Japanese Sports Clubs

I had the pleasure of attending a couple of sporting events in the last few days. They weren’t serious events in any sense – the school teams are still holding practices and off-season games at the school while everyone’s on vacation (students are off about 4 weeks for summer vacation and many teachers took off this last week for Obon, where they go home to visit their families – which leaves me pretty much by my lonesome in the school to study and lesson plan and such… bit more on this another time maybe).

The first event I watched was a high school baseball game. Even though it was an off-season game, the players take it very seriously. I generally thought of baseball as a fairly quiet and relaxed atmosphere with spectators sipping on bear and eating peanuts. Their wasn’t much of a crowd, but the players were constantly shouting at each other, which made for quite a lively scene. The coaches were especially exciting as anytime a player made a mistake they would scream and berate the players – and upon returning to the dugout, they run laps along the foul lines. I can’t wait to see a real game played.

I also sat in on a kendo club practice – kendo being a form of martial art that uses a bamboo sword. When I arrived, the students were on a break, but I was immediately impressed with their kendo uniforms: dark robes, caged helmets with neck and shoulder pads, body armor, heavy duty gloves that went up their forearms, and of course, bamboo swords. Each member also had a their name stitched into a personalized cloth that hung from their belt. Once the sparing began, the kendo gym was filled with screams of “EEEEEE”, “YAAAA,” “MEEEEN,” “DOOOOOO,” and the loud cracks of their swords as they engaged in a flurry of combat. I asked the teacher what they yell at each other. He said he wasn’t really sure and that it was different for each warrior. I asked why they do it and he said that it was for intimidation and to keep up one’s own intensity.

One of the students showed me one of his swords and helped me with a few moves. There is a lot of poise in the sport and the movements are very specific and coordinated. It took me a while to get a feel for the maneuvers. Overall, it was an impressive site to see the students decked in all of their gear screaming at each other as they smashed each other with their swords. Students take their club activities very seriously in this school. They will generally spend at least 2 hours a couple of times every week.

Again, unfortunately I didn’t have my camera at school and did not get any photos. Instead, I've included a video of a Japanese baseball game. Apparently this amount of excitement typically carries on throughout all nine innings.