初めての試合

皆さん知っていると思いますけど、十二月十四日は日本で初めての柔道の試合だった。簡潔に言うと、負けた。

具体的に言うと：起きた…　わ～！遅い！寝坊した！でも絶望していなかった。急いだら、間に合うから。早い電車に乗れて、良かったと思った。何故かわからなかったけど、王子公園駅に行くに間かばんを調べた。たぶん頭の中で母が俺を呼んでいる声を聞いた。でも、かばんを開けて、帯を忘れたのに気付いた。くそ！先輩に三十分遅くなると言うメールをして、家に向かった。きっと大変になるけど、まだ大丈夫だったと思う。でも…違う電車に乗って帰ったよ！あの時絶望だった。また先輩にメールして、先輩は「心配しないで、帯を貸す」と言う返事をした。じゃあ、あの日には黒帯をしていた。
王子公園体育館に着いたとき、俺はびっくりした。その前の日練習が終わってから、先輩は「スーツを着て」と話してくれた。でも着いたとき、出る人は誰もスーツを着ていなかった。俺とクリス君はスーツを着ていた。二人だけだった。WWW 。
この前から、もう俺の相手は知っていた。神戸大学院の久保さんだ。でもまだ見たことがなかった。久保さんは百六十八センチぐらいだ。俺と同じだ。久保さんは自分みたいだ。でももちろん日本人だ。出る前に俺は目標が三つあったよ。最初は寝技はダメ。二つ目は試合は二分以上戦ってみる。最後は自分のペースでやる。俺はその内の目標の二つを成功した。久保さんと俺は同じペースでやりたいと思って、試合は二分十五秒かかった。でも一分三十秒は寝技だったよ。それで負けたと思う。
全般的に関学は良かった。五十パーセント以上メダルを勝ち取ったよ。でも先生はうれしくなかった。やっぱり関学はもっと勝つべきだった。年配の先生は長い時間説教をした。まじめじゃないし、（練習が）やさしいし、髪に気をつけすぎだと言った。
かばんをまとめて、出かけた。皆さんはレストランへ行くことに決めた。俺と三人の選手は三宮に早く着いたから、Namco Landと言う所に入った。藤田先輩の誕生日のためにU.F.O. ゲームでキン肉マンの人形を勝った。それからレストランへ行った。食べ放題と飲み放題だった。柔道の選手は皆ですごく楽しくなるよ。食べ放題だから店員はずっと忙しかった。あの晩の間俺たちはうるさすぎるから、店員は部屋のドアを閉めた。次は楽しみます。


My First Tournament

As you all know, I had my first Judo tournament here in Japan on December 14. Short story: I lost.

Long Story: First, I woke up… Oh no! Its late! I overslept! But it wasn’t terrible. If I hurried, I could still make it in time. So I did. I even got on an early train, so everything was still looking good. I don’t know why, but while I was headed towards the Oji-Koen train station (my destination), I checked my bag. Maybe it was my mother’s voice yelling inside my head. But I open my bag, and realize that I forgot my belt. SHIT! I emailed the Sempai (cuz Japanese cell phones are awesome like that and have email) telling him I was going to be 30 minutes late and headed home. Or so I thought. Surely it will be a hassle, but it should be fine, I thought. But one train stop later I realized… I got on the wrong train! Now it was hopeless. I email the sempai again, and he replied saying “don’t worry about it, we’ll lend you a belt”. So for that day I wore a black belt.
When I arrived at the Oji-Koen Gym, I was surprised. The day before, after practice, the sempai’s told us to wear suits to the tournament. So when I got to the gym and out of all the people entering the tournament, nobody was wearing a suit. Chris and I were the only 2 people wearing suits. Hahaha… (“www” is the Japanese form of lol)
Before that day, I had known who my opponent was, Kobe University’s Kubo-San, But I had yet seen him. He was about 5’9”. Same as me. And he actually looked like me, except Japanese. Before the tournament I had three Goals for it. First: keep the fight off the ground (I’m not very good at fighting on the ground). Second: make the fight last more than 2 minutes. Lastly: Fight at my own pace. Out of those 3 I succeeded in 2 of them. I think Kubo-San and I wanted to fight at the same pace, and the fight lasted about 2 minutes and 15 seconds. But 1 minute and 30 seconds of the fight was on the ground. I think that’s why I lost.
Overall Kangaku did well. We took home more than half the medals, but the Senseis were not happy. The older Sensei gave us a long lecture saying things like, we’re not serious, we’re too easy going, and we care too much about our hair.
We packed up our bags and headed out. Everybody decided to go to a restaurant. Me and three other players got to Sannomiya early, so we went to a place called Namco Land. We won a “Kinnikuman” doll for the Sempai’s birthday in one of the claw games (unlike American claw games, Japanese ones are very winnable, but cost twice as much). After that, we went to the restaurant. We got our own private room, and it was All you can eat ! Get all the Judo players together and it gets insane. Because it was all you can eat, the waiters and waitresses were always busy with us. And at one time during that evening, because we were too loud, the waiter had to close our door. I can’t wait for the next tournament.