It dawned on me that my new karate school is quite different from my old one, in that it is now the most international place I go. The sensei is from Egypt; most of the other students, especially in the kids’ class right before mine, are from Arabic-speaking families; and I can count on one hand the number of Caucasian-Americans (including myself) that I’ve seen there. And yet, it took me a while to realize this, because I think I got so used to being the odd-looking-one-out in Japan.
Last night was particularly interesting for me. There was a new student who has just started who was making up a class from earlier in the week. (Normally, beginning students go to the Monday/Wednesday classes, not the Tuesday, Thursday, Friday ones.) His family must have immigrated not too long ago, because while he does speak English pretty well, whenever the sensei would give instructions and he looked confused, the sensei would just switch into Arabic for a few seconds, and then back into English. Yay, bilingualism!
Also last night, another teacher (K.) showed up. I’d never seen him before, and it turns out that’s because he’s from Nigeria, and had just returned from competing in the All-Africa Games. He and my sensei had first met at the 1995 Games in Zimbabwe. This year, the Games were hosted by Algeria, and K. did not approve of the way they had handled things. The accomodations were poor, teams were split between different housing areas, and the food was bad and served “like we were in prison!” He speculated that the Algerians were trying to rig it so their team would win more. K. did not win, in the end, nor did his team win the team kata competition, so he left, as he put it, “unsatisfied.” He will have to go back in 2011, when the games will be in Zambia.
Despite his issues with the hosting country, though, it was clear that in some ways he had had a good time. He had brought back amateur recordings of the competition, which were being sold for $10/disc, 10 discs to a set, by some enterprising soul, and he and my sensei took turns identifying the various competitors and which country each was from. They seemed to know everyone there, and they traded a lot of insider gossip, which was great fun to listen to. “She should never have been there! She’s the reason my sister wasn’t allowed to come, even though my sister is much better. She’s the wife of a coach, you see.” “Oh, she’s from Egypt. She’s very good, but her parents are very rich, you know. They take her to train in Spain and France…”
For all that I never had a lot of use for tournaments, it does seem like a big sense of community that gets built up at such events. It would be interesting to get to go to national and international events like that. The US Nationals just happened last month, a few weeks after I started, and I know the students from my school did very well. Maybe I can go next year.
