September 11^th, 2015

Finally, that day came. Last Thursday, one of my coaches brought me all the way to Touin Gakuen University, located near Yokohama. We went there by train and the last little bit was by bus, taking us a total of an hour and fifteen minutes. Pretty far for a practice.

Once we arrived, Sato sensei had arranged that I get to see that university's English club. They have this room set up for Japanese students to come and practice their English. Of course, it's still summer here, therefore no students, so I was simply introduced to the staff. It felt like a good atmosphere and I really wonder how it must be when all the students attend.

Soon came time for practice, and Honma (my coach) and I headed to the dojo. It was suprisingly quite small with only two fighting areas. Being used to Tokai's enormous four-mat dojo, it was slightly a shock. But no time to think, I was soon on the mats and the practice was on its way. 

The practice reminded me of those back at the University of Manitoba. They ended up doing about 35 minutes of warming up and uchi-komi. As Honma also noticed, Tokai only gives us a 15 minute warm up, and 10 minutes of uchi-komi. After that, straight into randori. 

Now I didn't expect to throw everyone there, but I was still expecting to feel slightly stronger. But no chance there. Everyone I fought had a very strong defense, and were stronger with their grips. Their throws weren't as crisp as those at Tokai, but I still got thrown around. I made sure I took proper breaks, for my body as much as my mind. But it still made me quite frustrated. After about a hour and a half of fighting, Mr. Sato called me over and made me do uchi-komi with Honma san. He showed me a few things that I should work on and made me repeat it a few times. 

After that, he allowed us to leave the practice early (around 8 pm). The practice goes till 9, making it a total of three hours. CRAZY! Anyways... Since we come from so far, Mr. Sato apparently allows us to leave early. This time, we had a ride back home. His *daughter* had come to pick us up, and drove us back to the university. On the way back though, to my big surprise, his daughter suddenly pulled up in the parking lot of a restaurant, and Mr. Sato told us to get out. I understood at that moment that he had just invited us to dinner. 

I had a very tasteful meal made up of sushi, "kaki-age" fried vegetables placed in a nest-like shape, as well as "miso soup". Mr. Sato had also ordered a few side dishes for us to eat. By the end of the meal, I was quite full. During the meal, the conversation switched between two topics: My improvements in Japanese, and Honma's judo experiences. But as everyone noticed, I didn't have too much problem following the conversation. It felt good to be complimented by Mr. Sato, one of Japan's most respected figures in the sport world.

Mr. Sato has really taken me under his wing even though I mean absolutely nothing to him, to the university or to the club. I cannot be more thankful for his efforts and all the encouragement he gives me. Of late, he has even started teaching me directly at the club, but that will be for another blog post.