“An-do-ryu Jo-se-fu… su-portsu-man!”This is how I am introduced to people in Japan by my Japanese handlers, the OBOE (Ohtawara kyoiku inkai/Board of Ed.). At first I thought it was neat, you know, a real nice compliment, because I’m not really a sportsman.
Y’see, they quite literally believed that the profile I filled out to join the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme was accurate.
While I did not lie: I did play basketball, volleyball, baseball, soccer, football, judo, etc…. it’s not like I am a professional. Just sports you play as a kid or an adult whenever you can get enough friends together. Okay, baseball, judo and soccer were league organized, but you know what I mean.
My big mistake, was not correcting their misconception. Ego… thy name is An-do-ryu. Hey, back home I never had a chance to have a big ego, so can you blame me?
It all started out quite innocently at Kaneda Kita, (kita means North) the second junior high school I taught at—there were seven middle schools in Ohtawara, and I would visit a different one every week between Monday through Thursday.
The students at this school were a lot more rough around the edges than those at Dai-chu (Ohtawara Junior High School). The kids here were not the offspring of office workers or bankers (the so-called salary men), but had sprung from the loins of farmers. I’m not putting down farmers, I’m just saying these kids were not as couth as the kids I visited last week.
Rather than take me for the gaijin I am, they wanted to test me.
The students here—mostly the first years, were coming up to me in the hallway and challenging me to games of jan-ken-pon (rock-paper-scissors). I was highly skilled at the game, and only lost three of 63 matches.
I guess I created the problem for myself when I didn't just win gracefully--nope, I had to insist on penalties where ya get to whack the loser hard on the arm.
Despite me playing in their reindeer games, I got the feeling that they didn't quite like me... that I must have appeared a tad to uppity for these rural kids,. As such, I think they wanted to take me down a peg.
Silly nihonjin (Japanese people) I've been taken down many a peg since arriving here. I mean, besides having coming all the way to Japan to get an American girlfriend, I've discovered I have absolutely no sense of direction and don't want to travel by myself anymore.
But the Kita-chu (Kaneda Kita Middle School) kids didn't know that, and I'm sure they wouldn't have cared.
As part of their plan to bring an end to my egomaniacal reign, they switched tactics, and introduced arm wrestling into the equation.
All of the students who challenged me were pretty big kids, and I nearly lost a few times. One kid almost had me after blowing cigarette smoke in my face.
The secret to my success, however, was to hold on as long as possible, playing defense, if you will, trying to sap the strength of my younger competition.
However, after a couple of epic three-minute battles, my arm began to feel like a lead weight. I couldn’t even lift an arm to scratch my butt, not that I had to at that time--but, if I had to...
Then came Sumo, a third-year student who was both round and thick like his nickname.
Every school, and every grade, and possibly every class has a heavy boy nicknamed Sumo. There’s also Monkey-boy for the cute, small boy; and Crazy-boy for the class clown. Girls? There's the obvious Crazy -girl, and for the overly girlishly cute ones, Chibi Maruka-chan). I'm not making this stuff up.
Sumo waddled up, sat down on a Monkey-boy and pointed to his nose and said, “Me next.” Finally, someone spoke English here! Even the English teachers here spoke little recognizable English.
Anyhow, hating to disappoint a crowd of 41 students and six teachers, we locked up in battle. It took over five minutes, but a victor emerged. Me.
Victory, however, was not achieved without a price, as I had hurt my wank-, er, I mean my forearm. Grunting in satisfaction at a job well executed, Sumo waddled off with a Monkey-boy still stuck to his bum.
The school nurse said I had hyper-extended all of the muscles in my arm. Pointing to a Japanese/English dictionary, she explained that it usually occurs when a person is too stupid to know when to quit doing a strenuous activity.
Not knowing what she meant, I accepted an invitation from the phys ed. teacher to visit the judo club on Tuesday. I took judo when I was 12, and progressed from white, to yellow, to orange, to green belt… with blue, brown and black unrealized.
The class/club had 30 students—two with white belts (rookies); two brown belts (dangerous buggers); and 26 black belts (effin’ maniacs). The sensei (teacher) outfitted me in a gi (judo suit), and because of my size, had me spar with a 13-year-old with a glandular problem nicknamed, Sumo. Not the Sumo, but another Sumo. Sumo, of course, was a 3rd-degree black belt, which means he has achieved two levels beyond the standard black belt. I’m smart enough to know that in judo, size is not important, so even without his girth, this could be trouble.
After bowing to each other in a show of respect, we grabbed each other’s gi and grappled for position. Despite Sumo’s size, he was still not as strong as my 175-lbs. (Yes, that’s what I was back then!)
I pushed him backwards and waited for his reaction. Perhaps not realizing I knew any judo, Sumo quickly pushed me back hard. That’s when I used his momentum to take him in a tomoe nage (stomach throw).
Maybe it was because I was showing off, or it was because I didn’t know my own strength, but I tossed poor Sumo (not Sumo, but Sumo) 15 feet through the air and into a wall. Uh oh!
After the next five minutes were spent apologizing to the kid as he tried to sick air back into his collapsed lungs, I spent the remainder of the class working with the judo teacher who showed me the error of my ways in hurting his star pupil and best chance at winning a medal at the provincial championships.
Hip toss. Andrew is down. Foot sweep. Andrew is down. Stomach toss. An-bluergg is downnnn. Shoulder throw. Blar-drew is having brain damage, and am in pain.
On Wednesday of that week, the Kita-chu gakko (school) students (gakusei) invite me to come out and play kendo with them. Kendo is Japanese fencing, though I was not aware of that at the time. Though wary of their plans for revenge, I reluctantly agreed to participate.
Kendo. Oh my Buddha, what a sport. You get to whack your opponent’s head with a bamboo stick while they try to do the same to you. Of course, your head, torso, hands and family jewels are well-covered with a protective uniform. The protection wasn’t enough to make me relax when I saw who I would be fighting.
Sumo (No, not Sumo or Sumo, but Sumo) was chosen to duel with me. We began.
WHACK-WHACK-WHACK! I get hit on the head. WHACK-WHACK-WHACK! The same result. Then the kid tries to get cute, and lunges at me to try and hit me on the right side of my body. Now what happens if someone tries to hit you on the side? That’s right, you drop your arm and try and block it.
Unfortunately, in kendo, other than your hand, there is no protection for the upper arm. And remember, the body is already protected.
I fell to my knees in severe shock and pain. Red flooded my senses. I lost it.
Pulling myself up in a berserker rage, I was determined to kill Sumo (it didn’t matter which one). I began to fight back.
WHACK-WHACK-WHACK! I backed him up with repeated hammer-like blows to the head. In fact, I kept WHACK-WHACK-WHACK!-ing him until he dropped to one knee. And then I hit him some more for good measure. I had won. But at what cost? I was in a lot of pain with a bruised arm, and a headache from the whacks to my covered head.
You’ll all be pleased to know (or maybe not) that my escapades as a soccer coach the next day went very well, though I did strain my back trying to show the players how to do a really long throw in. I’m now wearing a corset to keep my spine in.
I won’t even mention the two bicycle accidents that haven’t happened yet. And, I won’t even tell you about the people I’ve nearly killed while pretending to be Rocket Robin Hood in my kyudo (Japanese archery) class, or how I nearly shot myself with my own bow and arrow. Twice. These are future su-portsu-man blogs.
By the way, if you check out the picture at the top of this blog, the lowest shows all three of the kids named Sumo.
Somewhere in traction,
Andrew ready-to-rumble Joseph
Title spun by Twisted Sister.
