New week, New house

Picture: My new place from the outside.


Rolling my way through a new week, loving being over because I never get the midweek blues that I get while working in NZ.

Today I moved into the School building with the help of Aoki San, Sensei Rick advised it would be wise to gift them a case of top Japanese Beer, so we headed over there and I grabbed a case which they gift wrapped. They had a real struggle putting my name in the Hirigana on the box - interestingly my name roughly Translates to Jo-Dan, meaning joke. The place here is great, its so huge...looking forward to more kiwi Judoka getting over here and filling this place up.

Training is going great, coming into the new weeks training feeling on top form. Some players here try to avoid me, not because I'm that good but just because I'm the Gaijon (Foreigner) at the club, it's a two sided coin in that regard because theres another whole batch of guys who want to fight you non stop just because of this - these guys are usually the ones you want to be fighting anyway.
The long randori's and the length of the training is still a physical challenge but I never fall behind and get back up everytime and keep going at it. I'm really enjoying the intensity of the training, the tough training in itself is motivation for me. Learnt some really interesting new sweeps for Newazza (Ground Fighting) that have been working well additional to the new ways of passing guard I have been experimenting with which are having mixed success depending on who I'm fighting so will need to review these.

No circle of death after training over here, everyones way to burnt out to bother with pushups, squats and situps but I make sure I uphold this ritual from Auckland Uni Club in the mornings. What I'm really looking forward to is my first Shiaii (Competition) over here - if I win my way to Shodan over here maybe I dont have to do a shout for the boys at the club back home? Don't think theres any getting out of that ancient tradition though.

Tim from Gisborne is arriving tomorow which will be good, looking forward to it. Once he's here were going to head over to Sayaka's (from Auckland Uni Judo Club) University and start training there 6 days a week. Looking forward to it as they are said to be tougher than the guys at Kyodai, should be alot I can learn from them.

Money is going well, apart from shelling out on the wimpy coffee (see prev post) a few days ago and buying a case of beer for Aoki & Nakakura I have been spending loose change buying discounted fish and Bento, also picked up some bread, speads and yoghurt to stock my new fridge so I have some variety in diet. Yoghurt is really amazing for energy levels - a few days ago I started having some before training and feel a real difference in my output levels. But food aside , I'm on target to get to the end of the month with more than half my initial funds which will then become my emergancy money since I'll then be receiving my first Scholarship payment of 2,000 - this roughly converts to 128,000 Yen. This is easily enough for a month and If I continue to be prudent about it I can put some aside to extend my stay by another couple of months.

My sources in NZ have informed me reliably that the National Judo Training Camp in NZ will be open this year as long as you meet a minimum grade requirement. I really urge everyone that can to head over to this and see that they can learn and get some decent mat time. Strategicly it's also probably a good place to scope out your competition and get a better idea of their strengths and weaknesses ( this is a two way street though).


For the rest of the week I plan to continue training hard (of course) work on the house to get it nice and homely which will be a mission in itself as it's so damn big and perhaps go sight seeing on my bike time permitting - Iv had a tip off that the kind, generous people of Kyoto wish to donate us a few more bikes and that they will be left unlocked and rusting slowely at various locations including Kyodai, Sanjo Dori and Nijo Train Station so I suspect we will also follow this up.

J