The Judo Laboratory, and Cultural Bitterness.

Training has been really hard. It has also been really rewarding. Maybe three days ago i did the longest consecutive randoori i have ever done; at maybe 45 minutes or so. I was completely slaughtered afterwards. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I have Kanji tests. I have been sleeping on average around 5 hours a night. My body feels like it has gone through a mincer. My mind gives out in class around 10am every day. But i think i am through the worst of it; I survived two weeks of the training schedule. I have Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off judo; I desperately needed it.

The format for the night trainings is usually the same; 30 min warm up, 90-115 minute randoori, and the rest are things like newaza drills and warm downs. I went to a shiai two days ago; it was held in the Nippon Budokan. That place looks completely metal from the outside; I wish I could have taken photos but my camera battery died before i could. Think of ninja, and samurai catching arrows on rooftops. A guy from Tokai won his division with some snappy throws, I think he would have been in the under 73's or so.I would have gone to the heavier divisions the next day, but had to study kanji, so i couldn't.

The approach to learning here seems to be quite simple; you learn by doing. I have been to one technical class; where a teacher explained something i couldn't follow to the class, but for the most part it has just been randoori. All of the players here were trained at Tokai highschools in various locations, so they would have already learned and be quite solid with their fundamentals. By comparison, i have been making a lot of noob errors. People help me out where they can; usually by holding my foot or arm and guiding it to where it needs to be. 

I cannot compete with the Japanese hips; for me it can't be done. Its like trying to win a land war in Russia; a supercilious belief that you can will only lead you in the direction Napoleon and Hitler took. I am starting to understand the limits and advantages of my body. I can't drop under people; too giraffe-y. But at the same time, my arms are so long that when other players take their normal grips on me, they cannot break my balance the way that they could if i were a Japanese player. Sometimes, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, I can use my length to my advantage and surf their throws into a position for a counter. I'm doing more randoori in a day than i would probably do in a week back in Australia. This is gruelling, but awesome for my judo. By a process of trial and error i am starting to see what works. Since a training last week, after drinking a lot of gin the night before, i have deliberately been trying to move as if drunk. It is bizarre; but it seems to work. I have been throwing a small number of people like this. On the day that i trained hungover, i nearly landed my first hip throw in japan; a left handed o-goshi with a right handed grip; on a player that would have weighed maybe 65ks or so. He blocked it with his left hand, so evidently i didn't have the control part of the throw down, but for me even getting my hips into the position to hip throw a Japanese player is like trying to flip a coin, flat on the ground with a dog chew toy. Its just not the right tool for the job.

I concentrate hard on staggering and flowing as if drunk; and my body relaxes. Because i have lanky arms, i can flow through peoples grips this way. My problem is; the second i am in position for a throw; i recognize it, see the opportunity, and lock up in my body again in preparation for the throw. My opponent can easily feel what i intend, and steps off my technique. This problem is frustrating; but at the same time quite comforting, because it isolates my issue as a mental issue; to an area I can approach and work on. I have trained for years, felt i was getting worse, and not understood why. I asked my teacher; he said i asked too many questions, and looked too far into it. I felt i did not ask enough questions. I couldn't understand anything; how could you understand if you did not ask questions?  I kept looking for intricate explanations behind simple language like "relax", or "don't lock up". It got really demoralizing investing more time into something i was going backwards in. As i didn't know why i was doing badly, it was only identifiable as incompetence. I was doing badly because i was shit at Judo.

Alcohol gives me mental advantages in judo, (or at least removes disadvantages)  because it strips my mind of pretty much all ability except basic motor function. I often freeze in competition, because i try to analyze which of 6 throws is optimal in the situation i am in. I take too much time, and then that situation is gone. When i am too hungover to do this; I do better. My issue is learning to replicate this approach without alcohol. By staggering around, and not using linear strength, I can usually get through grips so far without issue. As of yet i cannot throw, as i spend too much time in indecision once i have actually broken my opponents balance. But even something as small as feeling my opponents balance is a massive improvement for me. A year ago, i would not have been able to do this; i was too tight in my muscle to be capable of it. Recently  I saw on the sidelines, when i was between rounds, one guy talking to two others during training. i saw him take a standard grip on the guy he was talking to. Then he took another grip; with his head swaying while using a shifting stance. He was imitating me. I have no idea what he was saying. It could have been anything, it may have not been complimentary. But it did inflate my ego. Another guy came up to me, and asked what i had trained in, what my ranking was in Australia, and who taught me.

I feel that trying to learn Japanese Judo would be an implausible goal. I have only half a year, and don't have the time to drill uchikomi to the extent that all the other players have. If i did it 18 hours a day every day i still wouldn't catch up with the other students by Feburary. Instead; i feel my only option is to improvise something unconventional. This place is awesome; you get to try out any and every technique you can; so long as it is legal and safe. You can be statistically rigorous in your research; by a process of trial and error it is possible to identify the weakness and strengths of any chosen throw. This place is a judo laboratory; if i stick out the training i will gain a empirical understanding of what i can and cannot ask of my body. Using my current approach, i am starting to feel ko-uchi-gari. 6 months ago i thought i was too uncoordinated to land the timing of it. Now, i have found out that it wasn't that i was uncoordinated, it was that i was too tense.

I cannot catch a ball. I roll my ankles when i get out of bed in the morning. I am uniquely ungraceful. I tried learning judo the way i saw it, spent a lot of time trying to get my feet and hands doing the same thing that other people did. I couldn't do it, i still can't. I don't think i am built the same way others are. But at the same time, being different has its advantages. I have learned that i can roll my shoulders in such a way as to offer me a risky, but volitional escape from ude-hisigi-juji-katame. I have met one other person who could do this; she trained at Glasgow uni. Probably the best i have ever felt in Judo was for 3 months when i was training there: it was also a period where i was continuously hungover on Guinness; Tennetts, or whatever else was going in the hostel. I used to use cross grips quite a lot then. The bread and butter right handed ball-room grip doesn't work for me; the angles of my arms don't work when i try. A few days ago, by shutting down my upper body as if it were paralysed; i broke my opponents balance without taking a grip on him. A Vietnamese player in Australia once threw me like this; i thought it was completely amazing. I want to explore this kind of judo; and i am in the perfect place to do it.

There are guests from all over the world training in the club here. There is one guy from France; there were a few from Denmark; yesterday 2 guys from Brazil arrived. Ive been talking with a team from the UK. Everyone agrees that the standard of Judo here is quite good; and they all complain of the frigid reception they receive here. People avoid eye contact with foreigners; you have to Clint-Eastwood-In-Dirty-Harry-Style approach players for a go in randoori sometimes. One guy i was talking to was quite vociferous. He said he had been sent by the judo hierarchy in his country, and would not follow a request to return again unless it was for less than 10 days. He was bitter about how cold and unwelcoming he found the class to be. People here take their judo very seriously. I make a point of trying out my Japanese whenever someone skillfully throws me (which is pretty much continually). About 1 in 5 people I speak to smile and respond; the other 4 barely respond or ignore that i spoke. I am beginning to learn that Japanese culture is riddled with invisible fault lines underneath the surface. If a kouhai thinks that by agreeing to randoori with you, he would prevent a sempai from being able to train; he will deny you the randoori out of fear of causing unnecessary embarrassment or disrespect to superiors. In my opinion, if someone wont give another the time of day in Australia for a few short minutes of randoori; it usually stems from arrogance or a superiority complex. Here; in Japan; it seems to stem from embarrassment; no one wants to trod on a superior's toes by denying them something they might be entitled to.  This is invisible to most of the guests here; they dismiss it as racism. And definitely; there are racist sentiments here. I walked out of the change room; someone shouted "Gaijin!", and so i turned expecting a conversation, but it was a statement and not a greeting. But my opinion is, if I; some stranger who has just walked in off the street, can ask the head teacher to train, at one of Japan's more prestigious judo clubs, and be welcome to do so, then surely something must be said for that.

I have friends who have just graduated in law. I have met many others. I keep hearing the same story; that after finishing the degree; they struggle to bear the pressure of working as a subordinate in a law firm. Some law firms have a culture of working their fresh entrants over 50 or 60 hours a week. This scares me; but not as much as the concept of graduating; working, and then finding out that i am not cut out for the lifestyle. I would lose my direction in life and drift aimlessly. I get stressed ordering my coffee in the morning; once in judo training; the day after an exam i sat in the corner in the fetal position until someone commented on it. I'm pretty highly strung; often it takes me several alcoholic drinks to relax and speak sincerely to friends. I know and understand law is stressful; i did not choose it with the intention of being comfortable. The same applies of Judo. Feelings of alienation, stress, loneliness, frustration and hopelessness are common for me in both a judo and legal classroom. I do not want to avoid these challenges; I want to overcome them. Even if i make no friends; suffer through bitter trials and leave having learned little; this experience will be valuable for me if i want to work as a lawyer. I would like to learn and understand how to interact within Japanese culture; but even if i cannot I will leave here with a better understanding of my own psychological limits. Framing my difficulties in this way helps, as i can see that continuing the training is a win-win scenario regardless of how jaded a lens i view it through.