I found Takashi, that was great! I was very happy to see my friend again. He is a young man I met at university up in Lismore. He came over to learn English, and get an Australian degree in sports-tourism. He is a very very talented Judoka, 3rd dan, and has shown me many things. And now, he is taking care of Cliff and I in Tokyo -- it makes things so much easier when you have a local to show us around and smooth the way. We went out for breakfast -- he had the western food, and I had the Jap food. YUMM as usual :-) This sort of spread is fairly easy to find - nori, rice, miso soup, and a slice of fish.
I dropped off my gear at the Kodokan, we checked the internet (it was for a Very Important reason i swear -- arranging special training for tonight) then we went off to find Cliff at the station. Unfortunately, we were now ... 4 minutes late. You probably know me and how I check things on the net ... oops. But it was only three minutes! That was enough time for Cliff to go down to the exits where he thought we were meeting, and Taka and I went up to the platform where we thought we were meeting. And that added up to 50 minutes worth of hunting around for each other, lost.
That was also 50 minutes of Cliff dying under the weight of his too-heavy backpack, poor sod. He`s ready for anything with all that gear! (He`s even got enough underwear to change daily!) Finally we went to an information booth, and got them to make an announcement for him. I was very dubious that he`d hear his name being read out in a thick Japanese accent, in all the hustle and bustle of the monstrous Tokyo Station. Luckily somehow he did, and we were able to make our way to the Budokan.
Here is where it is located - this is the moat around where the old Tokyo castle used to be. A German tourist went swimming in it the other week, apparently he dropped his backpack in somehow.
We came here because this is the location of the Budokan, a huge sports arena primarily intended for martial-arts events. It was built for Judo, which was contested in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics (and since then). The Beatles played here once too, and lots of other big bands. Today, it was the venue for a big annual Police contest. Japanese police are required to train either in Kendo, Aikido, or Judo. Six mats simultaneously active, we didn`t know where to look, it was awesome!
Here`s a brief vid of the Budokan, trying to give you an idea of the scope of it.
We were all pretty worn out, so after an hour and a bit, we took off to get some food, Cliff was famished. Back to our breakfast spot. I had a beautiful little salad topped with little friend fish. Man it is so cool, all these different meals you can get! We will really miss this when back in Aus.
This was Cliff`s, not sure about it. Rice, some sort of soup, salad, then the main was some fish, with strange mushrooms in a sort of relish, with a side of odd vegetables. He liked it though.
Here we are, just down the block from the Kodokan. Down in the right hand corner you can see the little red chrysanthemum symbol on the building, that's it. Obviously, dominating the picture is this insane amusement park, check out that ferris wheel and roller coaster!
Ok, so now we get to the Kodokan and settle in. It feels very strange to be here, in this place of legend, that we`ve heard about for so long. It is the headquarters for traditional Judo - it has a historical archive, library, rooms for visiting Judoka, several dojos, and a museum -- it even holds Jigoro Kano`s own gi! Its like seeing the Shroud of Turin on display. Here`s a picture of us with the great man himself.
But oddly enough, we don`t practice Judo here today. You see, I happened to have made friends on the internet with a very nice man, Osamu Mouri. When I told him I was coming to Japan, he offered to take us to some rather special Judo places. Next Saturday he`ll escort us to the Newaza Kenyukai of which he is a founding member (it is the premier Tokyo dojo for groundfighting), but tonight, we go to a private club high up in the nearby Maranouchi Police Station.
We meet him at the station, and he took us past the Policeman stationed at the main entrance, into the guts of the station, and up to the 7th floor. Here is a shot of the club early on before it filled up with people. If you look close you can see Cliff on the left, and Taka standing on the right.
Half of the dojo is used by the policeman, but we avoid them, we are here to train with the old men, who are a separate group. This club has an unusually high concentration of very, very highly ranked older men. If you are under 45, you are young here. Most are over 50, well over. And they are BAD-ASSES!! Oh my god, just amazing - and so willing to share what they know, and help us out. We just cannot believe how lucky it is we`ve ended up here.
Here is Cliff engaged in randori (free-sparring) with one of the club-members. They all seemed to have great talent and reflexes. One old man I did randori with, it was really quite ridiculous -- I literally could not keep my feet under me for more than 10 or 15 seconds at a time! He would sweep my feet away at will, whenever he pleased. There was
nothing I could do about it - BAM, SLAM, whooOOOSHSH de-ashi-barai, sasae-tsuri, hiza guruma, etc. His leg techniques were unstoppable. gak! Halfway through I was just had to start aloud at
dominated i was by the old fella, what a champion!
Another great old man took me aside to work on my tai-otoshi with me -- it was his speciality throw. Over and over we went, focussing in on many aspects of the throw: direction and extent of hikkite arm pull, the distance and direction of tsurite power arm, stepping pattern, how to find the correct space between torsos, weight distribution between your feet, the principles that make this throw work, the correct time to stab a leg across for blocking (and how that leg is not actually essential - he showed me how it can be a kuki-nage, which is the most difficult & refined class of throws, air-throws.) Then how to create a reaction through o-uchi-gari, which you capitize on with the tai-otoshi. How to follow through that with juji-gatami; how the standard defence to juji can be quickly turned into your downfall through a little gi-lockdown. And so forth and so on. (sorry non-Judo folks, I wanted to write that down for myself)
Here`s a group shot of us. Aussie on the top right is from the Australian Embassy, his first night. A nice guy, Derrick(?); maybe he will help Takashi get citizenship ;-) The man on the top left was, I think, the head of the club. He was super, and spent a lot of time with me doing uchi-komi training, correcting my techniques, offering suggestions, organising randori partners for me etc. Showed me his method of that uber-foundational throw, o-uch-gari. Foot-training methods for ko-soto-gari. Proper uchikomi for seoinage. And more, and more. The man on the bottom left is the ex-head of the All Japan University Judo Association, and remembers Kyozu Mifune, 'the God of Judo' himself - he was 21 when Mifune died, so he remembers him live, talked to me about him! (that is a big deal, take my word)
After training, they stood us up before them all, and we found we had to make a bit of a speech. Taka went first, and he said he was so nervous and didn't know what he was saying, but he went on for awhile so it must have went pretty good; he invited them to come visit us anytime they came to Aus which I'd glad he remembered to do. Then Cliff spoke about how much we appreciated it, and what an honour it was to be training with sensei of their calibre, and I said it really was the dream of our lives, for us to come to Japan and receive instruction from men like them. Much cheering and clapping. Session over, and ... we were invited out to 'another dojo'.
"Going to another dojo for more training" -- that's secret code for going out to eat, drink and be merry :-) See us all?
The sake was flowing, it was really good! Much better than I remember from years ago. See all the fish!? Sashimi I think you call it. Its just so weird that you eat it raw ... but its really so dang tasty, yum!
Big mugs of beer too! I don't know what this food was, some sort of parcel with stuff in the middle. At one point little glasses were passed around, and everyone tried the wine I'd given to Mouru-sensei. I'd brought over some Australian red ... I made sure to get one with a kangaroo on the label (thanks Kay!) It was said, "ahh, this is kangaroo blood!" Cliff thinks the present of that wine (which I did when we first met, out the front of the station) might have helped things along a lot. Gift-giving is a big deal in Japan, very traditional, so I was prepared.
Here's sea-snails ... I tried it, and actually liked it! Took a real effort though, I didn't enjoy escargot when I tried it as a kid. But this was great! Maybe the clear and amber fluids helped. And Takashi was very 'happy' too as you can see, sticking his face in the pic ;-)
Some more happy guys
Here I am with Osumu-sensei, the man who made it all possible! He is a very wise and knowledgable man, knows everyone, and spoke with me at length about many things: Judo philosphy and expectations of conduct, Itsutsu-no-kata, the rare Go-no-kata, Kano's diaries & the unknown waza mentioned within, and much more. Thank you!
And for dessert some soft tofu cubes infused with green-tea. I didn't get a pic of the bowls of noodles and stuff that kept appearing -- food and drink just kept getting passed around from everywhere! This fabulous restaurant belonged to an old Judoka that trained with the Maranouchi club I think; we'd have never found it unless we were brought here. It is I think called Taisho, in Shimbashi
Wait till you see Chef's ears (i'm getting a pic) -- even worse than Taka's in this picture.
Ah ok here is the chef:
The 'four' happy Australians they called us, heh. Taka was so glad to be there; and he almost went home instead of coming to the club, which he would have really regretted. Take note people -- 'JUST SAY YES' is the key, don't avoid new experiences, always give it a go! Regret from
notdoing something really is a bummer. He told me at one point that it was incredible for him, to be in a room with so many important Judo men. I think these guys are the 'movers and shakers' in the Japanese Judo scene -- we got so many business cards, it seems every one of them was a bigwig. One example, "Chairman of General Affairs Committee, Judo Federation of Tokyo". And here they were throwing a wild party for us!
Kobayashi-san, I think:
We just couldn't believe our luck. How the heck did we end up here? You could go your whole life without meeting these sort of guys, let along
training under them, let alone getting on the grog with them! What a rewarding and fun night, one we will never forget! Hopefully we should get at least three more opportunities to train at Maranouchi before we go home.
