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 Adi Jones in Japan The First Two Months Part 2 in an ongoing series |
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Well, I've been at the International Budo University (Budai) for about
2 months and am now well into my routine. Most days start with an
hour of running from 7.00am - 8.00am, usually 2000m followed by some
sprints, but also some power training, hill sprints, piggy backs and
other exercises. From 9.10am - 4.00pm there are lessons, though I occasionally have some free periods. These lessons include Japanese, culture, and history as well as Judo and other Budo. The Judo lessons include kata, teaching, theory and of course randori. Finally from 4.30pm -7.15pm there is club practice. The first session was memorable. We had been at Budai for nearly 2 weeks before classes started. The staff had told us when everything was to begin, but some of us were getting restless and wanted to start training. So one afternoon a group of us decided enough was enough and went over to the dojo for the club practice. The 3 hour randori session began (as it always does) with a cursory 2 minute stretch, followed by about 5 minutes static uchi komi, and 5 minutes uchi komi on the move, down the 4 contest areas of the main dojo. After this, randori began (about 15x5 minute randori), then after a couple of minutes rest another 10 randori with the 4th year students, who stood in front of the rest of us. There were about 30 of them, and about 120 of us so you had to be quick to get a practice. I got about 4 which was quite good. At the end there was 20 minutes of ne waza randori which just about finished me off. This involved one person defending, and the other attacking, and your role was decided (as with most things in Japan) by 'paper, rock, scissors'. I lost that particular encounter pretty much everytime. The session was great fun, though obviously very hard work. One interesting feature of randori here is that, as there are so many players some will sit one out, and it's their job to be ready to protect players who have continued into newaza by stepping in and standing around them. This is a good idea which obviously increases dojo safety whilst also promoting respect for each other. Now I am in my routine of training, studying, cleaning and cooking etc. My daily life is quite set, with little free time. We often have one extra Judo session on Saturday mornings and then the rest of the weekend is usually free to relax and recover. We had one day off in April and went to Tokyo to watch the All Japan Judo Championships which was a great experience, watching Inoue "do the business." He threw one 150kg opponent for Ippon, before beating Muneta in a close final on a decision. All of his opponents were at least 20kg heavier, so if he moves up to +100kg he should be ready. We also had a day off in April for our internal university competition which decided the representatives for the area competition. That competition (the Kanto region) took place last weekend and we had numerous medallists. The top 2 from each category qualify for the All Japan University Championships later in the year. That's it for now, computer time is limited, and I'll have to be back in the dojo soon. Adi Jones International Budo University Chiba, Japan PS. I was there in the Sapporo Dome, on that Friday, when England beat Argentina , 1-0. History in the making! « back |
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