During my last study abroad to Japan about one year ago I had the pleasure of training in a small dojo near Nagao station. The name of the dojo was 鶴見南支部. My sensei here in the states had given me an address and told be that the instructor there was good, so I was very much looking forward to my first training there. I figured it would be a breeze to find the place once I got to Japan... yet a two hour long uphill bike ride later I found myself sweating beads before class had even begun.
Ueda sensei was extremely kind and allowed me and two of my classmates from Kansai Gaidai to train with his three young pupils over the course of our semester in Hirakata. Those kids trained really hard! I just know they're bound to be great karateka under Ueda sensei's teaching. After all of those knuckle push-ups he had us do every class, even my shrimpy arms got kind-of ripped. I am also thankful to Ueda sensei for putting up with my bad Japanese and teaching me many advanced kata (kankusho, bassaisho, etc.) and also some kata I really should have known already but was neglecting out of denial (like kankudai =_=).
What's more so, this dojo treated us as family. Ueda sensei even invited us to his birthday party where he introduced us to his son as well as a few famous karateka. He also encouraged us to do our best on a daily basis. I remember the kids were always goofing around and playing before and after class, but when the training was going on they became engaged. It really is amazing to see someone teach children so well.
For anyone interested in training at this dojo, please check out the "related link" to find a chart with the dojo's contact information.
Sorry to those of you who don't read kanji!!!
[ add comment ] ( 477 views ) | permalink | related link |
( 3.1 / 198 )
As I sit here with around 60 minutes left of the holiday we call All Hallows Eve, I thought to my candy-stuffed, pizza-satiated self, this year's been a pretty good one. No offense to Japanese Halloween of course! You guys are really good at decorating for the occasion! It was just nice to have a pumpkin carving party, give masked children candy, and pay $20.00 a pop to get the skittles scared out of me by teenagers jumping out at us with chainless-chainsaws.
Boudin also had a good time it seems. She has fallen in love with our pumpkins, and has taken on the appearance of an eerie soul-less demon-cat for the occasion (awww! so big!!!).
I highly recommend the 13th gate. In case you guys are ever in Baton Rouge, LA. It is a pretty cool haunted house with different floors, inside and outside routes, an actual scary waiting area, and people who love doing their creepy jobs. It was extremely well made and on a whole quite enjoyable. Plus, I hear in November they will be re-opening the place for two nights but without lights of any sort. Everyone is armed only with a flashlight. I kinda wanna go through wearing all black and turn my light off, just to see if I could be sneaky enough to pass undetected by all the staff... but Sam says that's dumb... and I must admit that it would most likely be a terrible waste of $20.
Though by far some of the scariest things I witnessed this year were, oddly enough, at Boo at the Zoo. For those of you that don't know, Boo at the Zoo is a program instituted by many zoos across the country to pass out candy to children in a safe environment. Well, I was there volunteering to help with the candy dispersal, and I must admit that the costumes this year were pretty awesome. While there, I saw about 30 batmans, 8 iron mans, 20 spidermans, 7 wonderwomans, and one remarkable joker whose costume was complete with a Heath Ledger mask:
Me: "Nice costume man! Have some candy!"
Kid: "Want to see me make a pencil disappear?"
Me: "..."
Anyway, after my shift was done, as I had never actually seen the Baton Rouge Zoo before, I decided to walk around and check out the animals. But then as I strolled past the primates I caught sight of something strange: a gangly young teen-aged boy leaning over the railing, trying to hand a monkey what appeared to be a grape lollipop. Instinctively, I said, "Hey, don't do that! He could choke on it or something." ...not that it mattered, his arms were way too short to reach the monkey's bars anyway. But then something really concerning occurred. His mom suddenly picked him up at the knees and hoisted him over the bar, nearly toppling him into the enclosure! She shouted at her son "Here! Now see if you can reach 'im."
...
Needless to say, I found this very bizarre, and dumbly said, "If someone calls a keeper over here, you'd probably get in really big trouble you know."
No one seemed to be paying attention to anything I said (or so I thought), but they eventually gave up with the lolly pop, so I shrugged and walked off to go check out some horn bills. About ten seconds later, I hear:
"HEY! TURN AROUND YOU LITTLE %*^#!"
When I looked to see what all the commotion was, I caught sight of none other than that monkey-feeding, teenager-flinging, irresponsible, female parental unit, flailing two fists in my direction, while shouting:
"DO YOU WORK HERE!?... I SAID DO YOU WORK HERE?"
me: "Who? me? no."
woman: "THEN WHY DON'T YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND MIND YOUR OWN ^*& $(%* BUSINESS!?"
me: "actually, I wasn't planning on going to tell anyone. I just-"
woman: "WHAT!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU! WHY DON'T YOU COME OVER HERE AND SAY THAT TO MY FACE!?"
She put up her fists again and took some sort of strange fighting stance and bounced up and down a little, I guess in attempts to scare me or something. Several kids in their Halloween costumes stopped to stare at us.
I turned and continued walking in the opposite direction.
woman: "OH THAT'S RIGHT YA LITTLE CHICKEN! YOU BETTER GO AND WALK AWAY! YOU KNOW YOUR A WUSS"
Just then, a golf cart full of security guards rolled past me and screeched to a halt, causing the strange woman to immediately stop yelling as they surrounded her.
...
Some people are REALLY weird.
[ add comment ] ( 43 views ) | permalink |
( 3 / 144 )
Calendar
