First few days at Tokai.

I caught the train from Shinjuku, and rode to my uni's stop. It's called "Front of Tokai University Station". That was the first sign i got that my uni might be much more prestigious than i thought. Evidently my host Uni is a bit of a thing if train stations are named after it. UQ doesnt have anything like that. Anyway, i was carrying maybe 25 kg's of luggage, stumbling up the hill to get to my dormitory. I was following the map i was given to get to my campus. The first thing, the very first thing i found when i got to the border of the campus was this billboard.

Welcome to the mouth of the rabbit hole

I can't read Japanese well enough to tell you whats going on in this poster, but i think i can read "men's judo department" and "All Japan Student Judo".... something something. Yeah, this is the place i was coming to alright. I went up to the international affairs building, and attempted to have a conversation with the head organizer for my exchange program. I think i got the gist maybe (...?) of what we spoke about. We sorted out some peripheral things, and then i dumped my stuff into the dormitory. I got shown the ropes. There are a lot of bewildering rules; such as organising rubbish into burnable bins, aluminium bins, PET bottle bins, or organic bins, wearing sandals inside, and you have to notify everyone when you go in and out by turning a tile with your name on it around on a billboard put aside for that purpose. I got my stuff sorted and went to the south gate; i had walked  past it before and seen traffic wardens directing motorists and students around. I leant on the counter, and asked the attendant as best as i could;

"excuse me, how do you go to the judo classroom?"

"oh, you mean the institute for the way of war?"

....eep.

The front gate to the Budokan

I went in and had a look. At the time the womens' club was training. Ther would have to have been at least 100 women on the mat. Just off the mat, there were physiotherapists and other people attending to player's injuries and questions. I could see that there were some Norwegian male players watching off to the side a bit, they looked tough; cauliflower ears, no knecks. All of the women, their movements looked pristine. You could just about smell the years of bitter training and frustration on them. In the start of the training, I don't think i saw a single student do a drop seoi nage in more than .5 of a second. I watched this for a while, trying to figure out who was responsible for running all this. Everyone was wearing black belts; so it wasn't really easy to identify who was the teacher. Maybe there wasn't a teacher at all. The Mat wobbled like a water bed, it had been sprung really well.

Some moved so fluidly, so easily i stuggled to beleive that i had spent time learning the same sport they had. It just looked too effortless to be anything i had ever seen before. I was starting to creep out, why had i come here, to this place, to try and train in this building? I am going to die.

And then a moth flew onto the mat.

The players all freaked out, and ran away from it. No one wanted to be within 5 metres of the thing, and as it was flying around erratically, so too was everyone on the mat frantically trying to avoid it. It was almost like a Monty Python skit or something; watching people switch from complete hardarses to being frightened of an insect in so quick a timeframe. If i wasnt so stressed out from it all i would have laughed at the slapstick.

But this comforted me quite a lot. They may be unbelievably skilled, they may have spent more time on Judo than you ever could, but remember that they are still human; they still feel fear, just as you do. No matter how good it all looks, don't forget that they still are and always were; people.

I saw some guy looking at this during training, so it has some significance, but i don't know what.

All the olympic players that had trained at this club.

I asked someone when the men's classes were on, and found out it was the next day. I watched that class too. The training looks completely gruelling; 1/2 hour warm up, 2 hours of randoori. Every weekday. I tried asking someone, if it would be cool if i tried out participating. The language barrier was too far between us; i got an explanation why it wasn't convenient at this time. I found out later that a major comp was on in Saitama in the weekend, and that their training was focusing on that date. I asked...

"can i come on another appointment?"

..And the guy i spoke to seemed to say yes. Sweet! I am going to get the beating of my life. Everyone in this club was chosen because they performed well in their highschool days, or elsewhere. I just showed up and asked if i could come on. So i've heard that when going about entering such a judo club; if you do it the wrong way, it will create a lot of animosity for the students that worked hard to get there. I am basically going to be target practice on my first training, which i think is Monday at 5pm. Ah well; i said i wanted to train at Tokai; i want to find out if i meant it.

They have ropes and tires lying around the side for the use of training. Everyone looked completely ripped.

No idea whats going on in this poster, but im pretty sure it must have been for the comp in Saitama.