Nagano Soccer Tournament

About 3 weeks ago, I participated in the Biannual Nagano Soccer/Football tournament. I had previously attended the same tournament in October last year and had lots of fun, so thought I'd give it another go. Plus, it was a chance to catch up with some of the boys in the Tochigi prefecture that I had not seen in a while.


I was of course part of the Tochigi team, which is one of the teams that run middle of the pack, not absolutely crap but also not the best team out there. I guess the reason is some of us only play twice a year (i.e. at this tournament) and we have some pretty decent players from the Queen's country.


In the last tournament we managed to rank about 9th or 10th. Pretty decent showing, we had a large squad with plenty of subs. We made the top half of the draw for the knockout tournament on the Sunday but unfortunately lost. The Tochigi team has been strong in the past, even managing to make the finals one year. However, the squad this time was not going to repeat that effort.


This time round, we were missing a few of our English boys and we didn't have as many subs. But hey, we tried. The weather for the weekend was looking great ... sunshine abound on top of the Nagano mountains. Unlike the previous event, where it was cold and then rained on the Sunday.


The basic structure is that we play 4 games on the Saturday. The top 10 teams from the 18 teams make the top half of the draw for the following knock-out tournament on Sunday and the right to be crown Nagano champions. The other 8 teams, qualify for the bottom half knock-out tournament for a shield and a case of beer. Not bad, really.


So we played, first up loss ... through an unfortunate goal where we were caught napping, 0-1. Our next was a bit better, a 2-0 win. The third was another loss, 0-2. And the last game was a 3-1 win. So we had 2 wins and 2 losses and would wait to see where we were headed next.

The lads gathering and oozing confidence before the game!

A bit of stretching to loosen those muscles that you never use.

Allen, our goal keeper getting in some stretches.

Yep, that's me getting in some stretches too. And there were many muscles I had to stretch due to my inactivity recently.

Some warm up laps. I was buggered after the warm-up actually!

We were pretty high in the mountains. High enough, that we could almost touch the clouds.

Unfortunately, this was the theme of my tournament ... many times too slow to chase the opposition forward. Yep, that's me in the number 15. Luckily, I think that guy missed this one.

Discussing tactics. Maybe on moving me onto someone that I can keep up with!!!

We all were staying at a Ryokan nearby and had 6 boys to a traditional Japanese room. Tight fit and lots of loud snoring ... not only by me either. We found out that we had make the top of the bottom group for the next day. Some of us were grateful for this as it meant that we had competition more to our level and the potential to win a case of beer!!! And plus some teams take the tournament way too seriously ... like skipping the party that is put on in the evening just to be ready for the following day.



To the Sunday, where most of the lads felt muscles we never knew we had. Let me tell you, it was pretty painful. But we got our game faces on competed. We won our first game 3-0. Then the semi-final where we were up early, but the opposition pulled one back to 1-1 and the game had to be decided by a penalty shootout. Our keeper gave us a great start but saving the first shot. We then slammed home all of ours to make it to the final.

Our last penalty taken by the strike machine, Rob!

Unfortunately we ran out of steam in the final. Injuries to key players caught up with us and some of the boys were trying to recover from sunstroke. We lost 2-0, but gave it a good run. We finished off with a bowl of Curry and rice for lunch and then headed home.

Team Tochigi!!!

Taiku Sai

A few weeks ago my school held it's Taiku sai (Sports festival). I've been pretty fortunate to be able to see both a bunka sai (school cultural festival) and a taiku sai in the space of 12mths. That's mainly because, the school festival is only held once every 3 years. And seeing as how I was part of that, I thought I would miss out on the sports festival which occurs in the years between.


I first had an inkling something was happening at my school, when one afternoon, all the classes ventured outside to practice jump rope. Of course, I was not told of the taiku sai until 2 days out from the event and that it was being held on a Saturday. The tone in my teachers voice, didn't make it seem like it was an option either. Anyway, all was forgiven when my teacher also said that we would be having the following Monday off as compensation.

The sunny afternoon in question, where the kids ventured out to practice jump rope.

The kids is hard training!

Now, a Japanese taiku sai is not like any sports day that we would have back at home. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of physical exertion involved. However, if you were expecting to see traditional track and fields events like; sprinting, hurdles, shot put, long jump, discuss, distance running then you would have been sorely disappointed. No, a Japanese taiku sai involves events such as throwing balls into a very high basket (no, not basketball!), tug of war, relays with obstacles other than passing a baton, jump rope ... and dancing the new yagi bushi.

Also grandeur notions of weired Japanese sports being played like children building pyramids on each other and then ramming each other til one team is standing is also sorely lacking from the events lists.

So to the big day. Unfortunately being in the middle of the Tsuyu season (rainy season), it was bucketing down with rain on the Saturday. The taiku sai, which normally occurs outdoors, had to be shifted into the gym. So the flags of the world went up and away we go!

From what I can remember of primary and high school ... we used to compete in different house colours in sporting events. This similarly occurs in Japan, so there were four teams with the colours; Midori (green), Pinku (pink), Murasaki (purple) and Shiroi (white). Each teacher also belonged to a coloured team. On the day, I was quickly recruited onto team shiro. No doubt, they saw the abundant amount of physical talent in me (stop laughing everyone!). Now for some of the events, the students competed in their coloured teams and for other events, they would compete in their homeroom classes. So that meant that some 3rd kids were pitted against some 1st year kids.

Here's a run down of the days events. It's all in Japanese, but not to fear, I will explain.

To the first event of the day, throwing the small balls into the small and incredibly high basket. Each team had about 5mins to get as many balls as they could into the baskets. Pretty simply!

As you can see, the basket is pretty high and you do get tired after a prolong period of piffing these balls up there. This was pretty much the only event that I was able to partake in!

In the end, team shiro won ... YEAH! I'm going to say that it was basketball skills that got us this win here. This is set the tone for the rest of the sports festival where team Shiro pretty much dominated.

Next was the pole relay (at this point, I'm just making up names for these events ... I don't know the Japanese names of them). This one had the kids compete in their homerooms. Basically the kids would make two lines, with the two kids at the front with the pole. The race starts with the two front kids running to the end of the gym and then back. On their way back, they must lower the pole so that their classmates can jump over them, then handed off to the last pair. The last pair then hold the pole high, so the classmates can duck under them, and to the end of the gym and back ... etc. The first team to complete this with all their class wins!

Following up was the old favourite, "Tug of war". I would have come in handy on this one, but was relegated to being a cheerleader instead. Pretty simply, the more you pull, the better chance of winning. So here are my boys getting ready. Ready ..... Set .....

Go .... pull!

Girls, you too ... pull!

Huzzah, celebrations after a victory!

The next two were two different types of relay races. The first had the students, jump over a hurdles, then grab a piece of clothing from the rack ....

Fold the clothing properly, then pick up a mystery card asking them to pick a member of the audience with a specific attribute to run to the finish line. Attributes included; anyone who was a teacher, anyone who was male, anyone who is a parent, anyone born in December ... etc.

The next relay was a little bit more difficult. In this one, they had to first stack up cans ... the number the stack was determined by the card they chose. So some students only had to stack to cans, while others had to stack 4 or 5.

Next was what caused the mostly difficulty. The kids had to put a thread through a sewing pin. Very difficult for some adults, let alone kids.

Finally, they had to only use their teeth to bite off a piece of bread that was hanging by a rope, then the finish line.

Next was performing the New yagi bushi dance. Each of the teams put their own spin on this classic Japanese folk dance. My team, added a little acrobatics ... with one of the girls doing some back flips and jumps to end it. Unfortunately another was a little more inventive and took out the top prize.

Another strength competition. Trying to win three different pieces of rope by pulling it to your end.

The jump rope was next. A little rev up for one of the teams before they begin.

And off we go. In the end, I think 1-2 class won when the had about 25 consecutive jumps for their class.

Absolutely knackered!

So the day ended with team shiro holding about 100 point lead, however, there were still to be some events that had to be completed outside. So the continuation was held during the week.

The second last event was a simply and plain relay.

And team Shiro wins again.

The final event was a relay of sorts. The first person would run around then pass the baton onto two of their classmates with their legs tied (above picture). So these two had to run in unison. This relay continued through 3, then 4 and finally 5 people tied together. I can assure you that this was no easy task for some as you will see in the video below.

Here are some of my boys attempting to complete this race. They were leading, and then it all fell apart.

The boys did eventually make it to the end.

And the final scores are in. Team shiro (C) wins by a pretty comfortable margin in the end! Yatta!!

We were awarded our little certificate, and so ended the Taiku sai!