Tung's Adventures: 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.