April 14th and 15th-Monday Tuesday Happy Days…
I think I might start doing this more often. That is…waiting for a day or two and then writing a journal entry for both. I think what we’ll find is that I include less unnecessary extraneous information and my journal entries will be more to-the-point and concentrate on the more important things rather than abstract concepts and theories. Now, don’t get me wrong! I enjoy abstract concepts and my random rambling that often results from me just sitting in my room and typing up two or three pages of whatever comes to my head…but I worry that my readership doesn’t enjoy it quite as much and 50 years from now when I read this thing, I don’t want to bore myself! So, instead of continuing to explain myself in 16 different ways and always saying the same thing, I’ll just jump right into the biggest thing that’s been different about the last 2 days.
This week,
my wish came true and I started with the boat club (know here as ボート (booh-toh). The club now has, including myself, 3 guys and 4 girls I
think. They are all very nice. I don’t really talk to the girls because us
guys and the girls kind of do our own thing or the same things at different
times. The coach is also very nice and
he even throws in some words in English in his explanations for me, so that’s
very accommodating. Unfortunately, the
words he throws in in English are almost always words I would understand in
Japanese, but it’s ok. When I don’t get
something, I just get someone to demonstrate for me and it works fine. On Monday after school, I changed clothes
with the two guys (Ippei Nagatomo and Satoshi Taniguchi) and we went for a
run. We just ran around the athletic
field a bunch of times. We also only
ran for 15 minutes, but the pace wasn’t slow and I haven’t run in a while. When we were done, we were all sweating like
crazy and very much out of breath. Next,
we went up to where the weights are in the gym and we did a weight lifting
routine for about an hour or hour and a half working on calves, shoulders,
triceps, lower back, and biceps. They
have an alternative routine that I guess they were on other days so areas of
the body aren’t overworked. I think the
most amusing exercise was the calf exercise.
We got a couple weight plates and put them on the floor side by side in
front of a bench. Then one person would
be one foot on each plate, bend over, and put his hands on the bench. Next, one of the other two would climb onto
his back and the person bending over extends their calves so they’re standing
on their toes. This is repeated 20
times. It was funny having someone sit
on your back while your doing calf raises.
They thought it was funny too and would wave their hands in the air or
hit the person’s butt like they were riding a horse. I managed to not have my butt slapped, so that was good. After the weight lifting, we went to the
room where the Boat Club has their equipment.
They have four machines (identical) that are fashioned to replicate the
type of motion one makes when rowing the boat (the long, slender kind where the
oars are locked in place and the seats slide back and forth). So, I hopped on one of the machines and I
was shown what the right form is for a while.
It’s not as easy as it looks because it takes a lot of work to get the
body timing just right. Your legs are
supposed to do the work while your arms and shoulders relax until the very end. At the same time as you’re sliding back in
the seat, you’re supposed to start leaning back drawing the oars back with you…but
not too soon! And not too late
either! When you’re back as far as you’re
supposed to go, your back is at about a 45 degree angle to the ground and you
have to stop their abruptly and reverse direction while letting your arms straighten
first and then leaning into your thighs and sliding forward. After you get all of this down, you have to
do it fast in perfect rhythm with everyone else who’s in the boat! I’ll get it…this was just my first day! By the time we finished it was about 6:30pm
and even though it was hot and we were sweating like an oxen (do oxen sweat?)
everyone changed back into their stuffy uniforms with the long pants, jacket,
and multiple shirts. I didn’t want to,
but I figured I should just do what everyone else did, so I changed too. As I started peddling home, the darkening
sky got a little touchy and I started to feel raindrops here and there. It took me about 30 minutes to get
home. I didn’t bother to put on the
poncho mom had given me since it never started raining hard. When I got home I was soggy, very sweaty,
felt disgusting, my legs were on fire (from the hill and the rowing and the
dead lifts with the weights and the running), and I was really hungry. I took a shower and I ate dinner for a long
time and I think I drank about a pint of tea.
Today’s (Tuesday) practice
was a bit different. Today, instead of
running around the athletic field, we ran up alongside the river and turned
around after about 10 minutes so it added up to about a 20 minute run in the
sun. Tomorrow I need to bring my
sunglasses. The guys told me that
Japanese people don’t need sunglasses on sunny days…but…I excused myself and
said I would bring some since I’m not Japanese. After our run we went to our little private training room. The first exercise was a killer. We were supposed to do 300 (yes…three
hundred) of these sit-ups that are like…you’re already sitting up doing
them. Let me explain better than
that. We sat on the machines with the
sliding seats, locked our feet in the foot locks, but held our hands out in
front of ourselves with one hand on top of the other. Then…you keep your back straight and you bend your legs a very
little bit on the way forward and you do the rowing motion. So…you snap back and you have to stop
yourself with your abdominal muscles and send your torso back where it came
from. So, we were supposed to do 300 of
those. I definitely couldn’t do them all
at once. I don’t think anyone really
did 300. It took me a while, but in the
end I think I probably did 200 or so…I wasn’t really counting that well
though. After that we did a lot of
exercises that worked abs, back, arms, and legs, utilizing those large
inflatable rubber balls. After a while
of that, we did more practicing form on the rowing machines. Once everything was over, I still had to
ride my bike home, up the hill, for 30 minutes. Mom had gone out somewhere, so Eri and I had dinner together and
watched some goofy Japanese TV (I think I’ll have to do a journal entry solely
devoted to Japanese TV…). Let me just
tell you…by August…I’m gonna be so ripped.
20 minute bike ride in the morning, gym class a few times a week (I have
a feeling it’s going to be hardcore…we had our first day of gym today but all
we did was fill out some forms), 20 minutes of jogging followed by weight
training for calisthenics for 2 hours 5 days a week, and then my 30 minute bike
ride home up the hill with all my stuff weighing down the basket. It turns out that the boat team only goes in
the river on weekends and during the week they’re in training. I guess that makes sense. How can you row unless you prepare yourself
to row?! Right now I’m in such pain…oh
man…painful areas would be my legs, back, and definitely stomach. I wouldn’t be surprised if blood started
coming through my skin on my abdomen…it hurts that much…LoL. Well, I may get a 6 or 8 pack out of all
this work so that’d be pretty cool. We’ll
see. I’ve also been eating much more
healthily since I got to Miyazaki. I
eat three meals a day, but I don’t eat snacks (nor feel the need to). Breakfast could be anything…today it was 2
pancakes but yesterday it was an egg, sausage, and soup. For lunch I eat a bento that mom makes that
always has a couple kinds of meat, vegetables, and rice balls and I have tea or
juice with it. For dinner…well…I eat a
lot for dinner, but it’s always healthy stuff.
Like, tonight, I had sushi, tea, pork, and some kind of vegetable tempura. I don’t eat dessert either…I don’t know if
we have dessert things here…there are some little sweet cakes that we get
sometimes…but if there’s dessert it’s fruit most of the time. If I want something sweet after dinner, I’ll
have some juice like I did tonight.
Anyway, I’m sure you’re bored of listening to me talking about what I eat….sorry. Just wait ‘till I tell you about the toilet
here! Woah! Sorry…that will have to be another journal entry…especially after
I can include a picture of it in the media gallery!
-Maikeru