Insanity
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
King of Purebred 2009
Christmas in Kyoto and the pros and blackbelts were out. This year amateur Shooters took on guys from around the gym in an annual festival of grappling and madness.
Bracket:
Okabe vs. Kouki
Fujii vs. Aleku
Wes vs. Ruya
Ozaki vs. Doi
Kouki vs. Aleku
Doi vs. Ryuya
Kouki vs. Doi (Finals)
Special Bonus Match- Last year's champion Eda vs. this year's champion Doi
Bracket:
Okabe vs. Kouki
Fujii vs. Aleku
Wes vs. Ruya
Ozaki vs. Doi
Kouki vs. Aleku
Doi vs. Ryuya
Kouki vs. Doi (Finals)
Special Bonus Match- Last year's champion Eda vs. this year's champion Doi
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Sorry
Sorry this blog has been inactive for the better part of a year. I was transferred and therefore thrown off of my game. My B. I am getting back into the swing of things. We'll see.
A Brief Non-Defense of Aoki Shinya
There was one fight I missed on New Year's Eve. As I walked out the door, hoping to make it to Kiyomizudera by midnight I said, "I wonder what happened with Aoki." Little did I know.
I should begin this non-apologetic apologia by making the claim I have often made in the past but that I feel needs some clarification; Japan is a nation of big excuse makers. I don't want to go too deep into that now as it is not the main issue but, in a society that is always demanding that someone take the fall for everything, people have become very good at passing the buck and evading responsibility. Maybe I have just begun to think that as I teach junior high school, but I believe that it is largely true. "We have to kill whales because we are Buddhists and we don't want animals to go to waste." "We can't import rice from California because real rice can't be grown outside Japan." "We can't bury power cables because Japanese soil is unique." I hate it and I have had enough of it. But.....But.... I am going to make a little excuse for Aoki Shinya.
Here is my argument. Flicking someone off in Japan, which is part of what Aoki did wrong the other night, does not mean what it does in the U.S. What does it mean here (in Japan)? I don't know. You know who else doesn't know? Japanese people. When I lived out in the middle of nowhere I used to play mini-volleyball, which is the silliest non-sport going. One guy on my team was trying to explain to me that I should stop trying to spike on every play and try to pass more. As he was telling me this he was flicking me off the whole time. My reaction was to try and kill him but I repressed that and left the little concrete gym and never went back. When I asked other people who were there about what had happened, they couldn't figure out what I was upset about. "So?" They would say, honestly at a loss about what could be upsetting. My friend was crossing the street one day in Miyazaki as an old man passed by him smiling and raising his middle finger. What was he on about? Who knows?
In the last few years teaching at particularly bad junior highs I have seen the bird flicked at least once a week. When it has been directed at me I usually say, "I'm not going to get mad this time but if you do it again, we have trouble." This has invariably been followed with "Sensei, what does doing that (insert offensive gesture here) mean?" I respond, "If you don't know what it means then why do you do it." Of course no one gets this, it is Japan. Why do people who don't smoke pot keep head shops in business? Why do girls with flat asses make booty videos? Why are there Buddhists Rastafarians? Who knows? I usually tell people that in America it means you want to fight someone, which, while being a paltry explanation, would be the result. It is the closest you can get to spitting on someone in terms of getting a reaction.
Am I claiming that Aoki Shinya is an innocent who might as well have held up his thumb like he was flagging down a ride, or made hook-'em horns, that it would have all been the same meaning to him? No. What I would claim about Aoki, and I don't know the man personally, is that he is kind of a dork. He seems like a guy, from listening to him talk, who is not the most socially acute gentleman in the academy. I have a feeling that this wasn't his first uncalculated action. I say this based off of lots of guys I know in MMA in Japan. A lot of them are my friends. A lot of them are good people. A lot of them are not suave young masters parting the seas of civil society. A pro-fighter of my acquaintance often flicks me off while calling me a "stupid foreigner." Would this seem okay to me in America? Not in the least. But I consider this man a friend and a bit of a hopeless loser, although a good fighter. I could say the same of Aoki.
As I alluded to above, I see teenage boys flick of their friends all day long in class and giggle at each other. They will knock on the window passing by and flick off their friends. I just hang my head in futility. I noticed Takaya's fan section flicking off the cameras as he made his way through the lightweight tournament. They didn't look angry, they looked happy. As I saw the replays of Aoki running around the ring chunking the half-deuce like a true moron I had the same reaction I usually do to this stuff. The same reaction I have when a club full of kids raised at cram schools and living with their parents shout along with gangster rap and shout "pull-off" to every reggae song. I hang my head, rub my eyes with my fingers and shake my head slowly at a culture without any context.
If you are going to get mad at Aoki get mad at him for not caring about the meaning of what he was doing, not for thinking he was a macho badass, I doubt it even occurred to him.
I should begin this non-apologetic apologia by making the claim I have often made in the past but that I feel needs some clarification; Japan is a nation of big excuse makers. I don't want to go too deep into that now as it is not the main issue but, in a society that is always demanding that someone take the fall for everything, people have become very good at passing the buck and evading responsibility. Maybe I have just begun to think that as I teach junior high school, but I believe that it is largely true. "We have to kill whales because we are Buddhists and we don't want animals to go to waste." "We can't import rice from California because real rice can't be grown outside Japan." "We can't bury power cables because Japanese soil is unique." I hate it and I have had enough of it. But.....But.... I am going to make a little excuse for Aoki Shinya.
Here is my argument. Flicking someone off in Japan, which is part of what Aoki did wrong the other night, does not mean what it does in the U.S. What does it mean here (in Japan)? I don't know. You know who else doesn't know? Japanese people. When I lived out in the middle of nowhere I used to play mini-volleyball, which is the silliest non-sport going. One guy on my team was trying to explain to me that I should stop trying to spike on every play and try to pass more. As he was telling me this he was flicking me off the whole time. My reaction was to try and kill him but I repressed that and left the little concrete gym and never went back. When I asked other people who were there about what had happened, they couldn't figure out what I was upset about. "So?" They would say, honestly at a loss about what could be upsetting. My friend was crossing the street one day in Miyazaki as an old man passed by him smiling and raising his middle finger. What was he on about? Who knows?
In the last few years teaching at particularly bad junior highs I have seen the bird flicked at least once a week. When it has been directed at me I usually say, "I'm not going to get mad this time but if you do it again, we have trouble." This has invariably been followed with "Sensei, what does doing that (insert offensive gesture here) mean?" I respond, "If you don't know what it means then why do you do it." Of course no one gets this, it is Japan. Why do people who don't smoke pot keep head shops in business? Why do girls with flat asses make booty videos? Why are there Buddhists Rastafarians? Who knows? I usually tell people that in America it means you want to fight someone, which, while being a paltry explanation, would be the result. It is the closest you can get to spitting on someone in terms of getting a reaction.
Am I claiming that Aoki Shinya is an innocent who might as well have held up his thumb like he was flagging down a ride, or made hook-'em horns, that it would have all been the same meaning to him? No. What I would claim about Aoki, and I don't know the man personally, is that he is kind of a dork. He seems like a guy, from listening to him talk, who is not the most socially acute gentleman in the academy. I have a feeling that this wasn't his first uncalculated action. I say this based off of lots of guys I know in MMA in Japan. A lot of them are my friends. A lot of them are good people. A lot of them are not suave young masters parting the seas of civil society. A pro-fighter of my acquaintance often flicks me off while calling me a "stupid foreigner." Would this seem okay to me in America? Not in the least. But I consider this man a friend and a bit of a hopeless loser, although a good fighter. I could say the same of Aoki.
As I alluded to above, I see teenage boys flick of their friends all day long in class and giggle at each other. They will knock on the window passing by and flick off their friends. I just hang my head in futility. I noticed Takaya's fan section flicking off the cameras as he made his way through the lightweight tournament. They didn't look angry, they looked happy. As I saw the replays of Aoki running around the ring chunking the half-deuce like a true moron I had the same reaction I usually do to this stuff. The same reaction I have when a club full of kids raised at cram schools and living with their parents shout along with gangster rap and shout "pull-off" to every reggae song. I hang my head, rub my eyes with my fingers and shake my head slowly at a culture without any context.
If you are going to get mad at Aoki get mad at him for not caring about the meaning of what he was doing, not for thinking he was a macho badass, I doubt it even occurred to him.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tamura Yukinari vs. Satomoto Kazuya
I have seen this happen several times, but I am always slightly surprised by it; two Paraestra fighters squaring of against each other. True Tamura "Hibiki" Yukinari fights out of Paraestra Osaka and Satomoto Kazuya fights out of Paraestra Hiroshima, but you would think they might avoid these conflicts. I guess it really isn't a big deal. One thing I will say about Paraestra fighters, regardless of their gym, they seem to be very well trained and coached and fight much more in control of themselves than a lot of Shooto competitors. I always enjoy watching them at work. Hibiki Tamura is a long limbed fighter who can strike from range. Satomoto is much more compact. He come off as a little slow, but this could be a misreading of his deliberateness.
Hibiki (in the red tights) worked single punches and several kicks from range. Satomoto bided his time.
Satomoto's main method of attack in the 1st (and again I apologize for the quality of these photos) was to latch on to Hibiki's right arm Sakuraba style and try to implement the standing Kimura. It was an interesting strategy and kept the match tied up and awkward, but not unexciting.
As poor as the next shot is it communicates the speed with which the rounds last actions played out. Failing to get his Kimura, Satomoto fell to the ground with Hibiki. He immediately spun for an armbar.
It was a good struggle, but time was, ultimately, on Tamura's side and the bell rang out.
The 2nd round was a lot more of the same with Satomoto refusing to give up on the standing Kimura.
Hibiki worked the fight back to striking but Satomoto was game there. I am not sure what landed, but blood began to erupt from the middle of Hibiki's forehead. Satomoto's corner yelled, "It was that knee!" But someone asked me, "Did you get a shot of that punch?" I have evidence of neither so let's settle on it being... something.
The doctor called a stop to the fight. Neither Tamura or his corner seemed to object. Satomoto advances in the welterweight tournament.
Hibiki (in the red tights) worked single punches and several kicks from range. Satomoto bided his time.
Satomoto's main method of attack in the 1st (and again I apologize for the quality of these photos) was to latch on to Hibiki's right arm Sakuraba style and try to implement the standing Kimura. It was an interesting strategy and kept the match tied up and awkward, but not unexciting.
As poor as the next shot is it communicates the speed with which the rounds last actions played out. Failing to get his Kimura, Satomoto fell to the ground with Hibiki. He immediately spun for an armbar.
It was a good struggle, but time was, ultimately, on Tamura's side and the bell rang out.
The 2nd round was a lot more of the same with Satomoto refusing to give up on the standing Kimura.
Hibiki worked the fight back to striking but Satomoto was game there. I am not sure what landed, but blood began to erupt from the middle of Hibiki's forehead. Satomoto's corner yelled, "It was that knee!" But someone asked me, "Did you get a shot of that punch?" I have evidence of neither so let's settle on it being... something.
The doctor called a stop to the fight. Neither Tamura or his corner seemed to object. Satomoto advances in the welterweight tournament.
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