being a vegi the minute the plane landed at Narita Airport .
We went and picked up some snacks for later on, then headed back to the school.

The rest of the day was filled with back to back lessons:
3:00-3:40
This class was to knock my confidence a bit because i managed to make a 3 yr old cry!
The class started off well enough, we started the two kids with a somple alphabet game. Part way through, my kid started crying, and i mean crying! You’d think someone had slapped her in the face! I was quite pleased that the two ladies Muyami-San & Oguchi sensei where still there and the kids mother too.

It turns out that the poor kid had a bad experience at an international language school, she was taught by a white guy. Apparently he was a bit of a scumbag and was really mean to the kids. So she is terrified of white men – aka ME!

I ended up leaving the teaching area until the class finished. Aftert the class, we started playing a ball game. Which we slowly brought her into, by the end of the game, i could just about hand her the ball without her running off to her mum. I think i have some work to do here...

The rest of the classes went by pretty quickly and without incident and we finished at 6.40pm

All in all, it was a good experience. I finished with a splitting headache, but it was very good to see how you can run the same lesson (with slightly different emphasis) with all the different abilities and age groups.

After work, we headed back to Nerima station. There had been some sort of accident, i think a house fell onto the tracks or a train crashed into a house or something. Anyway, this meant that a few trains were delayed, so we had to take the long way home, on the Tokyo ring route.

This turned out to be an experience of running for trains, with blisters off my new shoes and one train were we were literally packed in like sardines. As we all got on, a few Japanese gentlemen stumbled. It was a very cosy ride, but thankfully most people, including us got off after a few stations. I can’t quite remember which trains we got back to Wado station.

We walked home, separating at the Wado bridge. I quickly got changed into my Gi and headed to the Shirimizu Dojo going past Lawrence-san’s home on the way to pick him up. He being used to being punctual, the Japanese way, he was already waiting outside for me. The walk to the dojo is only a few minutes, so we arrived for about 8:30pm (the class started at 8:00pm) but Arakawa sensei doesn’t mind the intern (me) being late because its part of the job.

The session was run by Suzuki Sensei. We quickly bowed in, warmed up briefly and moved into the lines for Kata. We were practising Pinan Yodan. And then Wanshu, we all practised this together and then the class split in two. With half practising at a time, when it was my turn, i was pushed to the front. We performed single techniques first, then all the way through, which of course i messed up.

We had a short break, then put on our hand mitts and did 30 mins of fight drills. It was all good training. We bowed out, and then everyone just hung around. Not like in UK dojo’ where everyone runs off straight after the lesson. I introduced myself to a few of the Japanese guys in my worst Japanese, which of course they loved – the trick is the make loads of hand signals, speak slowly, and smile lots .
Me and Lawrence stayed back a little, Amy just sat and watched ‘cos she had been there since the start, i practised a bit of stretching, a little bag work and makiwara. We then got changed and headed back home for a well deserved shower and food.