August 23, 2002 - 10:57PM
Wes Ehrlichman

I spent most of today and yesterday in the middle school and I really feel like I'm getting to know the kids. I haven't actually had a conversation with very many of them, but now I can at least recognize their faces and remember what club they're in.

Yesterday I walked into where each of the clubs were practicing and watched for a little bit. At the Kedouin Middle School there are 5 clubs (to my understanding). There are Baseball, Judo, Kendo (sword fighting), Volleyball, and Music.

Baseball

They almost added a soccer club but it would have taken membership away from the other clubs so they didn't do it.

I don't think the music club is meeting over the summer, so I didn't get to watch them, and the Volleyball club has been in the computer lab for the past few days, so I hung out with them there yesterday.

I also checked out the Kendo Club yesterday. It was so cool! Kendo is Japanese swordfighting. From what I've seen and understand it's a little bit like fencing. You are playing for points and if you use the correct form and hit the wrist, the head, or the stomach you win the match. To be honest I don't know if I would be as interested in it if it weren't for the fact that the uniforms are so unbelievably cool! Kendo students wear suits of light armor. It's colored blue and it looks very cool on the kids.

Kendo

The amount of girls in Kendo really impresses me. The Judo club consists of all boys (probably because of the whole grabbing at the chest area thing) but Kendo is around 1/3 girls. I can see why women would be attracted to it too, about half of practice consists of running at your opponents and screaming a lot, but the other half is very formal and almost makes the swordfighting look like a tea ceremony rather than a game of bloodlust.

That was all yesterday though, today from around 9:00 to 12:30 I practiced with the Judo club. It was a lot of fun but I can only imagine how sore my body's going to be tomorrow. I won't even be able to type this!

Judo

Judo began with a few short stretching exercises, followed by a series of rolls. I did all of the stretches, but only participated in about 1/3 of the rolls, and only halfheartedly. My rolling skills aren't what they were when I was their age. The next thing they practiced was throwing. Imamura Sensei, the assistant instructor, took me aside and taught me about 4 different throws, of which I could remember two. One starts with an "O" and the other starts with a "T." I practiced these with him for a while, then spent some time watching the kids practice their throwing. I was really worn out by now so I drank a little tea and watched the kids practice for a little bit.

They soon joined me in their own break, and during this time I pretended to spar with the Mayor's son, who I knew from when I went to the beer garden with the mayor. We never threw each other down but this inspired Tateoka Sensei, the head instructor, to ask me if I wanted to play a game. I said sure, and he quickly began to make a scoring bracket on the chalkboard.

When the break ended he began the first match. It was between two of the smaller kids, and during this match they explained to me how the matches are played. The goal is to get the opponent thrown down flat on their back as many times as you can in three minutes. Keep in mind that I'm 23 years old and the oldest kid in the room is 15 years old.

"Next up is Wes and Imamura," Tateoka Sensei said. I was going to have to take down the Mayor's son. The match started and I walked up to the mat. I was standing in the wrong place though so they pointed out where I should stand. We bowed at each other a few times and then the match began. I quickly grabbed his Gi (uniform) by the elbow and the vest as I had been taught and he did the same to my uniform. I then tried one of the throws that I was taught. He moved backwards, making it impossible to do.

I then tried moving him around a lot using his Gi trying to throw him off balance. I don't know if this is what you're supposed to do, but it's what the instructor did when he explained it to me, so I tried to follow suit. I tried a throw again and still no luck. He tried a few throws on me too, but my feet are about two times the size of his so it was pretty much impossible for him to win. I thought about just standing up like a giant and letting him try to get me down, but I thought that would seem a little like mockery so I didn't do it. Rest assured I could have stood still like a rock and waited out the 3 minutes if I had to.

I tried the throw that started with the "T" again and this time it worked. My size was no doubt the only thing that helped me out here because the throw came off very awkward. He went down pretty hard. It was really difficult not to say "Are you ok?" when I took him down because I didn't want to hurt him inadvertently. He got up fine though and we started to move around again. The "T" throw seemed to work well against him so I did it again and it worked. Two hits on the mat and the match was over, so I won this one.

I felt really bad, but I always thought that the reason people practiced martial arts was because good technique could overcome any size difference that might exist between you and an opponent, and I wanted to test this theory. Today I learned that this is only right to a certain extent. If someone is much bigger than you and weighs a lot more your martial art knowledge will help most in allowing you not to get as hurt as you would without it. They'll still win though. This could be another reason that Kendo intrigues me so. It doesn't matter how big the other guy is, if you slice his belly open with a big freaking sword you're gonna win.

Right, so after going through three matches that were pretty much the same as the one above they asked me who I wanted to fight. I said "anyone is ok" and the club nominated the best kid in class. I was really, really tired at this point and when the match began I spent most of the time holding onto his Gi and panting. I tried a few moves, but never really got him down. He would sometimes go in for a throw and I would try to use his inertia to pull him to the ground, but it never quite worked. He did the same to me when I went in and I went tumbling over. I arched my back though, so that I never completely hit the mat though and when he came down to pin me I grabbed him and tried to flip him over. I'm pretty sure this is wrong, but that's what it looked like the other kids were doing, so I followed suit. To my understanding neither of us went down completely, so there was no score here. The rest of the match consisted of me trying to wait for him to come in so I could use his inertia against him. The match ended in a tie after three minutes of dancing around and I was panting like a dog. I drank about 10 cups of tea almost immediately and when I got home I drank about half a two liter of Sprite. That was the biggest workout I'd done in years I seriously almost threw up.

When Judo ended I came home for lunch and picked up my PS2. I brought it back to school, hooked it up, and watched Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) with a bunch of the students. It was a lot of fun! I think my love of Japanese Animation is really going be something that the kids can identify with. I'm gonna try to use it in some class activities to hopefully make things interesting. Maybe like a "Who am I?" game with the answer being Astro Boy or something.

When school ended I went to the BOE and went shopping for a Cell Phone (Keitai) with my supervisor. I got one and when I came home to take some pictures of it for you my camera started giving me an error message. I fought out that it's a problem with the battery though, so if I take the battery out and keep it plugged in everything works fine. The pictures are gonna be pretty tame on the site though until I get it fixed. Here's what my cell phone looks like. Cell phones in Japan have so many cool features! I have Chun Li from Street Fighter on my standby screen and when the phone rings it says, "Ha Dou Ken!"

If you want to call me, the number is 090-8666-0208. If I'm on the internet and my home line is busy this is a good way to contact me.

People keep asking me when school starts. Well it starts on September 2nd. The first week consists of very little class though because they have to prepare for the Sports festival on September 8th. The sports festival should be a good time. I'm gonna have to run in a short distance race, and I know that I'm gonna have to participate in some sort of competitive sport. Hopefully nothing as intense as Judo. "How do I say my body hurts everywhere in Japanese?"