Upon arriving in Sendai about a month ago, one of the things on my mind was tkd. Even before I left for Japan, I’d been looking online on the off chance that there may be some information on places to train in Sendai. To my surprise, I did find a dojang, and with the help of Shingu-sensei, wrote a very polite and Japanese email asking whether it’d be okay to train while I was in Sendai. We exchanged some emails, and in less than a week, I found myself inadvertently stalking a middle school girl with a bag that had a hogu tied around it.
Since then, I’ve been going to workout three times a week. The atmosphere is chill, but focused. The kids workout has a CW feel to it, with comparable intensity and drills. The adult workout is less intense, more technical, less competition-focused.
Since I’ll probably be talking about tkd a lot, here are some brief descriptions of people I train with:
Aihara-sensei: The sensei. He’s a few inches taller than me, and according to the website, he competed as a bantam weight, so he’s really freaking skinny. When he does demonstrations, he has the fluidity of someone who’s pretty freaking good at sparring. There are interesting differences in style between here and MIT, but similar enough that it’s a comfortable extension of what I already know.
Yuka: Reminds me a lot of Emma, only lighter. Loud kiyap, strong kicks, lots of energy. The only person I’ve legitimately sparred in Japan (that time where we made the boys put on hogus so we could kick them doesn’t count). Outside of tkd, really friendly and outgoing.
Ou-chan: Token Chinese guy? Started doing tkd about a month before I started here, but did aikido for a few years. He’s been in Japan for a long time, so his Japanese is pretty fluent, and I feel like he’s more Japanese than Chinese. Easy to poke fun at for things like lack of kiyap.
Nakama-san: The first time I met him was actually about a week ago when some of us went out drinking. A red belt who apparently stopped coming for a while (maybe because of an injury), but came to practice this past Friday. For not having practiced for a while, his kicks looked pretty good.
Kondou-san: Another white belt. His style reminds me of what Ning may have looked like if he’d been in the awkward white belt phase. Also really likes reverse turning kick (apparently). When he sparred the guys, he kicked low (around thigh level), so I felt bad for the other guys.
There are more people, but I’m teaching English soon, so perhaps more later.
