God of Kendo

Yesterday was a lot of fun.

After school was over, I decided to make my rounds and visit the different club activities. I went looking for the art club, remembering last time how relaxed the eager to talk the students were outside of the classroom. Unfortunately, they either weren't meeting that day or had hidden themselves in some nook that I have yet to discover.

I peered down from the third floor balcony to watch the baseball and soccer clubs prepare for their workouts. The soccer boys had dragged the goals into the shade of the trees in attempt to make the heat a little more bearable, and I could see the baseball boys unloading under the shade of a big tree. I contemplated going down and making my presence known, but the dirt and heat of the playground were discouraging.

Instead, I went to the gym. I was surprised to see there were no basketball players. Instead, a thin net across the middle of the gym divided the badminton practice from the volleyball practice. There wasn't much for me to do there other than watch idly. I had been looking forward to talking to the new volleyball coach, one of the new teachers who has been very friendly with me since his arrival. Sadly, he was not there. I overheard one of the volleyball girls talking to another visitor, and I think she said that usually he doesn't come. Bah. Disappointing. I watched some students I know well practice serves and ball play. Practice is serious, however, and I am terrible at volleyball, so I didn't try to join in.

Oddly enough, I didn't particularly feel like visiting the kendo club, although it is my favorite. I used to visit often last year, and the captain always made me feel welcome. However, the new captain is very strict about training. Kendo, as a sport, is very serious, disciplined, and ritualized, and so too is the practice. Although I am very familiar and comfortable with the new captain, him being probably the best English student in the whole school, I got the feeling he didn't particularly like the distraction I posed; last time I watched, I heard him tell two of the kendo players not to talk to me while they waited for their turn to fight. I didn't take it personally; I know he just wanted them to retain their focus. However, I did feel guilty that I was responsible for depriving them of that focus in the first place; so, I haven't been back

Despite this, I decided it was silly to visit all the other clubs and not visit the kendo club too. A little peak couldn't hurt. When I entered the "dojo" (it's not actually a dojo - they laughed at me when I called it that - but I'm afraid I don't remember what it is called), I was surprised to see the room full of many students, all laughing and playing around with their shinai, practice swords. It was a very relaxed, playful atmosphere, and no one was wearing the heavy plastic/bamboo armor and uniform. I nearly bumped right into the captain as he was headed out the door with his back pack, clearly headed home. He saw me and sighed heavily, "I have to leave, and [then] Lindsay comes." I have to admit his disappointment pleased me; maybe I wasn't such a bothersome distraction after all.

After he left, the other members greeted me. I was surprised but very happy to see how many new members there were from the 1st year (7th grade) students. Unfortunately, their vocabulary is such that regular conversation is pretty much not possible; one of the boys likes English and talking to me very much, so, just to find something to say, he would come up to me and ask me to spell random words like "brown" and "fox". All the students are very friendly with me. Two of the girls are very silly and say strange things, so we always end up having the most entertaining conversations. Today, one of the girls said "I am God". With her hair uncharacteristically down and flowing around her shoulders, she actually did look like a painting of a Japanese god. I asked her what she was the god of, kendo? She said no, "all, all, all god". "Ah," I replied, well versed in the translation of 2nd year English, "You are THE God, huh? Well, then I will be the God of Kendo."

And so it was, more or less, that I ended up joining the kendo practice. A shinai ended up in my hands, and one of the girls showed me how to hold it. Then the captain's 2nd in command showed me how to place my feet. The captain's 2nd is a great kid with the wonderful but very rare quality of always using English in my presence, even if he's talking to someone else on the opposite end of the room. His English isn't very good (as one of the girls whispered to me), but he simply never gives up. Before "practice" began, he showed me how to swing the sword (from directly above your head, straight down), and place my feet. The club coach came in and laughed when he saw me, but was happy to indulge my interest. We got in a big circle and did stretches, everyone taking a turn counting each stretch. I, of course, counted in English; I do love how happy such a simple act makes the people around me.

After that, we started practice. It was a very basic practice; we did suburi, sword swinging practice. Basically, we just stood in a square and swung the sword in a specific way to the rhythm of the count, then changed the method of the swing and started again.

It was quite a workout for my arms! However, I really enjoyed it. I was also amused because members of other sports clubs would walk by the building, glance through the open floor windows/doors (no air conditioning, remember?), and suddenly stop in surprise, clustering around the opening and whisper, "Lindsay's doing kendo!"

Yes! Yes I was!

Afterward, quite in the spirit of the relaxed captain-free-semi-practice, they showed me how to play "Darumasan ga Koronda", which is similar to Red Light Green Light. If you remember from an earlier post, a Daruma doll is a round red doll with big eyes; it is weighted at the bottom so that if you nudge it, it rocks around in a circle instead of falling over. So, while "Darumasan ga Koronda" means "Daruma fell down", you have to imagine a ball rocking back and forth, gradually turning around until it's looking at you. To play, the "it" person (oni) hides their face against the wall on the opposite end of the room from everyone else and says "Darumasan ga KoronDA!" and turns around quickly on the "da". Everyone on the other side of the room sprints towards the "it" person as soon as they start speaking, but on the "da", they have to freeze in place; anyone that moves, loses. When someone manages to reach and touch the "it" person, everybody runs away until "it" says "STOP!" From there I didn't quite understand the rules; it seemed that a player gave the "it" person a certain number of steps they could take, and if they managed to reach and touch a player within those steps, that person became "it".

It was fun, but I lost interest pretty quickly after the second game. I like kendo better.

Cheers!

God of Kendo Baer