Part of Four Days in London: A memoir about trying to find a way to the Olympics, and finding something else instead. This set of stories take place in late January and continued until March 2010.

The Move in

I finished packing my stuff. It was my last day after a little over a week in the athletes dorm. My friend Taka had told me to bring my things to dojo that night and I would find out who I was living with. At the beginning of practice the coach asked the group who might have space. Several people volunteered, and he chose a man I’d get to know as Sawano.

Sawano had a buzzcut and was a weight class below me. He split his time athletically between the swimming and judo teams, and seemed to be more focused on school then sports. After initially meeting we both took swings at speaking to each other in the others native language. Sawano was a good guy who seemed happy to have a visitor. It was quickly discovered that my American accent was too strong for him to understand my Japanese, and his Japanese accent was too strong for me to easily understand his English. Fortunately his written english was excellent and at times he and I would simply write each other notes when ever something important needed to be discussed.

We were introduced and late in the practice got to train together. He wasn’t particularly strong, but he was quick. He was an opposite sided player, and was constantly moving. The first half of the round I found his speed manageable, assuming he wouldn’t be able to keep it up. To my surprise he didn’t seem to tire, and I on the other hand was starting to make mistakes. In the final two minutes of the round he got me twice. As I would train with him for the rest of the trip, I realized fighting him was an exercise in mental toughness. You had to stay sharp the entire round, no matter how tired you were, if you wanted to stay in the fight with him.

After practice we grabbed a bath (communal baths are common in Japan and viewed as a way to relax). Following the bath we walked over to his dorm room. His dorm was thankfully not very far from the budokan. To get in required a code, which I was thankful for. My nasty lifetime habit of losing keys and other crucial items hovered in the back of my mind during this whole trip.

His room was small. There was just enough room for a single sized bed, a desk, and some shelving. There was no fridge, and the dorm was clearly very old. It feels almost crazy to me now thinking about how his things and mine were able to fit inside a space only slightly larger than the kitchen of my apartment today.

After this my typical day involved waking up and either lifting weights or running. I would then go to a computer lab or a coffee shop to work on homework and browse the internet. Then go to practice at night. I would usually see Sawano briefly in the morning when he came back to his room to study and at night at practice.

While I can’t say Sawano and I were very close, I haven’t spoken to him since the day I left, he was an exceedingly good man. I was this grungy American who sometimes took an extra day to get his laundry done. (I didn’t learn of the laundry room inside the budokan until later.) I had never had a roommate before and had only lived with very tolerant family members. For four nights a week I would sleep in his bed while paying no rent. I don’t know where he stayed those nights, though he told me it was with friends. Outside of giving me directions to a closer laundry mat one day, he never complained that I’m aware of. I’ve realized I don’t even have a picture with him, and I can only chalk this up to being young and not realizing how important ones memories of people become over time. I hope he is doing well. ________________________________________________________

The Pond on the Tsukuba University Campus

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Chris takes a shower, chaos ensues

One Friday night Sawano out of town and I stayed an extra night in the dorm to save some money. I had my bag packed and I was ready to ship off to Tokyo in the morning. Before taking off however I wanted to clean up so I could get right to sight seeing. There weren’t any showers in the dorm so I had to go to another building. One of the first nights I stayed with Sawano he showed me the shower facilities in a separate building. For a little bit of money you could pay to use the shower. I usually just used the showers at the Budokan but it was still useful to know about.

When I showed up there was no one at the desk where you usually pay to use the shower. I thought maybe they only charged at night, when there would be highest volume of people. The showers in Japan were different than in the west. You would sit down on a small seat and the shower head would be on a long flexible neck.

Just as I was finishing up I hear a gasp. I look over, and a middle aged man is staring at me. Our eyes lock for a moment.

“Stay here.” he says first in Japanese, and then again in English. I stare at him slightly confused. He follows this up with: “I am getting security.”

He immediately takes off.

In this moment it dawns on me that the chances that student housing has any idea I’ve been staying on campus are relatively low. I move quickly back to storage room I had placed my stuff. Throw on my clothes, grab my bag, and duck out a side door. I walk around to where my bike is and take off.

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A Reminder of my Husky Back Home

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Sloppy training

One night at practice I bowed on the mat. Practice proceeds as normal but everyone seems slightly groggy. I don’t really think much of it. We get through newaza randori (mat work sparring) and my rounds seem a little easier than normal. We normally did ten eight minute rounds of stand up randori (take down sparring). By round 3 I felt like a superhero. The players who normally kicked my ass became super manageable. I felt like I had to have made a giant break through in my game.

Back in the dorm room I felt super proud of myself. I felt like I had to have made some giant leap and something must have just clicked. That’s when Sawano, unexpectedly swung by the dorm room after practice. We chatted and he told me about this big borderline holiday event that was that day. As we talked more he mentioned that everyone on the team had gone out for a big lunch and spent a good chunk of the afternoon drinking heavily. I asked who was there.

Sawano listed off names of most of the people I had trained with that night. I had been fighting a bunch of slightly to moderately drunk judoka.

Well, a love of beer and a love judo do tend to correlate with each other.