Well, this has been a busy couple weeks for my school. The teachers and students were logging in extra hours of sweat-filled practices in preparation for Sports Day, which we had the 14th.
This event is a huge deal. A full day of class competitions and exhibitions that is months in the making.
I am not a Japanese teacher nor student and so my love for event comes from the outside. I'm not the one who needs to stay at school until around 9:00pm and then turn around the next day and be there at 7:00am. I don't have to spend summer vacation making signs for the event. If the students fall asleep in classes I'm helping teach because they are exhausted it doesn't bother me too much. I don't need to worry about them passing their exams or being prepared for high school entrance exams. So, I can understand if some are critical of the vast amount of time and energy that is put into this one day event. I, however, loved every minute of it.
It's a day full of races and performances. It's a competition between the classes, with winners and losers, but it's also a community affair.
The Lion's Club comes to cheer the kids on, parents pack into tents and crowd the sidelines. Teachers are cheerleaders, coaches, participants, photographers, and nurses. Everyone participates, even if they aren't great. Students are fiercely loyal to their classes, pushing each other and encouraging each other along. The special ed. students participate right along with the other students. Students are the MCs of the event and during each lap of the relay races they announce who's in first, who's gaining ground, and then who's in last. But they don't say the Japanese equivalent of "bringing up the rear is..." they say "Gambette kudasai" meaning "Please try your hardest." When asked if I would run in the teachers race I said yes but followed that quickly by explaining that I was a slow runner. The teacher who had asked said, "No problem," with a smile. And it wasn't, about half of the younger teachers were faster than me and about half were slower than me. It was a day about participating, not just winning. My team finished second to last in our race (against junior high students) and as we staggered back to the tent, breathless and pouring sweat, we were greeted with cheers from the other teachers and some students.
It was a day full of pageantry and formalities. Some of the marching could be characterized as like a military, but then so could marching bands back home I suppose. It was terribly hot but they marched on, some suffering from heat exhaustion. Dangerous? Perhaps. But I think sometimes it's good to push your limits. Especially if the school nurse is right there to sit with you under the tent. And the rest of your team is eagerly awaiting for you to rejoin them. Com'on, the jump rope contest starts in 5 minutes!!!
And that's what I loved. Simply, you belonged because you were part of the team, not because you were really fast (though that would be a plus) or not because they were all your friends (though a lot of them are).
During my first season of softball when I was 9 years old my coach joked that I ran like I had a piano on my back. I stuck with softball and loved it but from that point on I never tried to get faster. I was slow and that was it. No one encouraged me to "do your best" because my best wasn't good enough and that was the bottom line. Organized sports at school in Japan are just as tough as my first coach, I know. And yet, on Sports Day, all the students--slow and fast--head to the finish line and do their best.
Because, on Sports Day, we run together.
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