Busy Weekend -- Team Judo Tournament

   I woke up, bleary-eyed, at almost exactly 6:30 in the morning. My body is remarkable in that it'll let me sleep pretty much exactly the amount of time I want to sleep... and for once, I actually slept deeply. The down side was that since I'd had around four hours of sleep, all my body wanted to go was sink back into that deep sleep.

   Oh, well.

   I hopped out of bed and stumbled to the shower. My apartment's still a mess; I have three piles of old clothes sitting on the floor, bits and pieces from some shelving that I wasn't able to put back together (because other bits and pieces were missing), random do-dads that I haven't found a place for, and some messenger bags sitting by the wall. Somehow, though, I made it to the shower without killing myself.

   I showered and rolled a problem around my head. I didn't know how to dress for the tournament. The venue was the same place as where I'd had my kendo examination before, but I wasn't exactly sure about what I would be expected to wear in my position halfway between a teacher and a "civilian." I settled on some nice, close-fitting slacks with cargo pockets and a striped dress shirt with short sleeves. I also wore a vest.

   Fashionable, somewhat understated, but not too showy. I mean, I didn't want to show up to a serious event all peacocked out and find that everyone was wearing a suit or something. Unlikely, considering family members, but still.

   Well, I'm not one to brood too much over that kind of thing, so I hopped out of the shower, dried my hair, put some wax in it to keep it up, and got dressed. I thought I looked pretty sharp. My lunch was already packed up in the fridge, so I just had to throw that in my bag, along with some tissues -- allergies are a pain sometimes. The one thing I wavered on packing was my dSLR. It's big and bulky, plus it's a bit of a metaphysical burden.

   If I take my dSLR with me somewhere, I usually end up feeling that I have to spend time taking pictures to justify that. It sort of leeches out a bit of the fun from the event -- I spend a lot of time looking for The Picture and less time just being there and enjoying myself. In this case, I felt that since I was going to be in a smaller, crowded venue, it would be hard to get into a good position to get good pictures anyway.

   More importantly, I was going to cheer for my kids, not to take pictures. So I left the camera behind.

   After double-checking myself, I headed up to the school. I was going to be a few minutes late, but I knew it wasn't a big deal. I'd set out to be at the school by 7:00, knowing that people would be leaving around 7:30. A bunch of the kids were already there with their parents, and they were shocked when I walked up, since none of them had had any clue that I would be going along.

   They were thrilled to see me, though.

   Before we headed out, Oono gave a bit of a pep talk, then had all of the kids line up to formally thank the parents for driving them. The he did it again and had them thank me for coming to cheer. Geez.

   Then we hustled off to the judo tournament; I rode with Oono and the kids piled into some vans with the parents. It always feels strange to be going back down into the city; I feel so cut off from it up here in Fujimi that the city feels like another country sometimes. It's not just "going to the city," but "Going To The City." It's a big deal!

   The format for the day was a team tournament; each school could field as many teams as it wanted, and each team could be from 3-5 students. However, first-year students couldn't participate since they had just joined clubs less than a month before. Since the boys' club only has three non-first-year students, they could only field one team; however, if they went up against a team of five students, two of those five students would get automatic wins... meaning that our boys couldn't afford to give up a single match.

   Well, it didn't work out so well; they all lost their matches, resulting in a complete defeat for the boys. They were pretty frustrated.

   The girls were in a different situation; there are a lot of girls, but only one first-year girl. The problem they had was that a lot of them had injuries from last year that were still healing. Three of the girls made a team and they participated twice -- I'm not sure how. The first round, they lost pretty solidly and they were all pretty discouraged.

   We had a break for lunch after that, eating some bento that had been prepared by the tournament organizers. One of the boys went around gathering the bits that other people didn't want to eat and assembled some kind of monster bento that must have been enough for six or seven people.

   I also passed around some sweets I'd brought -- sour lemon gummies -- and ate my sandwiches, plus the bento. I had some string cheese with me too, so I passed those around too.

   After lunch, there was a bit of a break to let the kids digest and warm up again, then the tournament restarted.

   The girls had a second go as a team and they ended up losing again. Of course, once they lost, they all rushed out to the hall to cry together, with all of the other girls gathering around them for hugs and comfort.

   One of my friends has remarked that he hates Japanese kids crying; he says that they force themselves to cry to get sympathy. I kind of feel the opposite; I think Americans, or Westerners in general, try to keep from crying, but that Japanese kids don't feel that kind of pressure and just let it out.

   Whatever the case, they were crying, a lot.

   One of the girls couldn't seem to stop, so I told her 「今回の涙を、次回の汗にしろ！」, which means "Turn this time's tears into next time's sweat." It loses something in the translation, though... because in English it just sounds dumb.

   In Japanese, however, the girls all stopped, stared at me, and then said things like "That was so cool!"

   I think that's the first time someone's ever told me that!

   It was a high point to an otherwise somewhat depressing day; the students were pretty down from their losses and we had to stay for the entire day, until the tournament ended. Once the adrenaline high wore off, everyone was just pretty tired and ready to go home -- especially Oono and me.

   Part of the problem with the team tournament, I feel, is that schools will naturally put their biggest people on their teams, since there aren't any weight divisions. So our boys were all up against kids 40, 50, 70 pounds heavier than them. The smallest boy, who is around 100 pounds and probably five feet even, went up against a kid taller and much larger than I am.

   Fate sucks and is incredibly demoralizing.

   I really wanted to see how they did the next day, in the individual tournament, which had weight brackets... so I told them I'd come again on Sunday to cheer. They were all pretty happy with that.

   We gathered up outside, got another pep talk from Oono, thanked the parents for their driving, and headed back home. I was totally falling asleep in the car on the way back, even though it was only around 5:00 or so.

   Once we got back, we hung out for a bit in the school parking lot talking, then everyone went home. I wasn't really hungry because I was incredibly tired; after I got home, I just collapsed in my bed and tried to stay awake. I decided to watch a movie I'd downloaded -- The Blind Side. It was a pretty engrossing film, but I was still dead tired when it finished, so I fell asleep right away.