The Singing Fists of Shōrinji

Surfing the net for Shōrinji -ryu karate in Ōsaka, the first hit I get is a dōjō in my neighbourhood. Even though they train on Thursdays 7 o’clock when I’m still working for another three hours, I follow a spontaneous whim and call the contact number anyway.
Enter T-Sensei. Well, his voice, rather. It is a very friendly voice, and he tells me they are training on Saturday nights as well. From 8 o’clock. On Saturdays, I tell him, I work exactly till 8 o’clock. My heart sinks. “No problem!” he says. “We train till ten, so just come whenever you can make it!”
The first time I can make it is two weeks later, because the next Saturday is taken up by my GEOS Juso school welcome party, where I obviously can’t be missing.
The training takes place in Ōike Primary School near Toyonaka Station. I leave work as soon as I can and take the same train I usually take home, only going two stops further. Map in hand, I traipse through Toyonaka in my work clothes, in search of Ōike Primary School. Wandering down a dark alley that, according to my map, should take me straight to the entrance, a stranger walking along with his two little daughters asks me: “What are you looking for?” “I’m looking for Ōike Primary School. Do you know this area?” “Ah, that’s just over there.” As I turn the way he points, I can actually see a door opening up and revealing a light patch of sports hall in the dark. However, there’s dark, a high fence in between me and the light. The man says: “I think this entrance won’t be open now, so you have to go around that way.”
I thank him and go around that way, and find the entrance to the school, only that it looks dark and closed. But I have seen a light on the way, so I try to open the dark gate anyway, and sesame opens up to me. I walk around the side of the dark, dark building, through tiny little paths next to flower beds, and finally find the sports hall. A bunch of kids are sitting with some parents, putting on their shoes after training, getting ready to leave. When I enter, nobody notices me as I bow respectfully to the dōjō. It is huge. There are still several kids and several bigger people sitting around on the floor, with bags and clothes next to them. Some people are training karate in different parts of the hall, doing different things. I walk around aimlessly in the giant dōjō, looking for T-Sensei, or somebody else I might ask what to do next. But I don’t have to go looking. He finds me.
“Ah, you must be Anna-san!” calls an energetic looking man in a black dōgi from the other side of the hall. Sensei’s voice. “I am.” I shout back. He leads me to the changing rooms. “Just get changed in there, and then come back in.”
I get changed, and am introduced to Senpai, who seems much younger than me, but nonetheless a lot better at karate. He takes me through the basic movements of the style, which are stationary moves that include all the main movements. Importantly, changing from kiba-dachi into zenkutsu-dachi, using a lot of hip movement.
Senpai is strict and very good at teaching. In all the necessary detail but no more, he tells me how to adjust and improve my movements to match the style. After we have finished going through all the seven types of moves two or three times, T-Sensei calls everybody together for some pad work. First, he wants to see mine. Senpai holds the pad, and I’m tested on a range of kicks first, not doing great. Sensei watches and nods. “Ah, I think I know what kind of karate you did before.” He assumes a perfect Tenshinkan stance and dashes forward to hit the pad with several perfect Tenshinkan punches and kicks. “Was it like this?” “It was,” I admit, impressed, and Sensei then assumes a Shorinji-ryu stance, which is turned slightly sideways, more boxing-like, and ready to kick all the time, using a lot of spinning flying round house back kicks like in kickboxing. These ones I have to get used to as I’ve never really done them before. “So this is how we do it,” says Sensei. “Hold up the pad,” he tells Senpai, as I am supposed to punch it, and then he adds in a more quiet voice: “I think she’ll be much better at that.”
I can’t wait to have the pad put in front of me and dash forward with the punches Sensei tells me to use. Everyone makes a face. Some people go all quiet and whisper “Scary.” At least there is something I can do, I think, and then the whole group gathers in pairs to do more pad-work up and down the hall. Apart from small children, a wide range of age groups trains together here, from young teenage years to middle age. Everybody instructs and helps each other. Atmosphere A. After training, I am to stand in front of the group and give the obligatory jikoshōkai (self introduction). I can’t think of much to say and just tell everybody I’m from Germany and am teaching English here in Osaka, so I will be here for a while. Please grace me with your kindness and benevolence in the future. I bow. Sensei says: “It is great to have Anna with us. She has come from far away and is training with us. And I want everybody to train hard so you can punch like Anna.” Thankfully I don’t have a tendency to blush. Instead, I bow again, and ask for everybody’s kindness and benevolence once again. You can never ask often enough, especially when you're talking to a group of karate people.

Two weeks later, T-Sensei schedules a welcome party for me. Training kung-fu in Ōsakajō-kōen before and getting confused about which trains I have to take when and from where, I end up making everybody wait for a long time, and the worst thing is that my mobile is out of batteries. They will leave, I think, and I hate myself for messing things up so badly and treating people who are treating me with so much kindness and benevolence in such an ignorant and careless manner.
When I arrive, everybody is standing there, waiting for me. I hail apologies on them, but they just shrug them off, and we walk a couple hundred yards to a warmly-lit, light-wood-coloured Japanese style restaurant in Toyonaka. There are five of us, and a little woman with big eyes joins us later. So we sit and drink beer, and talk. “Please ask us lots of questions tonight,” he tells me, “And everybody else, please ask Anna lots of questions tonight!” So the night moves on as we sit at a long table eating croquets, salad, spicy pieces of raw octopus, spaghetti with mushroom and cream sauce and more delicious snacks, drinking small glasses of beer, and asking and answering questions, learning. Mainly about the individuals present at this party. But there is some country-related talk as well.
Sensei is interested in history and wants to know why Germany, although it lost the war like Japan, has a normal military now. I explain that in Germany, the allies tried to erase the world of Nazi thought that had made the war atrocities possible by replacing all jobs of authority, introducing a new curriculum into schools and in general being strict about cleansing the country from Nazi ideology, so there was no need for a peace clause like in Japan, where article 9 of the post-war constitution restricts Japan’s military to a self defence force not to be used in attacks. I also explain that even though Germany does have a military, every dispatch of it to contribute to UN missions is still viewed critically inside Germany and turns into a major news item every time it happens. He savours his beer and the new information gained.
We have gradually filled our bellies, and start leaving, but Sensei has planned a second venue. Most people need to leave, as for them, the next day is Monday, a normal working day. Sensei, Senpai and I, however, make our way to a nearby karaoke bar, where we order some non-alcoholic drinks this time, and a party set of snacks including crisps, eda-mame (small green beans), and chocolate sticks in strawberry cream.
This is probably the most enjoyable part of the evening. Politely, one after another, we put songs into the machine and sing. While I offer pieces of the English song menu, such as Norah Jones’s “Don’t Know Why” and Dido’s “Thank You”, I get an impressive range of Japanese music in return. I’m surprised by Sensei’s good singing voice as it appropriately whines the traditional Okinawan “Shima-uta” and breathes love songs like “Mayonaka sugi koi” and a song from the seventies called “Anna”, written with the same kanji I use for my name. I’m also very impressed by Senpai’s interesting choice of songs including “Tokyo no hiyori” and “Josei A”, both of which I try to find on i-tunes later that night, but without success.
We sing, eat, drink, and laugh, until the time comes to leave. Sensei refuses to accept money from me and invites me to my welcome party. And to sum up the theme of the party, and create a hopeful start to our joint efforts to become better and better at karate, we have our picture taken together in the karaoke lobby. Smile, CHEESU! And KAPOW!