Carl's twisted tales of life and love in Japan

Lost in Translation...

2009-04-21T23:24:00.001-07:00

No, this post isn't about the movie!

I just thought I'd share a funny conversation that I had with Arakawa Sensei today over lunch. Every Wednesday morning, their is an adult training session at the Shiramizu dojo. Afterwards the students and instructors usually go for lunch and today was no exception.

The instructors were talking about a new movie that was coming out in Japan, I could follow a little bit of the conversation even though it was all in Japanese.

Arakawa Sensei asked if I knew the movie 'Ai-yama'. I said no. He told me it was very famous, about machine suits (?), but I just assumed that it was some japanese style movie. I picked up my mobile and quickly went on the internet searching for 'Ai-yama' but only found brief references to Yoga.

Anyway, Arakawa Sensei searched the internet and showed me this:

Arakawa Sensei said 'IRONMAN' and not 'AI-YA-MA'...

I thought it was funny anyways...

Kita-Kasushika Area Karate Championships

2009-02-09T01:20:00.000-08:00

The Shiramizu English intern tag-team!

Yesterday was the Kita-Kasushika Area Karate Championships held at the Asukaru Centre in Satte City. I thought this was going to be a small local competition, I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find out that there was over 500 entrants and a reasonable number of competitors in my own divisions.

For a full report on the comp, go to http://japankarateintern.blogspot.com.

I just thought I'd mention that Amy performed very well, making her way to the finals of her division and took gold. Her FIRST EVER Individual Gold medal, a great achievement in Japan... Nice one Amy!

Amy 'high fiving' her opponent during a match!

Making her way comfortably to the finals to win her first ever individual Gold Medal, in Japan of all places!!!

Amy with her FIRST EVER individual Gold Medal!

Lawrence in action...!

Carl's winning punch

Carl mid-flight, a moment before the right leg connects to his opponents head

In other news, I went onto to get 2nd place after some good fighting... but I think the day was Amy's!

Shinkansen...!

2008-12-28T23:33:00.000-08:00

Nozomi Shinkansen...

With the plans for our expedition to Kyoto organised for January 2nd - 4th 2009, well under way I realised that I had better get a move on and actually buy the train tickets. Amy and I wanted to ride the Shinkansen, or bullet train (called this because the train looks unsurprisingly like a bullet!) and get there in style. Lawrence and Okano, one of our Japanese friends from Shiramizu would be driving to Kyoto in Okano’s car.

Amy was working today so it was left to me to get the train tickets, the closest station that I could get the Shinkansen tickets from is (I believe) Omiya so I caught an early, well early for me train.

Light reading...

Nihon-go
I thought I would try and do the job right and not be some ignorant foreigner. I could have easily grunted a few words in semi English-Japanese like ‘Tokyo’ ‘Shinkansen’ ‘Kyoto’ ‘ichi-gatsu (January)’. It only takes a little effort to actually make coherent and polite sentences, and I think it makes all the difference. Anyway, I looked through a few (?) Japanese language books for the best and easiest way to ask for the tickets... In the end I managed to form a sentence that wouldn’t make me seem stupid!

30 minutes later, I was at the information centre in Omiya station ready to buy the tickets but I was faced with three separate queues. Being English, my first instinct was to join the longest but I decided to ask for advice instead. I mustered my non-existent linguistic skills to ask which queue I should join, and was marshalled to the longest – note to self: always trust your instincts!

The queue led to a series of automated machines, so all the work I put into my Japanese speak was useless. These machines were actually very good, and they had that magical ‘in English’ button which makes my life so much easier. At this point, the very nice guy who I asked about the queues came over to make sure that I was ok getting the tickets, I thanked him and started pressing buttons.

our train tickets...:-)
A minute later I had departed with the best part of 30,000 yen (approx £150.00) and had mine and Amy’s Shinkansen tickets – woo! Mission accomplished...!

FYI

Click on the map to zoom in...

For those of you that may be interested, and purely because I really had nothing better to do, I’ve plotted the rough course of our train on the map so that you can see where we’ll be going.

Click on the map to zoom in...

It's cold in Japan but...

2008-11-23T23:32:00.000-08:00

Not quite as cold as England!!!

If you can make this out, it's a picture of my sexy red Citroen C4 which at this very moment is missing me loads! As you can see, she (yes my car is a girl!) is not only having to suffer with my brother driving her around BUT on top of all that, she's getting covered in snow. My older brother Mikey thought it would be funny to send me this photo, I think just to rub in the fact that I'm having to ride a bike everyday instead of my car!

I think I'm going to stop moaning about the cold over here in Japan, at least until next month when the Japanese snow arrives... :-)

a quick update...

2008-10-31T03:26:00.000-07:00

Well, what have I been up to lately?

I don't really know for sure, I just know that I've been busy. Really really busy... Since landing in Japan and taking over the Internship at Shiramizu, I've added two more jobs on three mornings - both jobs are at Kindergartens. The first job is Monday and Tuesday mornings in Sugito and the second is a Friday morning in Iwatsuki (about 25 minutes away from Sugito by train). The second is very convenient because Iwatsuki is on the way to Omiya, where I catch the train for my Friday afternoon job in Yoshinohara.

These new jobs mean that I now have three 'proper' days of work (Tuesday; Thursday; Friday), the other two day (Monday and Wednesday) I only work a few hours. My working holiday visa only lets me work 20 hours, but don't let that fool you though. If you include the travellig time between some of the jobs (Thursday and Friday) and the fact that I train at Shiramizu almost every day, sometimes a few times a day, my week soon fills up...

Maybe at a later date, I'll put online my super-busy work and training schedule so my readers can see what I do and when...

Nihon-go
Nihon-go is the Japanese language... and it's pretty tricky. Some Japanese people like to think that foreigners can't learn their language. However, this mainly stems from the Tokugawa-era when it was made illegal to teach foreigners Nihon-go!

I've lately been studying Hiragana, which is ONE of the Japanese writing systems. There are approximately 100 different Hiragana characters to memorise (compared to 26 letters in the English alphabet!). Once I've mastered Hiragana, I'll need to learn the 100 Katakana, the writing system for describing all things foreign. After that, there is just the simple matter of learning the 6000 kanji, or chinese characters in use. Of course, this is just written Japanese, speaking is a whole lot more fun... All in all, it shouldn't be a problem really, it's all about determination...

My current objectives:

To find a few really cute Japanese lady friends to teach me Nihon-go (Japanese!)

To erm... learn Nihon-go

To fix my karate techniques

To learn the legendary kamehameha!

To survive the Japanese winter season*

*I survived the summer season with little ill-effect, BUT it's getting cold already so I'm not looking forward to winter at all!

Well... that's it for now, I'll try to write again soon...

Sugito Taikai

2008-10-27T03:32:00.001-07:00

Carl here...

...for a huge report on the 33rd Sugito Taikai (Sugito Championships) which was held on Sunday 26th October at the Takanodai Elementary School in Sugito.

Team Gaijin! Lawrence, Carl, Amy...

There are only two karate dojo in Sugito, Shiramizu (Wadokai) and Zenshinkan (Shotokan), so a number of dojo from the surrounding towns were also invited to bulk out the entries. This was still going to be the smallest competition that I had entered so far in Japan, so I was eager to see how it would work out. Size wise it will be closer to the ‘inter club’ events that I’m planning for my dojo in England.

Set up
Lawrence, Amy and I walked to the school (only 15 minutes from our apartment) and arrived for 7:15am to help Arakawa Sensei and his team of volunteers to set up the competition. The set up was pretty straight forward, 4 taped areas in the middle of the hall, chairs for spectators around three sides and the officials table at the top of the hall opposite the entrance.

The tournament had 14 kata and 13 kumite divisions with 411 individual entrants. This number of entrants can be halved because most competitors entered both kata and kumite.

Group Warm up

Warm up... Shiramizu style!

As is customary at Japanese competitions, the dan grade cadets put everyone through a standard warm-up of drills and stretching. The Shiramizu competitors took up most of the hall and at a guess, I would say that they accounted for 80% of the entrants.

Opening Ceremony
Again, this was pretty standard. There were a few short speeches and Takuya Iwasaki gave a very good roman salute to Matsuda Sensei from the Zenshinkan dojo, on behalf of all the competitors.

Kata
I must admit that after the opening ceremony, I found somewhere quiet to go to sleep. If it wasn’t for Lawrence waking me up I would have probably missed my event! I did watch a few events, and I thought the standard was very good.

Men’s Kata
There were only five entries in this category, 3 of whom were from Shiramizu, myself, Lawrence and Tsubasa and the other two were friends of Lawrence. My only goal in kata was to perform without being nervous; my last two attempts at kata have been very shaky performances. I was first up with an offering of Chinto, with a guy from the Shotokan dojo with Kushanku. Lawrence was up next against the guy who beat me. Lawrence also performed Chinto, which I don’t think he’ll mind me saying, was not up to his usual standard. The Shotokan guy went through to the final to face the winner of the next match between Tsubasa and the other guy from the Shotokan dojo. Tsubasa performed very well, and got all 5 flags and thus went onto the finals. The final match was no contest, Tsubasa easily won with a great performance of Chatanyara Kushanku kata and got all 5 flags.

Cadet & Ladies Kata - Amy’s Kata Debut...

Misaki in action
I watched Amy’s category with interest as it was her debut performance in a kata competition. Her ladies kata division was merged with the cadet’s because Amy was the only senior entry. The cadets are all very good, in particular Misaki and Kana from Shiramizu.

Amy, mid-Chinto
Amy gave a good performance of Chinto but didn’t get through the first round but she enjoyed the experience and will definitely be entering the next kata event.

Kana, event final, Superinpei
I was particularly impressed with Kana’s Superinpei in the final, the kata is overly long and she performed it exceptionally well, winning with 3 flags to 2.

After the kata events, we all stopped for a 1 hour lunch break. During the break, most of Shiramizu donned their mitts for some kumite drills. I took the opportunity to beat up some of the kids who kidnapped my IPod earlier in the day...

Kumite
I didn’t watch many events, I was too conscious of my need to medal. I’d come away from the last two competitions without a prize and was eager to put an end to the dry spell. To add to the pressure, there were only 3 people in my category (including Lawrence) and I’d been given a bye to the final. Also, this was only the second time that I’d used one of the Japanese head guards, my first outing with this didn’t go particularly well!

Amy’s kumite
Amy was again the only entry for the ladies kumite so her division was combined with the cadets. I had my fingers crossed that she wouldn’t get disqualified.

Misaki, Amy, Kana
Amy’s first fight was against Misaki, who is more of a kata perfectionist than a fighter. Despite this, it was a very close fight. Both fighters traded very well, and the result could have gone either way. Amy however found her stride first and settled into delivering solid gyakuzuki’s as counter punches. Amy won the fight 6-4. Her next fight would be the final which would be held a little later on in a special ‘end of day’ event.

Men’s kumite
Lawrence was matched with the guy who beat us both in the kata.

Lawrence (blue) in action...
The fight was very good; Lawrence quickly took the fight to his opponent and found his stride.

Go Lawrence...
I was trying to coach from the sidelines but I’m not sure if he heard. Despite not being a fan of kumite, Lawrence is actually a very good counterpuncher. Whenever his opponent attacked, he was ready with a solid reverse punch to get the point.

Still Lawrence...
He easily outmatched his opponent to win the bout on the buzzer 7-1.

The Finals
After all the preliminary rounds had finished on the four areas, they were all dismantled and a central area was created for the 13 final matches. This was a really nice touch to the tournament as it let the crowd get closer to the action. The referee’s and the fighters were also introduced over the PA before each match which added to the excitement of each bout.

The final events ran in typical order, youngest to oldest. There were some very close matches but most of the juniors stuck with hand techniques to try and get the 4 points clear.

Yusuke (Arakawa Sensei’ oldest son) fought very well in his match, he was clinical and his opponent didn’t get close. An easy 4-0 win!

Yuki and Rikuto, Kumite final
Yuki and Rikuto (male cadets) from Shiramizu was a good match, with both guys throwing some great combinations including a few good sweeps and a well placed jodan-geri. Yuki won the match by a comfortable margin.

Amy and Kana, Kumite final
Amy and Kana’s fight was close, I thought Amy would have won easily but Kana, quickly found a weakness in Amy’s attack and used it to win the match.

Next up was the men’s kyu grade final between two Shiramizu fighters. I didn’t watch much of this bout as I was getting warmed up for my match. What I did see of the fight was a brawl, with a few warnings being handed out. I always find this category to be the same - heavy contact but lots of effort.

Carl Vs Lawrence
I’d just watched Lawrence fight the best I’ve ever seen him fight, with some great counter punching. So I was a little apprehensive when we were called up. I couldn’t let him get settled in the fight otherwise it would become a very close contest. I took the fight to him, measuring distance with my lead hand trying to throw him off, and launched with a tobikomizuki to get a point. Lawrence launched in with a jab, but I was faster with a gyakuzuki to get another point. I then set him up for a jodan-uramawashigeri (hook kick to the head) which the crowd liked. Next, Lawrence moved in with a gyakuzuki-chudan which landed and should have scored because I was a little slow to react, I side stepped with a jab to the head. The referee wanted to give Lawrence the point, but was overruled by the three flag officials who, blindsided only saw my technique land. The result was 6-0.

Closing ceremony and kumite awards
Once the area was cleared away, all the competitors lined up for the kumite presentations. After the awards were given out, there were a few final speeches including a funny ‘lost-property’ announcement by Arakawa sensei. After the final ceremony everyone helped to clear up the tournament, which took a little more than ten minutes.

The Shiramizu entrants... (picture from Arakawa Sensei' blog)
Summary
The tournament was very well organised (I’ve put a few observations at the end of this post) and even finished early! It’s a shame that my kumite event was so small because it felt like an empty victory, despite being my first Japanese medal! Amy was quite pleased with her 2nd place medal too, which was also her first Japanese medal. Everyone had a great time and I think the way Arakawa sensei arranged the kumite finals was fantastic and really added to the atmosphere.

_______________________________________________________________________________

About the tournament

Officials and Volunteers
I think it’s a testament to the character of Arakawa Sensei and Uehara Sensei (chief referee) that they got so many officials to help at the event. Kata had 5 flag officials, then an adjudicator and maybe 5 more people running the table. Kumite had 3 flag officials, the referee, adjudicator and maybe 10 people running the table. At a rough count I would say that there were 50 volunteers/officials for 4 areas.

Run like clock-work!
As soon as a category has begun, volunteers are getting the competitors for the next category ready in a separate location, with all relevant equipment. All ‘red’ competitors are put in one line, and all ‘blue’ in another. As soon as the final match has finished on the area, the new competitors are marched into the main hall. The red competitors go to the ‘red’ side and blue to theirs. The event is ready to go by the time the referee’s have bowed out. This organisation ensured that the competition could finish early.

Tournaments in the UK often over run because of either a lack of officials and volunteers or because competitors are not where they are supposed to be, with the right equipment when called for.

Points system
Kata was run as WKF standard, red and blue flags, 5 flag officials with both aka and Ao performing their kata simultaneously except in the finals.

Kumite for the juniors was to 4 points clear, cadets and seniors to 6 points, including the final. This ensured that the event ran so quickly. If I was to adopt this system I would probably have all events run to 6 points clear, because it’s too easy to get 4 points, one lucky kick and a punch and it’s all over! Also, for the finals (if time allowed) I would probably go for the WKF standard 8 points clear as it gives the fighters more chance to take risks and is therefore much more interesting to watch.

Awards
What I think is a good idea is that the number of awards is dependent upon the number of competitors in that category. So, in large categories there were 8 awards – medals and certificates for 1st, 2nd and joint 3rd and certificates for next best 4. Some of the smaller categories (like my kumite one) only had 1 medal. I think this system is rather good, not only does it cut down on the cost of a tournament, BUT and perhaps more importantly, competitors have to earn the prize rather than just being awarded it for being there!

Gifts
Along with the standard event program, all competitors were given a pen printed with the tournament name on free of charge. A small and inexpensive way of having the event remembered!

Arakawa Sensei, Masters Party

2008-10-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

Carl here...

On Sunday 19th October the seniors from the Shiramizu dojo decided to have party. This wasn’t just any old party though; it was to celebrate Arakawa Sensei becoming the All-Japan Masters Champion in the kumite division. It’s a great achievement to win this prestigious tournament, and Sensei trained hard for it, so why not have a party to celebrate winning?

Amy and I

Ueno-san had organised the party and had arranged a bus to pick up most people on the way to the venue in Satte city. Amy and I, Lawrence and a fashionably ‘on-time’ Richard Sensei joined a bunch of people, including Arakawa Sensei at the Shiramizu dojo to catch the bus. The journey was pretty un-eventful but spirits were high all the same. We stopped at Sugito Takanodai station en-route to pick up some more party-goers and then we headed to the venue.

Our group was ushered upstairs to a huge and very traditional room. There were four large tables set up already with the food laid out, with cushions on the floor for everyone to sit on.

Hmmm, where do we sit?
I think it’s funny that us gaijin didn’t know where we should sit, we hung around in the hall way for a few minutes and watched what everyone else did. This really didn’t help as no-one was quite sure where they should sit. Richard Sensei explained later on that no-one wanted to appear to be in-polite by sitting were their rank didn’t warrant. This is typical of Japanese society; everyone has their place in their respective circles, be it sporting, social, working or family.

Anyway, Richard took up a place at Arakawa Sensei’ table and Amy, Lawrence and I claimed a full table for the rest of the international arm of the Shiramizu dojo. This only lasted a few minutes because we were quickly joined by a number of others from the dojo which we didn’t mind at all.

Get the party started...
There was a few short speeches to kick off the party, Ueno-san explained why we were all here and Arakawa Sensei offered a few words of thanks to everyone for showing up to celebrate with him.

Dodgy food!

Before I dared try any of the rather dodgy food, I asked Yamazaki Sensei what some of the more unusual bits were. I think (!) the stuff in the large red pot was duck with an egg on top; there was also a small selection of tempura, raw fish, cooked sea food and a selection of weird stuff in the middle. After looking at the food for a few minutes I was ready to head to McDonalds, but then everyone started to tuck in so I downed a beer and braced myself to try to sushi!

Left to Right: Carl (Intern V4), Amy, Lawrence (Intern V3), Richard

Ok, so I was nearly sick. My body doesn’t like raw fish, at all! I quickly washed it down with more beer and moved onto the tempura, which thankfully tasted much better. At this point I saw my escape; one of the waitresses brought a crate of beer into the room. So I started delivering the beer to the different tables, topping up empty drinks along the way.

Speeches
In what seemed like no time, the group of us had gone through a couple of crates of beer and it was time for everyone’s speech, a lot of the food laid untouched.

The speeches were kicked off by Fujimoto Sensei, a good friend of Arakawa Sensei. Of course, I have no idea what was said because it was all in Japanese. I’m going to guess that he said, Arakawa Sensei is a great guy and congratulations on winning the Masters! Everyone took their turn offering their congratulations to Sensei and saying what an inspiration he was. Listening to the speeches, I started to think what I could say when it was my turn, I had no idea. I was just going to wing it!

Amy presenting Arakawa Sensei with flowers

Amy on the other hand, had asked a number of her colleagues from work to translate her speech for her. I hoped I wouldn’t have to follow her speech. Amy’s speech was very well received, I think everyone like the amount of effort she had put into it. She said something like: ‘Sensei, congratulations on winning such a prestigious competition. You’re an inspiration to me and all your students please teach me to be as great as you!’

Well, needless to say I had to follow Amy’s speech and being the ‘official’ intern, expectations were now high. I easily coasted through my last party speech in Japanese and then Amy’s great speech, I’m sorry to say that my Japanese speech was terrible.

I managed something like:

“Good evening (everyone replied good evening), ok see you...”

...I tried to escape out the door at this point which got a few laughs.

“Congratulations Arakawa Sensei. Ueno-san, thanks for the Party.”

Ok, I know it was lame. I was going for a short but sweet speech – honest!

Thank you Keiko-san

Arakawa was last to give a speech, which went on for a while. He gave us an animated blow by blow account of his win at the competition (which I’ve already written about on this blog). He also gave his long suffering wife a huge bunch of flowers as a thank you.

After the speeches ended, we all posed for a few photos and then we were kicked out. Apparently these party venues are booked for time-blocks, and the beer is all you can drink in that time.

Journey home
The bus ride back to the dojo was quite entertaining as everyone was a little but tipsy, Fujimoto Sensei was complimenting Amy on her speech and his younger brother was singing Beatles songs and asking me if I understood what he was singing. I also ended up singing parts of my favourite Beatles song – Help!

Summary
The food was definitely not to my tastes and I’m sorry to say that the Shiramizu end of year party will also be held there. The party was still a lot of fun, everyone had the chance to chill out, drink loads and have a good chat. Like I’ve already said, it’s a great achievement to win the Masters tournament but Arakawa Sensei just takes it all in his stride and like Richard Sensei has written previously, he has a lot of goals for next year to keep him occupied.

Kindergarten Sports Festival

2008-10-22T02:28:00.000-07:00

4 of the kids from the orange class

Carl here...

I realise that my last couple of posts (on the 'Karate Intern' blog) have been about sightseeing, so I just wanted to reassure my readers that the internship isn't all play and no work; I do occasionally get my hands dirty, sometimes!

I was recently asked if I would like to volunteer to help at my kindergarten's sports festival. Obviously, wanting to get involved in as much as possible whilst in Japan, I jumped at the chance; I even volunteered Amy to help too! The scheduled day was Saturday 12th October, but on the morning I received a phone call from the kindergarten principle to say that the event had been postponed until the Sunday because of rain. This change of date meant that Amy couldn’t help out because she was already working in Tokyo, she would be dressing up as a witch for her kindergarten’ Halloween party.

In the beginning...
Sunday morning came, and the weather couldn’t have been better, a clear blue sky. The festival was being held in the kindergarten’s field, over the road from the main kindergarten building, this is very convenient because it's only 5 minutes along the road from my apartment. As I cycled towards the kindergarten, I found myself becoming more and more wary. I was passing a lot of cars with kindergarten kids in, and there full family’s! I was unsure of how I was supposed to be helping out; I had been practising various racing games and loads of dancing with the kids over the past few weeks, I had all my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t have to dance in front of 1000 people - 280 kids and their families, plus all the teachers and special guests, oh and did I mention that they had a TV crew?

...the risen sun!

Opening Ceremony
The event kicked off with all the students marching onto the field according to their respective class, and then the parent volunteers also marched on. I had the privilege of marching at the front of everyone, alongside the flag bearer, I had to make sure that the flag, and the little kid holding it didn’t take off in the wind! The ceremony was very good, especially since some of the kids are only 3 years old; they had to stand in line for a long time, during all the speeches and the raising of the Japanese flag and national anthem.

part of the openinig ceremony

The day consisted of lots of different games, races and general activities and everyone was encouraged to get involved. All the kids were kept busy, and most of the parents took part in at least one activity.

The first event
This was the first race of the day. The circuit was really good, the kids started by being a human ‘tank’, which was made out of cardboard.

They then had to run under a big net...

...and pick up some ‘washing’ and put it into a basket and run to the next stage (with the basket) and ‘hang up’ the washing on a clothes line, then they had to sprint to the end. A unique way to teach life skills!

In another game, the kids had to throw bean bags into baskets above them.
Two teams competed against each other, the team with the most bean bags was the winner.

The Parent and child skipping (4 people) was fun to watch, the most successful teams were those in which the parents just carried the kids and jumped. I’m not sure if that was cheating or not!

The parents’ relay races were fun to watch. Each team had 8 people in, some of the parents got very ‘into’ it and dressed up for the occasion. This wasn’t to be a simple ‘running-only’ race however, in the spirit of trying to embarrass the parents as much as possible there was a little bit more to it. The parents ran for the first few metres whilst blowing up a balloon, when they got to the designated spot they had to sit in the balloon to burst it. Then they had to run another few hundred metres and get in some giant sacks, once they had hopped 10 metres or so, they had to sprint to the finish and pass on the baton.

Band procession
The Band procession was very good, especially when you remind yourself that some of these kids are only 3 and 4 years old. I’ve had a drum kit for years and these kids still kept a better rhythm than I can!

We had an hour break for lunch, and all us teachers were served up some very nice sushi.

Kids Relay races
This was fun to watch, some of the kids didn’t seem to realise or maybe care that it was a race, and they were quite content slowly jogging around the circuit. They all had fun all the same, and that’s really what counts!

Parents, 20-man skipping
This game was just for the fathers and was very funny to watch, imagine 20 grown men try to skip in unison!

Dancing
The kids have been practising this for a few weeks now and I'm very sorry to say that I know the dance off by heart!

After a few more different dances, I was (rather reluctantly) given the left hand of one of the teachers who had dressed up as a superhero, I'm sorry that I don't have a photo because her costume was very good. I was marched onto the field and then I had to help 'show' everyone the dance. Though thankfully, I don’t have any embarrassing photos of that to put online!

The Final Event
The final event was the finals of the parents relay event. The teachers (including me!) would be racing against the winners of the earlier heats. No pressure they said, but the teachers always win! We had to run ¾ of the way around, get into a big sack and hop for about 20 metres, then sprint the rest of the way and pass the baton onto the next team member.

Closing ceremony
For the closing ceremony, all the kids and volunteers marched back onto the field and the classes that had accumulated the most points throughout the day had trophies awarded to them. After the awards ceremony and speeches, the Japanese flag was lowered and the day ended.

Despite getting some seriously pink sunburn, it was a really good day and my cheeks were aching because I had been smiling and laughing so much. I think I will be incorporating some of the games (especially the parent relay race and the ‘human-tank’) into my karate club’ summer event when I return to the UK.

Rescue Mission...

2008-08-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

We had a great day out at Kamakura (see previous post); we visited loads of important temples, the great Buddha, even the beach. It was a good day; all that was left was to get on the train home at the right time to make it in time for training which started at 8pm. We worked out that if we boarded the train at 6pm at Kamakura-Eki, we would arrive at Wado-Eki and still have time to get changed and to the dojo. No problem.

The journey home couldn’t be simpler, the ‘Shonan-Shinjuku line’ goes all the way from Kamakura to Kuki, and so there is no need to change trains. We have to change at Kuki for a train to Wado, but that’s only a 3 minute train journey. As we were getting on the train near the start of its journey, we were able to get seats (trains can get filled to capacity during rush hours), so this made the journey a little easier. We sat down, plugged our IPod’s in and dozed off.

When we got to Kuki, we got up and headed towards the gate. As I stepped off the train I reached for my phone to check the time, but the phone wasn’t in my pocket. It was obvious that I’d left it on the train, and I just had time to see the train doors close and the train leave the station.

Amy, always quick thinking, pulled out her dictionary and started looking up the words for ‘phone, left on train’ etc... And we headed up to speak to the ticket guy in the station. The guy was very helpful, he understood straight away what I had done, he checked the train schedule and explained that the train would finish at Koganei-Eki at 9pm, and would be cleaned by 9.30pm. If there was anything left on the train, it would be found then and handed in. He asked for a contact number, so with both Richard and Lawrence already in Canada, I gave him Arakawa Sensei’ number. He said he would call at 9.30pm tonight.

We said our thanks and headed to the platform for Wado, Amy laughing at my stupidity. When we got home, I got cleaned up and headed for the dojo. When I got their Sensei was in the middle of teaching the Adult class, so I went into the small office and checked my email while I waited. After the lesson, I explained the problem to Sensei. He was really helpful, he called my phone and left a voicemail message and then he started to look up the number for AU, the phone network in order to block the phone. Whilst he was looking, his mobile phone rang; it was the guy from the station. He explained that my phone had been found at Koganei-Eki and that I could collect it myself or they could post it out. I agreed to collect it on the next morning. Sensei was very happy for me; he shook my hand as he said that I was very lucky. I agreed.

The rescue operation the next morning was very straight forward, all I had to do was go to Koganei-Eki which is about 1 hour from Kuki, pick up my phone, and come home. Hopefully I won’t have to repeat this again!

Carl

Kozu Tsumi doku desu ka?

2008-08-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

Kozu Tsumi doku desu ka, this roughly translates into ‘where is the parcel located?’ Let me explain.

Just before Amy and I left England, we thought that it would be a nice gesture if we could give every Shiramizu student a small present from Hartlepool Wadokai. This would be a great way for us to ahem, bribe (!) all the kids into liking us! No seriously, we thought it would help to reinforce the international links with both dojos.

We needed something that would be small enough to bring in our luggage, something English, which you can’t get in Japan, and we needed 500 of them – easy enough! The obvious choice was a small key ring with the Hartlepool logo on. Ok, so we knew what we wanted.

We spent the best part of a week looking around all of Hartlepool’s tourist shops. The choice they had was pretty poor, unless we wanted something with the monkey on. The other problem was that we needed to bulk buy, for some reason no-one stocked 500 Hartlepool key rings. By the end of the week, we were quickly running out of options, it was now Friday and we would be flying out to Japan on the Sunday! Even Ethan Hunt would struggle with this one...

We decided to go to the Christ church, a converted church which is now an art gallery, right in the middle of town to pick up some small presents for Arakawa Sensei, Richard, Rei and Lawrence. Whilst we were there we had a look around their small gift shop and noticed the custom made key rings that they had. After making some enquiries with the shop keeper, it was agreed that she would pass on our contact details to their manufacturer.

The manufacturer turned out to be local, and he called us that very same day. He agreed to make a sample key ring, with the Hartlepool Wadokai logo on for Saturday. Saturday came, and the guy delivered and we quickly ordered 500 key rings and 200 small badges too. The only problem was that he simply couldn’t make 500 key rings over night, so the only option was to post the finished products to us in Japan hence the ‘where is the parcel located?’.

My mother posted the finished products out to us within a matter of days, and we waited and waited and waited. After 3 weeks, I started to wonder if the parcel had gone missing, or maybe had been stopped by customs or something. I didn’t really want to bother Sensei with this small problem, as he is a very busy man, more so now with the World’s just around the corner, besides, I was pretty confident that I could resolve this myself.

On my next free day, I decided to cycle to the Post Office, which is only a 10 minute cycle ride from my house. I had my dictionary in hand, and I was pretty confident that I knew how to explain my predicament. I knew the basic words, though I wasn’t too sure of how to group them into a sentence, I decided just to ‘wing’ it. I was armed with 3 Japanese words as I walked to the counter.

Parcel - Kozu tsumi
From - Kara
England - Egirisu

Despite being ignorant of the word order, I was confident that I could get the message across. The first guy I spoke to was very polite, and he kindly gave me an envelope to post a parcel to England. I repeated my question, Kozu tsumi doku desu ka? At this point, a post office lady came along to help me out. I managed to convey that I was waiting for a parcel, so they had a look around for it. They quickly concluded that it must be at Sugito central post office, I thought this was funny because I had foolishly assumed that the parcel would be at my local post office. It doesn’t even work like that in England, so I don’t know why I thought it would in Japan. The post office manager kindly wrote down the phone number for the office.

After thanking the two workers and bowing my way out, I headed back home so that I could look at my Sugito map and see where the sorting office is. After getting myself organised, dictionary still at hand, I arrived at the central sorting office. I went through the same thing as last time, and to be fair, the two people serving me were even more friendly and helpful. They searched everywhere, but in the end they concluded that it can’t have arrived yet. I was grateful for help but all I could do was wait and see if it would turn up.

You might not find this story particularly interesting, but I think it’s great to see how accommodating the Japanese people are. Once they realise that you don’t understand the language, and you’re totally out of your depth, but trying anyway, they go out of their way to help. It also shows that you can get by with just a basic understanding of the language, just as long as you keep smiling.

So what happened to the parcel? Well, as you would expect after my mini adventure, the parcel was delivered by courier the very next day. Typical!

Carl

Kamakura

2008-08-15T01:35:00.000-07:00

Since arriving in Japan, I've wanted to visit Kamakura. This is effectively, the birth place of the samurai. Are you ready? here cometh the history lesson...

In the 12th Century, the Taira family and the Minamoto family, both offshoots of the imperial line, had come to dominate the affairs of the Heian court. They were quite literally at each others throats in a battle for supremecy. In 1160, the Taira won a major battle, killing the Minamoto leader Yoshitomo in the process. This should have secured their control over Japan, it didn't. After the battle, they spared his 13 year old son, Yoritomo and sent him into exile, in doing this they made a serious mistake.

Yoritomo had 20 years to gather support against the Taira, and plan his revenge. In 1180, he launched a rebellion and chose Kamakura, a natural fortress as his base of operations.

Within 5 years, Yoritomo had completely destroyed the Taira, and the Minamoto had control of Japan. In 1192, Yoritomo forced the imperial court to name him shogun, effectively making him the head of state. He left the emperor in Kyoto as a figurehead, but ran Japan's first shogunate government from Kamakura, where it stayed for 141 years.

We had an early start from Wado, but not too early to hit the rush hour on the trains. We arrived in Kita-Kamakura at 11.00am and headed straight to the closest temple we could find, which was opposite the station.

Engaku-ji

Founded in 1282, this is the second most important Zen monastery in town and the biggest. For us, this was our first taste of Japanese temples, and we weren't let down. The photo's do enough talking, but it was very relaxing walking around the complex, especially when you can smell the insence burning.

Kencho-ji

This is the most important temple in Kamakura, and established in 1250, claims to be the oldest in Japan. Despite this temple being smaller than Engaku-ji, there is still plenty to see. The only problem was with the sheer amount of steps to climb. We climbed all the way to the top of mountain for some great panoramic views of Sagami bay and Fuji-san.

The Minatomo Shrine, Tsuru-ga-oka Hachiman-gu

This temple is dedicated to Emperor Ojin, his wife and his mother - from whom Minamoto no Yoritomo claimed descent.

Daibutsu - The great Buddha

The 37ft bronze figure was cast in 1292, and was originally housed in a huge temple. In 1495, the temple was washed away in a tidal wave. For over 500 years, the buddha has faced all the extremes of the seasons from freezing winters to scorching summers.

It's a very impressive place, and you instantly feel at peace in the presence of such a huge (literally) symbol of Buddhism.

After spending most of the day seaking spiritual enlightenment, there was only really one thing to do next. We headed for the beach.

Off to the beach...

The weather was settling down by the time we got to Sagami bay, so it was a good time to just sit down on the dirty grey sand and chill out. There was quite a lot of litter on the beach, which was disappointing but no doubt the beach had been filled to bursting by thousands of Tokyo-ites eager to catch some rays.

It was great watching all the surfers and windsurfers in action, and the best part? there was still plenty of eye candy around.

We walked back along the beach towards Kamakura-eki, walking past lots of bars, some of which had pretty good dance music playing. One place in particular had a great beat that Gaijin and local's alike were dancing too. We will definately be coming back here...

SHINJUKU

2008-08-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

All photo's in this article have been taken from www.flickr.com

On Monday, Amy and I decided to head into Tokyo for some sightseeing. Here's how it went, with a little history thrown in for good measure!

In 1868 Emperor Meiji moved his capital from Kyoto to Edo, renaming in Tokyo (the Eastern Capital), Shinjuku became the railhead linking the city to Japan’s western provinces. Travellers would rest and refresh themselves for the final leg of their journey to the imperial palace. The popularity and importance of Shinjuku has not waned, and today 3 million commuters pass through Shinjuku Eki every day, making it the busiest station in Japan.

By day, Shinjuku Eki is a huge concentration of retail stores, malls and discounters of every description. By night, the area is an equally impressive collection of bars, parlours and restaurants – just about anything that amuses, arouses or intoxicates can be bought here, if you know where to look.

The main reason for me wanting to come to Shinjuku is the Skyscraper district. I know it's a little bit sad, but they are an impressive sign of what can be accomplished when you put your mind to it. The area also adds some definition to an otherwise un-defined Tokyo skyline.

Tokyo Tocho – Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office
Built by architect Kenzo Tange, this huge city hall complex was started in 1988 and was completed in 1991 at a staggering cost of 157 billion yen! That is roughly £780 million, that’s the same as some developed countries GDP.

The main building has 48 stories, and it splits on the 33rd floor into two towers. There are observation decks on the 45th floor of both towers and I’m told that on a clear day, you can see Mount Fuji. Unfortunately, it wasn't a clear day when we visited, BUT, we did take a photo of where Fuji should be!

We headed for the south tower, and had a short wait when we entered the building for the elevators to the observation decks, we also had to get our baggage searched. I must say that I was a little disappointed when we got to the 45th floor. The view was ok, but the visibility wasn't good enough to see any great distances. I think I was naively expecting something similar to the view from the 110 storey New York World Trade Centre which I visited before they were destroyed in 2001.

The floor had windows all the way around the outside to view the city, there was a small cafe in the middle and a tiny gift shop. There was also a small exhibition for Japan's bid for the next Olympics. After a while of looking at the city, and posing for a few pictures, we decided to join the huge queue to get back down to the ground floor.

Next, we decided to go to the Shinjuku Park Tower Building
for lunch. After a very nice curry from an Indian restaurant, we had a short walk back to the station, where we had a look around.

Subnade –the most extensive underground arcade in Tokyo
This place is full of shops and restaurants, all underground... I'm sure this is really impressive, it's certainly an impressive piece of engineering, and it is huge. But by the time we got here, I was tired and hungry, so we got some snacks and headed back home. Maybe next time we're coming through here I'll appreciate it a little more... maybe.

Carl

The Inner Voice and the Holy Grail

2008-08-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

Carl’s Random thought of the moment

When training, always strive to stay in the now. For some people, this may seem to be a strange concept, but let me explain with an example...

When working on your Kata, maybe for a tournament, it’s easy to get distracted by your minds inner voice. I know what you’re thinking; only crazy people talk to themselves, but everyone has this inner voice. And before you start, I’m not condoning you walking down the high street having an all out argument with yourself because, believe me, those men in white coats will be coming after you!

What I am talking about is that inner voice that forces you to do the right thing, to turn up for training when it’s a hot summer night, to get out of bed early in the morning to go for a run before you start work.

Now, in relation to training, this inner voice can be both good and bad. Some of the benefits I’ve already mentioned, and there are many more. For me, one of the main negatives is when your inner voice is taking you out of the now during practise or worse during a tournament bout. When you’re toe to toe with the current Kumite world champion, with 30 seconds remaining, the last thing you could possibly want is to be in ‘la la land’ with your inner voice. I’ve let my inner voice talk me into losing a place in the finals of the Wadokai England National Championships. The voice in my head was telling me that I shouldn’t be fighting so well, that I hadn’t done enough training and that I was carrying an injury. This negative self talk took my mind off the fight and I ended up losing to a guy who I simply shouldn’t have!

Now, this inner voice isn’t always bad, like I’ve already mentioned. I’ve often use positive self talk to get myself ready for a bout; it’s a great way of getting ready for a fight. During the fight however, you don’t want to be thinking at all.
The Japanese call the desired state mushin, I believe this translates to ‘no mind’. No, this doesn’t mean that you need to become an extra from Shaun of the dead. It means that your body should be so well honed, your techniques so well rehearsed, that your body moves of its own accord, and your mind is not needed. Professional athletes call this being in the zone.

This state can be likened to a time when you can do no wrong, all of your techniques find their target and it’s all effortless. This state is the holy grail of every athlete, regardless of sport and something that we all strive for. How you get in the zone is a very personal affair, and must be discovered on your own, sorry, there is no magic formula.

To be able to stay in the now can become a very strong training tool. Imagine how much more you could accomplish in the dojo if, when you bow in, and you walk over the threshold of the dojo you could flick a switch that leaves all your petty thoughts, problems and ambitions at the door. This would allow you to concentrate 100% at the task at hand, your training. Without your ego or ambitions in the way, and without your inner voice deciding which brand of beer you’re going to crack open after training, you are truly free of everyday life, at least for a moment. You are free to concentrate on putting that kata just right, and nothing else.

Just think what you could accomplish if you could master this skill, and I’m not saying that it would be easy, things worth achieving are never easy. But this is a life skill that can be transferred into all walks of life.

What are you waiting for? Go, practise...

Sightseeing - Imperial Palace, Tokyo

2008-07-28T03:43:00.000-07:00

Today (21st July) is a national holiday in Japan (Marine Day according to my phone), so no work to worry about. Even if I did have work, it would only be a one hour adult class. We decided to go to the Imperial Palace in the middle of Tokyo and (finally) do some tourist stuff.

So, a bit of a History lesson for you...
The Imperial Palace is on the sight of what was once Edo-jo (Edo = early Tokyo, a little fishing village + jo = castle. Ieyasu Tokugawa chose this sight for his castle in 1590 after making a deal were he was awarded the eight provinces of Kanto in exchange for his three provinces closer to Kyoto (the capital). Tokugawa was fine with the exchange, he was Lord of Kanto, the richest granary in Japan, and it gave him the chance, and the finances to build a mighty fortress to rival Kyoto. Within 10 years, he was ruling the whole country from Edo-jo as military shogun.

Tokugawa secured 250 years of unbroken peace for Japan. The shogunate was eventually overthrown in a bloodless coup in 1867. The following year, Emporer Meiji moved his court to Edo, from Kyoto and renamed the city Tokyo - the Eastern Capital.

At its peak, the castle had 99 gates, 21 watchtowers (3 are still standing) and 28 armouries. It was completed in 1640, and at the time, was the largest castle in the world.

We arrived late afternoon, which meant that we coudn't visit the gardens as they were closing (we'll go back later). We had a good walk around, and it's not until your stood infront of the walls, and start walking around them, that you really appreciate the size and complexity of the building. We had a good day of sightseeing.

Shiramizu Annual Summer Camp

2008-07-28T00:58:00.000-07:00

The Nippon Budokan Training Centre in Chiba was the venue for the Shiramizu dojo annual summer training camp. It took place on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th July 2008 and 97 Shiramizu students attended.

Amy and I were kindly invited to go along by Arakawa Sensei, despite it primarily being a child-orientated weekend. With us being big kids ourselves, we naturally jumped at the chance! It would be a great way to see how this camping trip compares to our own Hartlepool Wadokai version and it would also be a good training weekend.

We had an early start on the Saturday morning where we had to meet in the local kindergarten car park at 6:00am. Arakawa Sensei gave a short talk to everyone and when he had all the helpers/instructors lined up, he introduced us all and we all had to give a short speech.　Amy and I weren't actually officials, we were just there for kicks,　though we would still help out wherever we could.

The various Sensei got everyone locked and loaded on the coaches and we were ready to leave for 7:00am. We were on bus 2 with Yoshihara & Yamazaki Sensei and also Yuki Sempai, one of the cadets who was acting as an official for the weekend.

The journey was very long, approximately 6 hours including a number of breaks. The kids didn't seem to mind the journey and had very high spirits throughout. The kids all started cheering as soon as they could see the coastline.

We got to the Nippon Budokan Training Centre at about 1.30pm, and by the time we got everyone unpacked and had got through the welcome/introductions in the hotel foyer, it was close to 2pm. Sensei announced that training would begin at 2pm, so we had a few minutes to get changed and get to the Dojo. In the medley that followed, I managed to lose Lawrence who had the key to our room and, more importantly knew my room number. Uehara Sensei must have sensed my dismay, because he quickly told me which room I was staying in.

The room that we were staying at was very traditional, with tatami on the floor and futons hidden in a big cupboard that are simply pulled out and rolled along the floor when its bedtime.

We got changed and headed down to the training venue; we walked past a huge dojo which had Kendo-ka and Judo-ka busy training inside. I had to resist the urge to stay and watch.

The training was pretty standard by Shiramizu standards, we ran through a lot of basics and then we split for Kata. All the officials were given their own group of students to teach. I think Sensei could tell that everyone was starting to tire a little. So he stopped the training and got everyone to have various races from one end of the hall to the next, performing different techniques. The highlight of this bit of training was the jumping Sando-geri which Arakawa Sensei expertly demonstrated. This short ice-breaker gave everyone enough of an energy boost to finish off with Kumite.

We (the Dan grades) were primarily taught Kumite by Fujimoto Sensei, who use to be on the Japan National Team. He was very good at explaining things, and his English was pretty good too. I learned quite a lot about closing down the distance and breaking the line from him. The other students were split into smaller groups and led by different people, including a few University students. The day's training finished with the Seniors (...and me!) having a short Kumite session whilst everyone else observed.

The training finished and we bowed out and went to get changed for a barbeque. It was pretty cool, the kids were divided up and the Dan grade kids were put in charge of cooking on the hot plate for their respective teams. It was really good to see and quite funny watching some of the kids concentrating really hard on cooking one burger at a time, and then be uncertain of which hungry kid to give it too. The various sensei gave them all some advice, which was basically 'throw everything on!'

Everyone got there fill and we finished off with some fireworks. All the kids (and me and Amy!) were given a big pack with various sparklers.

After everyone got cleaned up and the kids were all in bed, we had a bit of a chill out in Arakawa Sensei's room, all the officials (and us) were treated to a late night snack of ice cream, which was lovely!

Sunday...
It was another early start, 6.00am. The original idea was to go for a run up to a close-by vantage point, do a bit of training and then run back. However, Arakawa sensei hurt his leg yesterday, so the run turned into a walk, for the most part anyway. For which we were all grateful. We stopped at the half way point to perform some basics and work up a sweat, and then we headed back.
After the walk, we had a Japanese style breakfast and then we were off to the Dojo for more training. This session was a little over an hour, and we covered more basics and quickly moved onto kata. This time, Amy and I were taught by Yamazaki Sensei along with the other Dan grades. Todays training was finished off with an exhibition match between two younger students, with full head gear.

After training, we packed up and loaded the coaches and set off for Kanagawa Sea world. This was a relatively short bus ride, and the scenery kept the children occupied.

The kids were organised into their teams again and sent on their way into the park to see the sights. The team leaders were kitted out with synchronised watches so that they wouldn't be late back too, a very good idea!. We spent a few hours there, and had lunch, and then headed home.

All in all, it was a very well organised weekend. It was a lot of travelling for two days, but it was still very enjoyable for everyone. The trip to sea world in particular was very enjoyable for the kids.

Carl

Teaching on my own...

2008-07-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day of teaching English classes completely on my own. I'd taught a few Shiramizu classes, but until now, I'd always had Lawrence standing in the background. The kid from my first class was very shy, or at least pretended to be. I won her over by acting dumb and confusing numbers and colours etc...

After work, I had a meeting with the managing director of ACTY. This was the first time I had met him. He asked about my background, experience etc... All in all, we had a good chat, and he seems like a pretty decent guy.

I would have been late for training had it not been cancelled, so I spent the night packing for the weekend away.

Lost in Tokyo...

2008-07-28T00:42:00.000-07:00

Despite being here just a little over two weeks, I think I'm getting used to the Tokyo rail network now, so to save Lawrence some time, and to test my navigation skills, I thought I would make my own way to work. Simple enough, I had been twice already with Lawrence, so it should be fine.

The trains are pretty straight forward, they are 99.9% of the time running as scheduled, most areas have stations listed in English and the times are usually on the electronic boards, so if you have a ‘train leaving’ time you can usually find the right train.

I got to Ikebukuro station fine, with no dramas. A bit of useless trivia for you, Ikebukuro station is Japan’s second busiest station, with 2.7 million commuters passing through it every day.

The problem came when I needed to find the train to Nerima, for some reason, none of the electronic scoreboards were showing a time, and there were more trains waiting at the station than usual. I jumped on the first train I came to which was going in the right direction, I had a quick look at the route, and I worked out that Nerima was the 4th stop.

So, the train leaves, and I simply count the stops, however, the 4th stop is not Nerima, so I decide to wait for the next one, but that turns out to be Tokorozawa. I see sense and get off the train at this station before the train changes lines. I have a look at the route at the station and work out that I am on the correct line, but my train didn’t stop at Nerima. I decide to go up through the station and get on the train going the opposite way, back to Ikebukuro.

Whilst on the train back, I find a notice that has all the different types of trains that run this route. It also lists which trains are rapid / express / semi-express etc... So not all trains stop at every station, I figured out that I had mistakenly got on an ‘express’ train, instead of a ‘rapid’ train. When I got to Ikebukuro, I simply jump onto the waiting ‘rapid’ train going back the way I’ve just came, and sure enough, the first stop is Nerima. I got to work 1 hour and 20 minutes late.

Oguchi Sensei already knew that I was going to be late because she takes the same line to work, Lawrence also only got there 20 minutes before I did.
It turns out that someone decided to jump in front of a train on the Seibu-Ikebukuro line (our line), which obviously slows things down a bit, but, if that wasn’t enough, someone then decides to jump in front of another train at the other end of the line. Great, so that’s why none of the notice boards were showing times.

Ogushi Sensei took Lawrence and I out for lunch, as a 'thank you' to Lawrence for the last year, and a 'welcome' to me. The food was very nice, typical Japanese style.

I taught the full day on my own, I thought the second class would have been a challenge because we had two extra kids in the class. (This is the same class that I made one of them cry a few weeks ago). The day was fine, I had no problems with the lessons. In the last class, we were shown a video of two of the kids fighting in a Kyukushinko Karate tournament. It's very different from what we do under WKF rules, they wore full headgear and body armour, which seems to be the standard in Japan for kids. Also, despite this style being 'full contact', competitors can't attack the head with punches, strangely kicks are ok. I also didn't quite understand the scoring system.

After work, we headed back home. Got changed and went training.

Day 16 - double training

2008-07-28T00:10:00.000-07:00

So I’m still suffering from a combination of my running adventure on Monday morning and the Takagi Sensei training last night. I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed, get showered and ready for the morning adult class at Shiramizu. I was on the verge of throwing one of my legendary hissy fits when I realised that the wife had let her cleaning duties slip, I had no clean and dry boxer shorts! She’s obviously broken, but I don’t say anything, I’m still half asleep, and it’s far too early and far too hot outside to be starting world war 3! I just pick a random pair, and yes, I put on damp boxer shorts. Which to be fair, made no difference whatsoever because as soon as I stepped outside I was soaked through with sweat.

We (Amy and I) had a gentle walk to the dojo, which is only a 10 minute walk away from our home, along the banks of the river which incidentally, also forms the border between Sugito town (where we live) and Miyashiro town.

We get to the dojo nice and early, Yamazaki Sensei is already there, vacuuming the dojo floor as we arrive. We say the normal greeting ‘onaigashimasu’ as we bow into the dojo, and remove our shoes before we step onto the hardwood floor. I don't think Onaigashimasu has really got a direct translation into English, but the Japanese people say it a lot. It’s basically a greeting.

The dojo was very hot, just think about stepping off an air conditioned plane onto an Egyptian airstrip, were the heat just smacks you in the face! We got changed in the small permanently air conditioned office / trophy room. Once ready, we braced ourselves and re-entered the dojo to start stretching.

The attendance was a lot lower than last week, with some of the usual faces missing. Despite this, the class started on time with running for a few minutes, and then various exercises to get everything working. We then moved onto line work. The usual techniques were performed for about 30 minutes and then we had a break.

During the break, I had a chat with one of the students, who despite being at an age when many would be hanging up their walking boots, has only recently started Karate and loves it. He was intrigued by the H20 pack in my backpack; I explained that I use it when I walk up mountains. He looked surprised and said ‘I thought England was flat, I didn’t think there were any mountains there’, I smiled and explained the Pennine area; the Lake District; Snowdonia and of course the Scottish highlands. We then got onto talking about the temperature in England, how it is a lot milder than Russia and Canada, despite being on the same latitude. He asked if it was due to the effect of the Gulf Stream, I said it was, but I explained the problem of the melting ice caps, they are forcing the cold arctic water south, thus interfering with the course of the Gulf Stream. We both agreed that England would be a lot colder place to live if we ever lost it. I told him that we were staying in Japan anyway, so the colder British weather won't affect us!

After the break, Sensei split us up, Yamazaki Sensei took us through the Pinan Kata’s from Shodan upwards. This was a wise move, because although Hartlepool Wadokai and Shiramizu are from the same ‘brand’ of Wado i.e. JKF-Wadokai, we still perform Kata with slight differences from each other. We worked through the various Kata, with Yuki Sensei being very patient with us, and using her limited English to make our lives easier. I was having a particularly harder time than usual though due to my ankle. I was struggling to pivot over the left foot without getting serious pain, and the joint wasn’t as flexible as it should be. The result was a very unstable performance of Sandan; a shocking attempt at Yondon and finally Godan, without a jump!. I was getting particularly annoyed with my body part way through Yondan, and Yamazaki sensei realised that I was uncomfortable. I told her I was fine, and she continued giving the count, this time concentrating more on Amy’s kata performance.

After a while, Sensei left us to self-practise Pinan Godan. I did a bit of stretching to loosen the ankle a bit and then started, albeit very slowly. Yamazaki sensei kept a watchful eye on us, and steered us in the right direction on a few moves. When she wasn’t putting us right, she practised some kata herself, and as you would expect from a Japan national Kata champion, her form was very good, inspiring even. I was jealous that her petite form allowed her to move so crisply, me being a western troll, who only likes to fight, I can’t quite manage to perform Kata so gracefully. But I will keep at it, maybe one day.

Arakawa Sensei kidnapped Amy and took her into the office so that she could fill out an application for an English teaching job. When he stepped back in, he put us through Seishan Kata. I was concentrating hard, trying to get it right. Arakawa Sensei spent a lot of time on me, and I feel as though I learned more about Seishan in those ten minutes, than I have in the past 5 years.

Training finished with a bit of a talk by sensei, again in Japanese. Now, despite not speaking the language, I kind of followed what was said. I think Sensei was saying that Takagi Sensei had talked to him about the way I punch in Junzuki. I always lock out the striking shoulder, and the striking arm. This, he said is the correct application of the technique, but not the best way to practise. Takagi Sensei mentioned Okinawa-te (Okinawa hand – a predecessor and early influence to modern day Karate), and how when you punch, the arm is sort of curved and therefore not locked. It’s a much more relaxed technique, and quicker too.

I agreed, and tried to blame it on my sporting background (lol). But I was quite pleased that Takagi sensei took the time to notice how I performed during training with him. The challenge of course, will be to put the techniques right for my next training session with him.

We cleaned the floor by hand, as is the usual custom, and then bowed out and got changed.

Sensei reminded us that we were going for lunch straight after training, so we quickly got changed. I had to borrow Amy’s expertise to wrestle me out of my Gi-pants as they were so soaked in sweat, that I couldn’t undo them. Nice.

We went to the Flying something restaurant, we’ve been there loads in the last two weeks, but I still keep forgetting the name. Afterwards, we were dropped off at Joyful Honda for supplies and we walked back home.

We chilled out for a while, and then I stole Amy's bike and headed to the dojo to do some paperwork. I spent a couple of hours checking email, proof reading the blog, writing this diary etc... And then went next door for teh English class. I was running the class on my own, Lawrence and Amy in background.

The class was very good, we got the kids learning some new, more complicated sentences. Lawrence admitted that the kids had done the same sort of thing for the past two years. So its about time that they were challenged a bit. Afterwards, I got some good feedback from Lawrence and then we went across to the dojo to get ready for training with the kids.

The training was good, we bowed in with Arakawa sensei, Yoshihara sensei and Uehara sensei (sporting a new haircut) who turned up a few minutes late. Uehara Sensei ran most of the class, with lots of warm up drills, jogging etc... We ran through the usually sort of basics before the break.

After the break Arakawa Sensei put us with the brown belts for seishan and naihanchi which was taught by Uehara Sensei. Afterwards, we moved onto Kumite drills. I was selected to be at the front of the line up (for all the other kids to attack). There are some really good fighters amongst the kids, despite their ages, they have very good awareness of distancing and timing.

We ended up free fighting, with the kids. Towards the end of the session, everyone else stopped to watch me fighting the kids. Sensei thought it would be a good idea for him to pick my next opponent, and to keep us fighting for ages. I was shattered, but kept going, trying not to hurt the kids - too much. I was purple by the time we finished.　We cleaned the dojo floor, and bowed out.　

Day 15 - Guseikai Training

2008-07-27T23:53:00.000-07:00

Tuesday
Me and Amy were almost late for the Shiramizu English Class today, what made the thing worse was that this was the first class that I would be teaching on my own, with Lawrence just observing. When we arrived, just on time for the class to start (but by Japanese standards at least 10 mins late!), Arakawa Sensei was waiting with the kids in the English class, I was very embarrassed, but we didn't have time for any apologies as the kids were all sat waiting for us. I felt a little relieved as Lawrence was a few minutes later than us, which was sort of like a 'get-out-of-jail' card for me!

After a slow start to the first class, they all went by very easily, and I enjoyed my first taste of teaching English.

After the English class, Arakawa Sensei took us to Ikebukuro for training with Takagi Sensei, at his Gusei-kai dojo. Takagi Sensei is the chairman of the JKF-Wadokai Technical Committee, so he obviously knows his stuff. Arakawa Sensei is just one of Takagi Sensei' well respected students, we are very lucky to be training with them both.

We (Me, Amy, Lawrence) went in Sensei’s shiny new car (which is actually his wife’s car, but Sensei has stolen it!) along the highway. We got there at 8.20pm, which was a little late because Sensei had to wait for my Shiramizu English class to finish.

We bowed in and joined the rest of them in the lines were everyone was still warming up. We ran through various basics including: Junzuki/Kette Junzuki; Gyakuzuki/Kette Gyakuzuki; Tobikomizuki; Nagashizuki; Junzuki no-tsukomi/Kette Junzuki no-tsukomi; Gyakuzuki no-tsukomi/ Kette Gyakuzuki no-tsukomi;

We then moved onto Kata, we ran through Seishan; Kushanku and Chinto. We were next given some time for Kata free practise. I concentrated on Chinto and Niiseishi mostly, whilst watching other people perform very good Kata.

After a while, we bowed out and then moved onto approximately 30 minutes of Kumite drills which was led by Arakawa sensei. I really enjoyed the training, it was quite traditional stuff, but the quality was good.

Once we got changed, we headed outside were I got chatted up by one of the cute Japanese girls who had been training... which was nice, I hope to see her again (lol).
We dropped off the 3 young Shiramizu lads who had also been at the training in Omiya (Yuki; Snau; Kento) on the way home, we managed to get lost too. Sensei' new sat nav didn't want to recognise the address of the Kento's home. So we were driving around for ages, I was ok though. I just got my IPod out and started watching 'Bad Boys'.

We eventually got back to Sugito, just before the good firefights in the movie. We were all starving, so we went for some food, the first place decided to switch its lights off just as we parked up. Sp we went to another place instead, and had a very late night snack.

a little accident...

2008-07-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

Monday morning - day 14,
Having decided that I can no longer use 'Jet-Leg' as an excuse anymore, I made a concerted effort to drag my backside out of bed this morning for training.

I got up at 7am to go for a short run, I ran from home, over Wado bridge, through Miyashiro town, to the Dojo and back again. It's only short, and took about 20 minutes. It was enough to start with, at least until my body fully acclimatises.

When I got home, I had some breakfast and a shower, then it was off to the dojo for morning self-training. I'd forgotton about the new 'dance' class at the dojo (They just hire the hall, Arakawa Sensei doesn't teach it!). So we had just over an hour for training.

After training, we headed to the internet cafe at Tobu. On the way there, I er, had a little accident. My backpack, that I use everyday, has a 'water tank' in it, with a over the shoulder straw. It's very useful in this heat. Anyway, when I put my back on the floor of the train, I inadvertently pressed on teh straw. After a few minutes, their was a river of water all the way down the train and a very cross-looking train conductor! I hastily got my towel out of my bag, and set off drying up the floor before the train arrived at Tobu station. Thankfully, their was only two other people in our train carraige, one of whom was asleep. The other guy, naturally thought the whole thing was hilarious.

When we got to Tobu, with Amy still laughing at me! I rung out the saturated towel and hung it over a railing outside the internet cafe to dry out. I updated the Internship blog inside and then we headed home.

It wasn't until we got home that I realised that i'd left my towel at Tobu. Again, Amy decided to laugh at my misfortune. I left Amy at home and stole her bike, on route to the internet cafe (which is only a 10 min bike ride), I decided to try and find the elusive Joyful Honda.

I went the same way as before, to Sugito station and passed McDonalds. This time, I turned left and after a few minutes came across the store. I think the Japanese guy who gave Amy directions before just wanted to mess with the Gaijins lol. I had a look around the store, and picked up a few supplies (pringles, mmm!)

Afterwards, I went back to internet cafe to upload some photos on the blog, and of course to pick up my towel!.

On the way back, I headed straight to Lawrence’ place for a private lesson with Kota. Kota, by the way could one day give Lewis Hamilton a run for his money in F1. He's a total Karting junky, and spends all his free time, and no doubt all his parents money, on Karting practise.

After the lesson, Me and Lawrence went to the local Noodle place for snacks before we headed to the dojo for our English class.

Lazy weekend...

2008-07-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday
I decided to have a sleep in, because I was shattered from last night.
Amy, being a machine was up early enough to go training at Shiramizu with the kids class.

After training, we went clothes and food shopping. This took us ages, because we only had one bike between the two of us, we had to walk. Sugito isn't huge, but everything is quite far apart when you're walking. The heat in particular takes its toll.

When we got back home, our tans were significantly improved but our bodies needed a rest. We both crashed out, and we were late for training as a result. We thought the class started later than it did – doh!

Sunday
Lawrence took us to a Free Japanese class in Hasuda, which is an 8 or 12 minute train ride (depending which train you catch) from Kuki. I really enjoyed this, I talked to an interesting guy, Akihiko Yokoyama, (call him Aki). He has lived in England before, so his English is very good. He taught me a long introduction in Japanese, which I had to say infront of everyone.

Afterwards, we went shopping in the big department stores of Omiya, and I finally bought some ipod speakers - woo!.

The next few days...

2008-07-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

The next few days were pretty standard, and I don't want to bore my limited readership too much with boring details...

Monday
We were a little hungover, apparently Japanese beer is stronger than in the UK. Hmmm, maybe... We went to the internet cafe, and chilled out at the station coffee shop for a while watching the locals go about their daily routine. Later on, we joined Lawrence at the dojo for a Shiramizu English class.

Tuesday - The quest for Joyful Honda
Joyful Honda, despite having a rubbish name, is huge, and sells almost anything you could want, at reasonable prices. It even sells pets, though their puppies are very expensive!

Anyway, we knew that this place was on route 4. Route 4 is the main road through Sugito, and it houses most of the food places; baseball ranges; bowling alley etc... But we didn't know where exactly.　

We set off north from our home, towards Sugito Takanodai station (about a 10 min walk). I was pleased to find a McDonalds near to the station, which I quickly marked on our map. We decided to ask someone for directions, a good way for Amy to practise her Japanese... After we got directions, we turned right and walked for miles... and miles... and we didn't find the place! Amy’s Japanese can’t be very good yet, because we ended up in the wrong direction (which i later found out!).

We had a few Shiramizu English classes later on, with Karate training afterwards.

Wednesday
This morning Arakawa sensei had arranged for me to have an Interview at a very exclusive local kindergarten for a job starting in September. Sensei also teaches Karate here, so it would be good for me to work there, because I could then help Sensei with the classes.　

I wasn't absolutely sure what the job was that I was applying for, but I still wanted to make a good impression, so full suit it would be. Amy had also been asked to turn up too, so we walked the 5 minutes from home to the kindergarten. When we got there, we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Rei and baby Ema (Richard Sensei' wife and child). After a few minutes, we were also met by Arakawa Sensei. - I had my own entourage for the interview, I felt like a VIP!

Apparently, the interview went well, with both Rei and sensei translating for me. I think it went well because baby Ema was there, and as the Shiramizu mascot, she's a pro for getting all the attention. Though I am told that I have a nice smile. Arakawa Sensei gave us a tour of the place; he knows it well because he runs a branch dojo there. We watched a few classes, and got a feel for the place.

The kindergarten is private, and quite prestigious, so it's good for the Internship to work here again. I got the job (?), and I start in September on Monday & Tuesday mornings, I will basically meet and greet the kids and parents and talk English with them, I don’t have any set classes either, so thats pretty good.

Rei kindly took us home after the interview, and waited for us to get our Gi’s on, and then dropped us off at training for the morning adult class. We went for a meal after training with some of the class and instructors.

We had a Shiramizu English class on the afternoon, and then a private lesson afterwards, so I missed the evening training session.

Thursday
A pretty ordinary Thursday. I was at work all day in Nerima with Lawrence, I finished work with a splitting headache. Once we got back to Wado station, we headed home, got changed and went to the Dojo for training.

Friday

We went to the internet cafe on the morning before I went to work at ACTY in Yoshinohara at 2.30pm.　Lawrence stayed behind at work for a meal with the owners. A sort of thank you for the past year, I was invited too as a ‘welcome’ but i couldn’t face sushi – sorry!

This was the first time that I would be getting the train back on my own, so I'm pleased to say that I had no problems.

When I got back, I got changed and headed to the dojo for the kids High performanceclass. Richard Sensei turned up part way through training. He had cycled all the way from Omiya on his wife’s old bike, it took him 66 minutes! Not bad, considering the distance... It shows how much of a nice guy he is, he could have quite easily drove or took the train, but he wanted to give Amy the bike so that we could both have one.

Near the end of the class, Arakawa Sensei had us (Me and Amy) in a line up doing a lot of high kicks against focus pads, he kept changing the kids that were with us. I'm not sure if it was to make us work up a sweat, or to test our skills, or to maybe give the kids a taste of European kicking techniques, or maybe a combination of all three.

Also, sensei was teaching his students how to fight against a south paw fighter i.e. Me! Since i’m the only one (that i've seen) at Shiramizu, which I think is slightly unfair (lol) but it can only serve to improve my fighting.

We went for a meal afterwards with the other Sensei, unfortunately Richard Sensei had to get dropped off at Wado station because baby Ema was poorly. Despite this, we had another good, if very late night.

Tournament report – Saitama Wadokai Championships Sunday 6th July

2008-07-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

The Asuharu community centre was the venue for the Saitama Wadokai Championships on a very hot and humid Sunday 6th July 2008. The day was going to prove difficult for me because as an active competitor, I’m not used to watching tournaments, I normally compete in them!

(Richard here - the deadline for participants was over a month in advance so we were unable to get a spot for Carl and Amy not knowing what their schedule would be in the first week. But they are registed for the Wadokai nationals in August!)

Amy on the other hand was kept very busy taking photos all day.

What struck me straight away, before we even got into the sports centre was the punctuality of the Japanese! The majority of athletes and their parents were waiting outside the sport's centre before it even opened for business. When we turned up, there was already a buzz in the air, despite already being 25 degrees at 8:30am, the kids were messing around whilst the parents looked on, no doubt jealous of their youthful energy!

6 clubs attended the tournament, with approximately 300 total competitors; by far the biggest turnout was Arakawa Sensei's Shirimizu dojo with an impressive 160 students, most of who competed in both Kata AND Kumite. From what I could ascertain, the next big turnout was from KICK Karate and then a number of other clubs (sorry I can't read Japanese yet so I don't know their names).

The tournament was setup very well, there were 5 mat areas set up in the hall, with all spectators kept out of the way in stadium seats overlooking all the areas. It gave the event a very ‘clean’ look throughout the day. Usually, at UK tournaments, you can't see past the first area due to huge crowds of parents standing around the mat. Not so in Japan. The hall with its grand marble pillars and stadium seating also gave the tournament a feeling similar to the coliseum in Rome; the students would be going into combat like the gladiators of the past.

There was the usual sort of expectant buzz in the air, as you get at all good tournaments. What stood out were the ‘team’ warm-ups, which lasted for well over an hour. All the different dojo got their students together and the students were put through their paces. I always find that this sort of warm up serves two purposes. Firstly, it gets all the students fired up for the day ahead, their bodies become more agile and the techniques become that bit more sharper, the younger students feeding off the more experienced person stood next to them, it’s a great way to build team spirit. Secondly, it is a great way to psych out all the competitors from the other dojo! Shirimizu filled half the hall with its competitors, surely an intimidating sight for everyone else. The effect of all 300 students warming up together was an impressive sight to see and hear, it was as though the competition had already started, with each group trying to ‘out-Kiai’ the next.

The Shirimizu warm-up was split up in two (due to the large numbers of competitors). Yoshihara Sensei and Yamazaki Sensei took the young yellow and blue belt kids whilst the older and higher grade kids and adults were led by Mori-san, with the other Shirimizu instructors walking between the two groups correcting and encouraging as necessary. Both warm-ups consisted of a lot of bouncing, stretching and Kihon moves, with a lot of synchronised counting. They then moved onto punches with Kiai, and finally onto Kata. I must say that this part was very good, watching 70+ 6-9 year olds perform the different Pinan Kata in near perfect unison – an awesome sight.

It was during his warm-up that Amy donned her Gi so that she could pretend to be a competitor, and therefore get closer to the action for better photos.

At 9:30am, the students were marshalled into lines by dojo.

What followed was a standard opening ceremony, with a lot of speeches by various people. Arakawa Sensei, who happened to be running the tournament, gave a short speech which drew out 5 students (4 of whom were from Shirimizu), they were all presented with a certificate and a small envelope, these kids had been selected to the Japan National Wadokai Team for the forthcoming Wadokai World Championships in August.

After the final bow, it was onto the day’s business. Each mat area was announced and the students were organised into the correct ring. With Japanese efficiency, all 5 Kata rings were ready to go in a matter of minutes. All of the rings ‘bowed in’ together and at 10:00am the tournament begun.

The Kata sections involved both Aka (red) and Ao (blue) competitors perform their chosen Kata simultaneously in front of 5 officials, with the winner getting the majority of the official’s flags. It was Shirimizu up first on all five areas, and impressively, all got through to the next round. This would turn out to be a sign of what the day had in store. What followed was 2 hours of great Kata, no matter which area you watched, there was some very good Kata on display. The main thing that caught my attention was the difference in the Kime points (points of focus) and the general pace of the kata, particularly with the more experienced competitors.

After each round, the area would stop and the officials would have all the students bow out, those competitors that hadn’t made it through the first round were then dismissed.

Round 2 on all areas led to a lot of exciting Shirimizu vs. Shirimizu matches. Next up was the Seniors Dan Grade Kata division, I paid particular attention to this category as it would have been my division had I been competing and Lawrence, my predecessor was also entered. Lawrence was first up, and he got a bye because the other guy didn't turn up. Second round, Lawrence gave a good performance of Pinan Godan (the compulsory Kata), he won this round 5-0. Third round, and a Shirimizu final was between Lawrence (with Seishan) and Tsubasa Oshima (with Chinto). Tsubasa won the final 5-0 with an excellent performance and a well deserved result. Lawrence was thrilled with his second place finish.

At 12 o’clock, when all the Kata areas had finished, everyone broke for 1 hour lunch.

Kumite begun promptly at 1:00pm with everyone bowing in together and each mat area starting at the same time. The main difference between Japan and UK Kumite competition is the extra compulsory safety equipment that is required here in Japan for juniors and ladies. This consists of a huge helmet, with face guard and body armour. The end result is 200 cute little storm troopers lined up at the side of the areas minus the laser-guns of course!

The competitors were all fearless, if a little predictable. From what I could see, everyone's strategy seemed to rely on being the fastest off the mark, with very little in the way off ring-craft. The fighters attack constantly with punches until the referee stops the fight. A lot of the fighters had killer gyakuzuki’s (reverse punches) and were particularly good at stealing the distance from each other, getting in range and then striking to get the point. The downside to the fighting was that most people fought in the same way, most, if not all held a left stance throughout the tournament.

I was particularly impressed whilst watching Yuki Okamura (sorry, no photo), from Shirimizu in the cadets Kumite division, he was, in my humble opinion, the best fighter of the day, showing great skill in picking off his opponents. I think at times he was too confident; losing a few points, but that didn’t stop him from taking gold.

I was a little disappointed with the senior divisions, the categories were quite small (compared to the kid's categories) and the standard wasn't the best I've seen. I still watched the Seniors Dan grade category with interest because again, this would have been my division. This category had a few good bouts, but none had the flair that had been shown in the previous divisions. Mori-san from Shirimizu put on a good display and he was very confident in a few of his bouts, having no guard and simply dodging the opponent's strikes.

All in all, the competition was very well organised and very well run. The Kata standard was very good and there was some good Kumite on display too. I can't wait until the Wadokai Nationals to see how Amy and I perform.

Richard Sensei; Rei (Richard's wife)& baby Ema (The Shiramizu mascot) turned up at the competition towards the end. The plan was to watch the end of the competition, then go for a coffee. However, the sports hall was very hot. Rei and Ema in particular didn’t like the heat, so we decided to leave just before the end and go for a coffee to catch up on the week so far.

We went in Richards car to Tobudobutsu-koen station because it has a nice coffee shop there with tons of different cakes for sale. Problem was, we couldn’t get the car parked anywhere. So, Rei decided to kick out us and Richard and go home, we agreed to meet up at a later date for the coffee and chat.

We talked for hours about allsorts... including our respective Karate goals; and of course politics, in Japan, Canada and the UK/Europe.

We (Amy and I) had hoped to get changed before hand, however it wasn't going to happen because we all talked too much. We went to an Izakaya (traditional type of pub) which just so happens to be next to the coffee shop, for a joint ‘after competition party’ and a ‘welcome Carl & Amy party’.

All of the Shiramizu instructors were there, and some of the adult class and parents. There was lots of eating and drinking, the biggest thing i noticed was that Arakawa Sensei did not drink alcohol at all. Its all part of his image, forever the professional. Everyone their gave a speech about how the tournament went, benefits & concerns, and a bit of a welcome to Japan Carl & Amy. The most enthusiastic speech by far was by Suzuki Sensei, I have no idea what he said, but it was full of energy.

It was a really good night, and we drank one or two er, soft drinks. We took a late train home afterwards...

Day 5 – 05.07.08

2008-07-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

We got in quite late last night, so we decided, well actually our bodies decided for us, that we should have a sleep in.

Once we dragged ourselves out of bed, we headed to the internet cafe at Tobudobutsu-koen station (a 2 min train ride from Wado station). I had to proof read the internship blog before it could be posted (a good rule to make sure that we look good, especially since I write diary style, there's often many grammatical errors to correct!).

Once we had checked our emails etc... we headed back home to get changed for training. The days Adult training at Shiramizu was earlier than usual 4.30pm-6.00pm because we were all helping to set up the Saitama Wadokai Karate Championships.

After training we hitched a ride with Kikuchi sensei to the competition venue. We had a bit of a wait whilst a gymnastics session finished up, it was good to see how organised the gymnastic kids were. They had the huge hall cleared away in a matter of minutes, with very little adult supervision.

The set up for the competition was pretty straight forward, their was no tatami to lay, we simply taped the perimeter of the area. The chairs; tables and of course the trophies were set up in a very short time.

We went for a meal afterwards with a few of the Shiramizu instructors.

Day 4 - Fri 4th July

2008-07-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

This was my first day working at ACTY in Yoshinohara, this is approximately 75 mins travelling from home. Amy and I planned on spending the morning shopping at Omiya station and the surrounding area. Omiya is a major station in the Japan rail network and has tons of huge department stores. We agreed to meet Lawrence at some sort of metal sculpture thing in the middle of the station a few minutes before our train. Simple enough...

What we actually did was to get off two stops too early at HIGASHI-Omiya, which translates as east-Omiya, basically thr wrong part of town!. So, naturally, the station is not as big and the shops surrounding the station aren’t that great either. Also, we couldn’t find anything that looked remotely like a sculpture, unless Lawrence meant the electricity pylons!!!

We went wandering around, and got something to eat from a nice looking restaurant, which turned out to be a takeaway place! So, we didn’t have anywhere to eat it! We had a wonder around, to look for somewhere to eat the food, out of sight. After about 10 minutes of wandering in the blazing sun, we gave it up as a bad job and decided to go to a sit-down restaurant instead. Never mind, lesson learned...

Eventually, we decided that we weren’t where we were supposed to be. So, I called Lawrence from a pay phone. I specifically asked if there were two Omiya stations, ‘no’, he replied. So, we wondered around for a bit longer until we walked back into the station and found an English route board, which specifically stated Higashi-Omiya AND Omiya. The penny dropped, we had a laugh about our stupidity and quickly bought two more tickets to get to Omiya.

By the time we got the Omiya station, which IS huge, has tons of shops etc... we didn’t have time to go shopping! I had to find somewhere to get changed into my business gear (full suit!). The problem was that it was so hot and humid that I was literally sweating straight through my shirt – Yuk! The only solution was to wear a T shirt as a base layer, to soak up the sweat. Not a very nice thought, but I guess that this is the only way Gaijin cope in the Japanese business world.

We quickly found Lawrence standing at this ahem, sculpture, which kind of looks like a 'bean stalk'. I’ll get Amy to take a picture for you all to see. We got rid of Amy, who sort of had a vague idea of how to get back to Wado station on her own, and we went to catch our train.

The train journey is pretty straight forward, a couple of stops along the ‘new shuttle’, which I’m told is not new at all, but has been there for years!
We arrived at Yoshinohara station, and we had a brisk walk up alongside the highway to the ACTY place of work. Lawrence had to clock in at the office at the back of the building, and we went round to the front to meet Miki (I think?).

The work was pretty straight forward stuff, two lessons of 45 minutes each. The first class was with a really bubbly little 6 yr old girl. The next class was with two 11 yr kids. One of the kids is just getting to grips with English, whilst the other is much further along, so as a teacher, you have split your time and attention between the two of them whilst keeping them both busy.

After work, Miki kindly gave us a ride in her car to Omiya station; this saved us about 20 minutes, which in Japan is a lifetime! She also kindly gave us an iced coffee milkshake thing which tasted funky at first, but you could grow to love it, especially after the caffeine kicks in!

We were dropped just outside of the station, Lawrence popped into a little convenience store for some snacks whilst I went into the bookstore next door to try and secure a couple of English-Japanese dictionaries. I find it strange that we packed about 10 different books, an assortment of dictionaries; thesauruses and grammar books, but yet we forgot to bring any English-Japanese dictionaries! Typical! The train ride from Omiya - to Kuki – to Wado was pretty uneventful.

We set off from Wado for home for another quick turnaround, we had to quickly get changed into our Gi and get to the Dojo in time for Kids ‘High performance’ class, were we would help out.

We got to the dojo in the middle of the second kids class. Arakawa sensei has the top Shiramizu kids helping out in this class, thus giving the lower grade kids someone to aspire to. A good way of working and it definitely drives the lower grades to excel.

This class seamlessly runs into the high performance class, Yoshihara sensei took the lower grade kids to one side for a cool down / stamina session, before bowing them out. This left just the high performance kids, the various Sensei and of course, the three Gaijin.

The training was full of energy; Sensei had everyone run through basics and few Kata to start with. Then the class moved onto Kumite drills on pads, with me; Amy; and a few of Instructors holding the pads, the students lined up in 5 lines, in front of the person holding the pad. The students then started with a simple Okuri-ashi Tobikimizuki against the pads. After performing the technique, they would move to the back of the next line and so on. Sensei had everyone run through various other techniques, including Gyakuzuki, Tobikomizuki, Gyakuzuki combination; counter punching etc...

Sensei stopped the class, and decided that we all should do tons of stamina. This was loads of press-ups and sit-ups which left me a little sore.
The session bowed out, and we (Amy and I) quickly packed our bag and got ready to leave. We were then informed that every Friday after training, the intern is to accompany the instructors for a bite to eat and a general get together because Keiko-san, Arakawa Sensei’s wife, refuses to cook anything on a Friday night. So, sensei has turned Friday into a sort of boy’s night (with Amy). Because we hadn’t been informed before hand, we ended up going to some fancy restaurant in our Gi-pants; thankfully we both had the sense to bring T-shirts.
The meal was very tasty, and we had a good chat and a laugh with the various instructors.

It ended up being a very late night, on the way home; Sensei wanted to pop into a bookstore to look at Car magazines (he's getting a new car for his wife), which for whatever reason was still open at midnight! Anyway, the store was pretty cool, it had loads of games, DVD’s and toys for sale too so they occupied my time while sensei looked through the different Car mags.
We got home quite late, and straight to bed.

Shiramizu annual Summer Camp

2008-07-24T05:56:00.001-07:00

After training, we packed up and loaded the coaches and set off for Kanagawa Sea world. This was a relatively short bus ride, and the scenery kept the children occupied.

Carl

Day 3, first day at work...

2008-07-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

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.

Day 2...

2008-07-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

Day 2 – 1st July 2008
It seems Yoshihara Sensei drew the short straw, because she was volunteered to take us shopping for the essentials like bedding, food etc... We spent a small fortune, but it was mostly stuff that will be left behind in the ‘intern apartment’ for the next person.

Yoshihara sensei is very nice, all day she was trying to speak English, which is actually pretty good, and she was also teaching us some simple Japanese which we appreciated.

After we unpacked, we headed to a local noodle restaurant which serves traditional Japanese food. I got some meat concoction and cold noodle things. On the whole, the food was good. Yoshihara sensei insisted on paying for it, which was very nice of her.

After the meal, we were dropped off at our apartment where we promptly fell asleep. A few hours later Arakawa sensei woke us up when he came round to our place with loads of goodies, new carpets, light bulbs etc... The carpet was a doddle to lie; it seems that the room is a standard size, so the carpet is like a giant rug, which (almost) fits perfectly!

Arakawa sensei left us to it, and we fell asleep again – obviously still jet lagged.
Later on, Lawrence-san turned up from work to show us how to get to the train station, and how the trains work etc... we got on at Wado station (not the karate style, just a coincidence), and took the train one stop to Kuki station where we had planned to get something to eat, so we had a stroll down one of the local streets. However, by this time it was quite late and everywhere was either closed or was closing, so we decided to turn back and head home. Me being the new gaijin, i didn’t realise that the roads we were crossing had a ‘green man’ on them, so i walked straight over road when i wasn’t supposed to. When i realised, i turned round and made a ‘whoops!’ sort of look, much to the amusement of a local Japanese lady. Lawrence shouted something like ‘you gaijin are crazy!'.

The rest of the journey home was pretty uneventful; we checked our email at Lawrence’s place and picked up our bags and took them home to unpack.
We were pretty hungry after shopping; unpacking and sleeping all day, so we tried our hands at cooking Japanese style. Which was pretty tasty...

Day 1 in Japan...30th June 2008

2008-07-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

OK, so its a bit late i admit.　But i have been very busy over the past two weeks in Japan...

30th June saw me, Amy and Mikey driving down to Birmingham airport. Of course, me being the control freak that i am, i insisted on driving. Problem was, we didn't actually set off until just after midnight 29th/30th June. So, i managed to get about 3/4 of the way there, and i had to sleep so that meant Amy had to drive the rest of the way. The original plan was for Mikey to drive my car all the way there and back again so that we could sleep, but, their was a slight problem with that. I er, forgot to get Mikey insured on my car before the insurance company went to sleep on the Sunday afternoon - doh! Anyway, it wasn't too much of a problem, a quick phone call to the insurance company on the Monday morning and Mikey was good to go home.

We had a stupidly long wait at the airport because we were informed by our carrier that we had to be at the airport 3 hours before the flight, why? so we can do some shopping obviously. Because the check in desk didn't open until about an hour before the flight took off!

As usual when i go anywhere, there was some drama before we actually got through check in. We had a huge challenge of trying to get our luggage weight down to the allowance of 20kg, the only way i could achieve this was to fill my hand luggage with the rest. This meant that my hand luggage weighed in at 15kg. Now, usually this wouldn't have been a problem because the airlines never bother weighing hand luggage. Until today...

The jobsworth at the desk insisted that we left things behind so we had to recall Amy's main hold bag back so we could fill that up with more stuff. Also, i ended up leaving some of my books etc... behind with Mikey.

After this little drama, we had to rush through customs, get everything scanned and my hand luggage had to be manually checked (i think because of all the books i was carrying). This slowed us down even more, so when we finally found our plane, we were two of the last to get on.

The actual flight to Zurich was straightforward, until we arrived over the airport ready to land. We had to circle for ages waiting for our landing slot.

When we eventually landed, we had to dash through customs etc... get my hand luggage manually checked again, and get taken to a small cubicle with this security guy (!), thankfully i didn't get a strip search, he just ran his hand-held metal detector thing over me and i was off.

The flight to Tokyo from Zurich was to take 12 hours, the longest flight id ever endured. Despite this, it went by pretty quickly. About a 3rd of the way through, we realised (after watching the Japanese guy next to us) that we had our own personal TV screens. The same guy helped me get my TV setup and then i was away... It was like having your own media centre, it was well cool. Their was 100s of movies to watch, games, music etc... I ended up watching 10,000BC, Jumper and something else which I've forgotten the name of, by this time the flight was about done.

In between all the movie watching, the cute air hostesses insisting on bringing us loads of lovely snacks & meals, all were lovely.

We finally arrived at Tokyo Narita airport, and we were through customs (after getting our finger prints & photos taken!) ready to go. All we had to do was find Arakawa sensei, someone who we`d never met before, and weren't too sure of what he looked like. I spent the next hour wandering around the airport looking for someone looking for us, if that makes sense...

After a while, i decided that either he wasn't here yet, or this whole Japan trip thing was actually a huge practical joke, and we were being secretly filmed. Not wanting to improve any imaginary TV ratings, i decided to sit down and chill out. About 2 minutes into my chilling out, Arakawa Sensei walks into the airport, and straight over to us. We have a very basic introduction, Sensei doesn't speak a lot of English and we speak zero Japanese.

First impressions of Sensei are that of a very nice guy, genuinely interested in us. Sensei kindly had two starbucks coffee milkshake things for us, they were very nice, we also had a bit of chat.

We had a 2 hour drive to Sugito by car, Sensei was pointing out the sights and important landmarks along the way.

We were took past our new apartment and Lawrence’s place. (about a 5 min walk from our place) Then onto Sensei’s house, which is pretty cool with the Dojo as the full ground floor. There is also a portacabin thing outside the main building which is the venue for the Shiramizu English classes.
We were given a quick tour of the dojo and introduced to Sensei’s wife, Keiko. I was surprised to hear that Keiko-San doesn't train in Martial Arts, however their two sons aged 7 & 10 do.

We were left on our own for a short while until Lawrence-san (the current intern) arrived from work.
We introduced ourselves; it was great to finally meet in person after months of talking to each other via email. Btw Lawrence-san is very good at Japanese, despite arriving here a year ago and knowing nothing – its got to be a good sign for us!

We were taken by car to see our new apartment and introduced to the landlords husband, his wife is a Yoga master, with over 500 students! We were also driven past their home which doubles up as their yoga studio too, a very nice place!

We (Arakawa; Amy; Lawrence; me) then went out for a particularly American meal, which had nothing at all vegetarian on, except maybe salad. So, it seems that i will NOT be a vegetarian in Japan. The meal was particularly tasty, which sensei insisted on paying for – something, it would seem that is a bit of an established custom. At the meal it was decided that Amy would train to become a Yoga Instructor whilst in Japan.

Afterwards we were dropped off with our luggage at Lawrence place, were we could check our emails and get showered etc... we were also introduced to the land lady who is also a yoga master.
Once chilled out and clean, we then went back to the Dojo to watch a Junior Kyu grading. There were 36 kids grading with a 90% pass rate. Btw, all the kids were very lively and fantastic at Karate. All of whom were between 7 – 9 years old. I was totally shattered, and the hall was very warm so i kept nodding off. The parts i saw, in particular the young brown belts were totally ace. The grades seemed to consist of basics, combinations, which were done one after the other, as though fighting someone and Pinan Kata. One kid in particular (turns out to be arakawa Sensei’s Youngest son, Masatoshi who is only 7 yrs old) was very good.
I was surprised afterwards to learn that two out of 5 brown belt kids didn't pass, they were all brill!

Part way through the grade Richard-san turned up from work, we went into a small room and talked. He let us know of the expectations of the intern etc... how Amy will fit in etc... he seemed to be very driven and a very nice guy.

We were interrupted and paraded in front of the now full dojo, we were given a short intro by sensei which Richard kindly translated for us. Then we were asked to give a short introduction in simple English, which Richard translated for the crowd. It wasn’t a great performance –but i’m gonna blame that on the jet lag! Anyway, we were both sufficiently embarrassed so the Japanese loved it.
We bowed out and escaped back to our room, were our brain was filled with more random stuff by Richard-san.

After our talk, i gave them some gifts, including a cuddly monkey for Ema, Richard & Rei’s baby girl, who also happens to be the Shirimizu mascot!

Afterwards, we went for a very nice meal. This time an Italian restaurant. We had a good chat, and again sensei insisted in paying for it! We were escorted outside were Lawrence kindly taught us how to thank sensei in Japanese. Domo arigato gosaimasu! = thank you very much...
We said our goodbyes and went back to Lawrence’ place for sleep.

NOTE - i will put some related photos on as soon as i find my memory stick, i had it here a moment ago...

Packing...

2008-06-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

So, its now 29th June. 21.31 GMT, we'll be setting off to the airport at Midnight for a marathon travelling session. This includes...

a 4 hour drive to birmingham
a 3 hour wait at the airport (the whole point of which is to spend money while you wait!)
a 3 hour flight to Zurich
a 2 hour wait for the next flight
an 8 hour flight to Tokyo (?)

so, at the minutes me and Amy are excited about FINALLY going, but in 23 hours time, we may just want to go to sleep...

TEFL Course

2008-05-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend me and Amy took attended a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course in Newcastle.

I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, i've never really done any 'proper' teaching before, just sports stuff so i wasn't too sure of what to expect. Not to mention that we had to complete the 20 hour course in one weekend, which meant 11 hours on the Saturday and 9 on the Sunday! it certainly gives a new meaning to the term 'long weekend'.

The course was in fact, very good. I really enjoyed it, it was delivered very well and i would definately recommend it. Everyone else at the course seemed to enjoy themselves, even all the mock 'lessons' that we had to teach were very jovial...

...i'm sure i'll found out soon enough if it was worth the money or not... 5 weeks til we go to Japan! Woo Hoo!!!

Sink or Swim... it's a mini adventure

2008-05-16T03:33:00.001-07:00

This is a pic of me looking particularly smug in my kayak, just on the north sea coast, off Hartlepool's Headland. My Parents home is in the background too, just to the left of the photo.

I don't have any photos of our latest er, adventure because the sea was a bit too rough for posing. Me and Mark did the usual, packed the car with the boats and headed to the coast. Hartlepool bay was like a mill pond, totally flat, so we decided to launch away from the bay and into a bit (understatement of the century!) of surf instead.

The road next to our launch site is part of the sea defense, so its quite a bit higher than the beach below. But the sea looked relatively flat, with just a few small waves to contend with. We got our gear unloaded and hauled it down to the beach, which was still getting covered by the falling tide.

I launched first, with a bit of help from mark, straight into the oncoming waves, which somehow seemed to become head height in the short time it took us to kit up. The paddle out past the surf turned into a mini adventure, and i really pushed Carolina (my boat) to the limit with quite a few waves breaking on us. It made me pretty confident that i could handle the sea's conditions that day (which would come back and bite me later in the day).

Mark eventually joined me past the surf line, and we headed off north towards Steetley pier. We had a rough ride to Steetley, with the wind and wave combo making the going tough. We called an end to the paddle out, and broke for a quick Mars bar, then turned round and headed back to our launch site. The plan was to have a gentle paddle back, then surf in on the very waves that made our launch so tough...

I picked my line to get back to the beach and was just about ready to go for it when a series of freak waves, probably about 3/4 times the size of all the others started building just in front of me. The set of freak waves had gone within a minute or so, i waited to see if they returned. They didn't so i made my way into my line. Seriously, i must have paddled about five strokes when this set of freak waves returned. I couldn't get away from them so i had to go with it, i managed to stay at the top of the first two and built up some speed. However, the third (and the largest), caught the stern of my boat and lifted it vertical, over my head, so in effect i was doing a cart wheel whilst still sitting in my kayak. The next bit was in slow motion, {remember the bit in the 'Indiana Jones' movie where that big boulder is gonna run over Harrison Ford, and the camera zooms out to show the full danger of the scenario?} well anyway, thats what it was like, i had time to see Mark getting wiped out in front of me, the beach some way ahead of me and just a chance glimpse of the sheer size of this wave.

...somewhere in this 'slow-motion', i made the decision to abandon ship! when i hit the water head first, everything started to run real time again. I landed in the water in front of my boat. The waves were battering the boat into my head so i ducked under water and came out the other side of her, i managed to collect my paddle and hold on to Carolina for dear life as the waves battered us both to the shore line. After what seemed like an age, my feet could touch sand so i could drag my boat and broken pride back to the beach just in time for the waves to die down completely, typical!

Now my boat is approx 14 foot long, so the wave that was to wipe me out must have been HUUUUGE!!!

...Lesson learned though, don't get cocky with the Sea, oh and always wear a wet suit cos the Sea is freezing!

a bit of a paddle...

2008-05-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

Bank Holiday Monday, fantastic weather, so we decided to go kayaking...

We chose the river tees as its only a ten minute drive up the road and we're lazy.

Me, Mikey (my big bro), Scot & Mark headed out in two Cars to the tees barrage for a days gentle (?) paddling... or so we thought...!

Scot decided it would be a good idea to paddle from the barrage to Preston Park, and back again. This is not a massive distance to travel, however, Mikey (my big bro) doesn't have much paddling experience OR his own boat, which meant that he was using a boat designed for a 5ft dwarf that weighs nothing. (mikey is a little bit bigger).

This caused a few er, problems...

Mikeys boat decided that it prefered being on the water upside down, which unfortunately for Mikey, meant that he did a lot of swimming. After a number of false starts, and before we even set off on our mini expedition. I got lumbered with the dwarfs boat, and Mikey took the 'unsinkable' Carolina off me!

The weather was fantastic, and once I had figured out how to keep the tiny boat upright AND tracking in a straight line, we we're off on what turned out to be a great days paddling.

Hartlepool Wadokai Annual Sponsored Walk

2008-05-07T04:17:00.000-07:00

With us going to Japan, we've brought our club's annual competition forward from November to June. This means that the club's sponsored walk (to raise funds for the comp) also gets brought forward.

We were initially going to have a camping weekend in the Yorkshire Dales, however, after a few set backs with the weather etc... we had to go with plan C. This was a walk around the Hartlepool country side and then back to Vicky & Vince's pad for a BBQ/Party.

I'll post some more pics when i get them, but we had the best turnout ever for the walk, with over 80 people dragging themselves out of bed early on a Sunday morning! Naturally, we picked the worst day (weather wise) over the whole bank holiday weekend for the walk, with intermittent showers, but the majority of the rain managed to stay away until we finished the walk. Then it was back home for some quick showers and then off to the party... a good day.

Visa's, Karate & the Congestion charge....

2008-05-07T03:35:00.000-07:00

So, we've had a pretty busy time of late. We've basically been trying to fit in a years worth of Karate events into a six month period, so to say our schedule is a little full, is a bit of an understatement. We both work full time through the week & don't have a weekend free until we Fly to Japan at the end of June!

Anyway, after quite a bit of negotation with our employers, we managed to get a full weekend off work. We decided to travel to London for a sunday training course run by Sensei Sakagami & Sensei Peter May. Me and Amy would stay over in town and visited the Japan Embassy on the Monday morning. Simple enough plan!

All should have been well, however, Me being Me, i decided to forget my CV which is needed for the Visa. So, after some quick thinking, and a little bit of flirting with the cute Japanese embassy lady, i decided to call my (Computer iliterate) mother back in Hartlepool and try to talk her through sending an email with an attachment... then all i needed to do was find an internet Cafe in the poshest part of London, print it out, and we'd be done.

...if only life was that simple!

45 minutes later, and we've sent emails to every man and his dog, but not to me... eventually, we get it sorted, with the correct CV attached. We head off to an internet cafe at the bottom of a general store. Log into my mail account and guess what, the file won't open. Well, at this point i can't even contemplate calling the mother again so the only thing left to do is to re-write my CV before the embassy closes...

All is done, now all we need to do is find the car & get out of London, before the Sun goes down...

A few days later, we got a lovely letter from the then Mayor of London, big Ken, 'we are happy to anounce that you've been stung with a £60 fine for driving in my city, please come again'.

Just a quick question, how the hell are you supposed to know that you have to pre-pay for the congestion zone when you don't live in London? D'uh!

So, naturally, i will be protesting my ignorance/innocence via letter... despite always being a Labour supporter, i was quite pleased that Boris got elected, strange that...

Boxing

2008-04-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

With just over 12 weeks to go until we land in Tokyo (!), i've come to realise that i'm not quite as fit as i should be, AND am the heaviest that i've ever been, i mean EVER! It's because i've been lazy since the European Wadokai Championships that were held in Gothenburg, Sweden back in November. I took a bad shot to the knee (not telling you which one :-) ), and it's sort of knocked my training a bit... excuses excuses.

...anyways, back to the story,

So, after realising that I have been gettting tubby, and with no sign of my love for chocolate and all things sweet dissapearing, I decided to enrole at one of the local boxing gyms, The 'HARTLEPOOL CATHOLIC AMATEUR BOXING & POLICE COMMUNITY CLUB', to give it it's full title. This way, i get forced into doing all the stamina stuff that i'm too lazy to make myself do on my own.

My first session was yesterday, were we did loads of Shadow Boxing and cardio / heavy work on machines and bags, it was fun but my arms were aching today.

I've just come back from my 2nd session today, which was led by a different coach. He decided it would be a good idea for us all to go for a 4 mile run along the coast, as a warm up! It was a little unfair that he was using a pedal bike though. We finished off the session with tons of Shadow Boxing and stamina. It's all in the name of fun right?

I'm looking forward to getting into the sparring, it's a bit of a change from the points sparring Kumite that i've trained in for years. It'll be nice to actually hit someone on purpose for a change, and to see what power you can generate when under pressure :-).

If you look at the fundamentals, Boxing and Wado Karate have a lot of similarities... attacking the centre line, from various angles is an ongoing theme in Boxing, as in Wado. So it should be good prep work for Japan.

Signing off...

So, Japan then...?

2008-03-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, so i'm kind of new to this whole blog thing. So no teasing me and my rubbish spelling!

What do i know about Japan?

Its in asia...
Japanese people are very patriotic

Island nation, fantastic culture & history...
Birth place of Loads of Martial arts, Karate; Aikido; Judo; Kendo; Ninjitsu; etc...

Created the Dragonball cartoon series - greatest cartoon ever!!!
very difficult language to learn
Always wanted to visit

So, i'm going to be the next Shiramizu Intern. I'll be based in Sugito City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. I'll be (trying) to teach English to anyone willing to listen and train intensively in Karate as much as possible.

Catch you later...