Yes, as it turns out, loading pictures is stupidly easy. I just never bothered to try until last time. So be sure to check a few of the older posts for some pictures- which we all know is worth a thousand words. Well, maybe not mine haha.
Anyway, this past week I spent two days out at Arakawa Sensei's karate camp for kids. We went to the rather picturesque Chiba to the Nippon Budokan training centre which is essentially a facility designed for groups of martial artists to go live at for a while and train.
While we were there, there was a kendo group, a judo group, and another karate group. They also offer places for Japanese archery (I forget the name), all other styles of karate (Shotokan, Shitu-Ryu, etc.)........................ and tennis. I dunno about that last one, but I was told it's there. The picture above is the view out from the parking lot.
Chiba is rather lush, geen, and pretty. It's a bit like a mini-Vancouver with the ocean on one side and rolling green hills on the other- very very green. A very comforting and stark contrast to the rather concrete-dominant large inner cities.
The first day at camp was travelling there, train for abuot 3 hours, then have a massive barbeque!! The second day was a morning run, breakfast, and then training at the International Budo University, where Arakawa Sensei studied for 4 years.
Budo Universities are universities for the study of martial arts. It's like a massive first class gym/training facility where, it seems, all you do is work out and train. I presume there's class studying the history of martial arts as well as theory of human kinetics and stuff, but when we went, it was just a bunch of people running and doing track and field and swimming and whatnot. We got to train in their dojo which was an amazing facility.
After that, there was supposed to be more training but the kids looked pretty exhausted so we went to the beach instead- where I got a picture with all the camp staff. And before you look at the picture and laugh, realise that in Japan, the first picture taken is always rather normal. Just stand and smile. The more pictures you take, the more then "hen" poses come out. "Hen" means weird, so it's a little comforting to know that even the Japanese realise they're being rather goofy. But hey, what's life if you're not living it up, right?? Anyway, the other point I should make is that when your sensei is doing it, it's best to do it too haha........... Arakawa sensei is two to the right of me.
From left to right- Yuki, Aya, Yoshihara-san, Chihiro, Miku, Me, Yamazaki-san, Arakawa Sensei, the two Suzuki brothers, Fujiwara-san (crouching; he's on the Japanese National Team), Hachisuka Sensei, Keisuke-san, and Masuyama-san
Unforunately, I had to take a rather stressful 4 hour train ride home from Chiba to go to a job interview that was pretty dumb and work the day after.
I found out that the night I left they had fireworks and the day after, they went to the Kamogawoe (I think that's how it's spelled) SeaWorld. Darn......... Oh well, shoganai ne??
Oh, in case you're wondering, shoganai and shikatanai have the same meaning =).
On the upside, I've been getting a few more private lessons which is rather good money. So one day at a time then =).......
Yes, as it turns out, loading pictures is stupidly easy. I just never bothered to try until last time. So be sure to check a few of the older posts for some pictures- which we all know is worth a thousand words. Well, maybe not mine haha.
2 comments:
yea goju-ryu(hard&soft) is the one i do. did you take the pic because i dont see you.
Are you serious?? It says "me" in the picture description haha.....
Post a Comment