A little bit about road use in Japan

In order to best understand the technical organization of the race, it’s important to know that, in Japan, bicycle races on public roads are not accounted for by the law.  And, Japanese law being extremely particular, anything not explicitly allowed is denied. While this kind of policy is good in my main profession, computer security, it is not so good in the world of bicycle racing.  Without the use of public roads, it is nearly impossible to run a professional calibre race.

So this may explain why road cycle races in Japan are almost exclusively run on circuits, or with small stretches of open road followed by circuits. While it may be anathema, from the point of view of a European cycling team director, for races to not have city center to city center races, Japanese race organizers are simply at the whim of the police, who reference the law, and therein lies the rub.

The race was organized into seven stages held across eight days:

• Stage 1: Osaka (Sakai city) – individual time trial – 2.65 km
  Daisen Park circuit course
• Stage 2: Nara – circuit race – 121.2 km
  Yamazoe-mura Nunome Dam circuit course
• Stage 3: Mino – circuit race – 160.7 km
  Kyu Imai-ke Jutaku to Yokogoshi to Mino Washi Paper Museum circuit course
• Stage 4: Minami-Shinshu – circuit race – 148.0 km
  Iida Station to Shimohisakata circuit course
• Stage 5: Mount Fuji – point to point (hill climb) – 11.4 km
  Climb to Mt Fuji Subashiriguchi 5th station
• Stage 6: Izu – circuit race – 97.6 km
  Japan Cycle Sports Center circuit course
• Stage 7: Tokyo – circuit race – 112.7 km
  Hibiya City to Ohi Wharf circuit course

Here we go!

As usual, the first step of a bicycle race often seems to be the hardest: organizing meeting, checking riders’ licenses and arranging for transportation. There are no inscription problems and the managers’ meeting also goes smoothly. Once we conclude this, we pick up our car and head back to the hotel for dinner and some rest before tomorrow’s beginning stage.

This year Subaru is the car sponsor and the cars that all the commissaires get are really nice, each with a decent sunroof and plenty of room in the back to set up for the race.

Comm 2 gets the turbocharger, but really I think that comm 3 should get it, simply because he ends up having to do so much running back and forth during the race. My only complaint about the car is that, like so many cars, it is difficult to see the trip odometer when seated behind the driver. It would have been very handy to have a GPS unit on the front dashboard with kms ridden displayed.

Historical spots

One thing I can say about races in Japan is that you’re bound to have stages that start or end at historical spots. And even if you simply end in a city center, there will be an interesting night spot to go once the refereeing duties are completed for the day.

The second stage, at Nara, was no exception. The city of Nara itself is quite important in Japanese history, as it is one of the ancient capitals of the country. However, the Nara stage has for many years started in front of the Todai-ji Temple, which is a UN World Heritage site and contains the largest wooden building in the world.

Nara, and Todai-ji in particular, is one of my favorite places, and it was simply wonderful to have a chance to see a stage start from this famous location. (In addition, I had never dreamed of actually driving all the way to the Todai-ji temple. Usually you have a nice long walk, as the roads are all closed to traffic.  But not today: our race starts from here!)

Children in police uniform prepare to talk about bicycle safety at Todai-ji before Stage 2

Mount Fuji

Probably the most interesting stage on the race this year was the hill climb of Mount Fuji. The stage was unusual simply because it was so short (only 11.4 km) and so steep. Normally courses like this might be used for a time trial — as it has been in the past — but this year they decided to make the stage a mass start race. Though I was skeptical at first, the stage did turn out quite well: amazingly there were no reports of riders hanging on to cars, yet all the riders made the time cut (if barely).

However, the day before the stage, I was a bit worried, because the entire course was in a fog bank (click on the 1-minute video above). I thought that it might be dicey for the referees or even the team managers to watch what was going on during the ascent. However, on race day the weather was simply splendid all the way from start to finish.

Hot tea above the clouds

On the course inspection day, once we passed through the fog bank and made it to the top of the ascent, we stopped for a while at the Mt Fuji fifth station to drink some hot tea and enjoy the view. It was spectacular: on one side was an unobstructed view of Mt Fuji and on the other we looked down upon the cloud tops.

As for the Mt Fuji stage itself, I was quite happy with how it turned out. The refereeing team did a very good job dealing with the barrage during the climb.  Of course, the reason for barrage on this kind of ascent has nothing to do with gapping riders from the slipstream (after all, there was only about 100 meters of flat for the whole stage). Instead, it’s about avoiding vehicle congestion and keeping tabs on weaker riders who might be tempted to get a hand in making the climb. Much of the course consisted of switchbacks, but we repositioned the timeboards (only one was really needed) to help in the observations, and the moto-commissaires operated in more of a leap-frog mode, since the steepness prevented their safely moving slowly on many sections of the climb.

Stage 5 - Mt Fuji

The climb up Fuji-san was difficult for all of the riders, but of course those who came from mountainous parts of the world had the winning advantage: an Italian and two Kazakh riders took the top three spots on the stage classification.  Riders from the club and university teams who participated had more difficulty, but did complete the stage successfully.

In retrospect, an extremely difficult climbing stage like Mt Fuji completely negates the need for having a prologue or individual time trial at the beginning of the race. Aside from determining the order of the team cars for the first mass start race, the small time gaps that came from Stage 1′s ITT ended up having no bearing on the final race outcome.

This is one stage where I still would have preferred an individual time trial, simply to put more emphasis on the man-versus-nature aspect of racing.  But I must admit that it was fun to watch it unroll as a mass start event.

The commissaires and officials

Just as Japan is divided in culture by region, so is Japan cycling. But the Tour of Japan brings people from all over the country together to pull off the largest annual cycle race in the country. Many of the people on the results team come from the Tour de Hokkaido, which is the second-largest UCI race in Japan, held in the fall.  Of course, a number of people came from the Kanto (Tokyo) area.  The antidoping inspector came from a university situated far north of Tokyo, and I came from the Kansai area of Osaka in western Japan. Together I think we made a very effective team, allowing the race to come off well both in the eyes of the teams and of the spectators.

Officials at Dinner

Taiko drummers at Izu

Japan Cycle Sports Center at Izu

The Tour of Japan was fun!

Kurt wearing a farmer's hat on Mt Fuji

In the Japanese martial arts tradition, students of each of the various schools typically hold a special training session called “kangeiko” (寒稽古 in Japanese), which means “mid-winter training.”

No one is certain of the exact origin of the kangeiko, but the tradition appears to have started in the middle of the Edo period, sometime in the Hōreki era (1751~1764), as a way to improve the general health of the adherents to each particular martial arts school.

Though particular to Japanese arts, the tradition of kangeiko has spread worldwide with the global popularity in the martial arts, and now kangeiko training can be found everywhere, from Tokyo to Paris to Chicago to Sydney. Because it’s cold almost everywhere in Japan after the turn of the year, stories of people training in pretty cold conditions are commonplace. Kangeiko is more than just a training session: it’s an opportunity for reflection, for starting afresh in the new year and for bonding with others, all in a setting steeped in tradition.

Shodokan aikido honbu in Osaka follows the same pattern, and is presently holding its 2010 kangeiko training session in the Showacho district of Osaka in the headquarters dojo each morning this week (2010-01-18~23), Monday through Saturday, from 6:30~7:30, plus one summation session on Sunday in the afternoon.

On Monday and Tuesday, Tetsuro Nariyama, shihan of Shodokan Aikido, discussed the tekubi waza (wrist techniques) focusing on kote hineri (wrist folding) techniques and applications on Monday morning and kote gaeshi (supinating wrist lock) techniques and applications on Tuesday morning.

To be honest, no matter how many times I try them, I find the kote gaeshi techniques and applications to be difficult to perform, even with minimal competency. But, I guess if I could do it all well, there’d be little need for training! I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson!

Sensei tied my belt, but jeez did he ever tie the knot tight! I can hardly budge it.

Finally. After a year on the sidelines, I’ve finally returned to aikido!

This morning, I decided to go to the afternoon 2 pm aikido session at Shodokan honbu, hoping for a small class size. Almost a year ago to the day, I broke a finger (the proximal phalanx of the left pinky, to be precise) during a routine warm-up exercise.  At doctor’s orders, I laid off any exercise that might aggravate the injury — and fingers take a long time to heal.  But then, weeks turned to months, and eventually months turned into just short of a year.

Now, roughly a year later, I feel as if I have forgotten all of the aikido I ever knew. I even forgot how to properly tie my belt! I’m pretty rusty on the warm-up routine, too, even though it’s perhaps the most standard part of each training session.

Restarting sport is always harder than keeping going: that part I remember.  Now, carrying quite some more weight than at this time last year, I feel as if I have the grace of a brick and the flexibility of a piece of rotted wood.  But, no matter; if I stick with it, it’ll get better. And the people are very much fun — that part I had somehow forgotten!

Art credit: chigu2nahito

I was assigned as a referee for an international cycling race at the Olympic velodrome in Beijing, China, during the weekend of January 17-19, 2009.  And, although the trip was quite abbreviated, it was my first time inside China, so I wanted to try to get a look at it as best as I could.

Glimpse of the entry to the Forbidden City

One word I could use to describe Beijing is “big”.  It took a long time to get from the airport to our hotel, which was not very far from the Olympic Velodrome. On the way, we passed directly through the north edge of Tiananmen Square and in front of the famous picture of Chairman Mao Tse Tung that hangs in front of the entry to the Forbidden City. I just had to take a photo as we passed by.

Another word I could use to describe Beijing is “congested”, because the roads were quite busy with traffic.  Although I heard that the roads are often quite busy in town, it’s likely that the roads were unusually burdened because of the approaching Chinese New Year’s: everyone wanted to get home to spend time with their family over the holiday. Still, it seemed to me that the best plan for getting around town would be to use the subway, which cost a mere RMB 2 to board (at the time of writing, equivalent to USD 0.29). Sure, at peak times they shove people onto trains, but at off-peak times the ride is plenty comfortable.

About the Cycling

The race to which I was assigned as a referee was the third in a series of four races, called the 2008-2009 World Cup Track Cycling Classics.  This was the first international race held at the Olympic velodrome since its use during the 2008 Olympic Games, and we were lucky enough to have live television coverage for the evening sessions’ race finals.

As Race Secretary, my job was to set up all of the seedings, rounds and repechages for the race meet, to record all of the results, and to homologate any World Records that might be broken during the meet (alas, none was broken). By the time the event had ended, we’d generated 150 separate reports on the various races that had taken place [see full results for details].

Though the crowds were not huge, the Chinese fans were definitely motivated. Whenever any of the home country players were on the track, you could be guaranteed of a really good cheer from the backstraight, where this group of supporters was seated (see photo, left). Moreover, they were really good sports about cheering the winning team, even in the face of a Chinese loss.  In fact, what impressed me most was that nearly all of the spectators would stand and actually pay attention during the playing of a foreign national anthem at the awards ceremonies. That isn’t the case in many parts of the world.

As to the audience, while there were supporters in the evenings on the back side of the track at evening sessions, the number of spectators on the home straight was, unfortunately, not overwhelming—around 20 or so. The velodrome area is huge both in terms of area and (think ceiling height) in terms of volume.  That means it is likely expensive to run, both for power and for temperature control. I hope that it remains an important center for cycling and that it doesn’t become a white elephant that falls into disuse. If it is an integral part of cycling in Beijing, and if events are held there regularly, then it stands a good chance of developing supporters and others who will fill the seats at events both big and small.

Due to some last-minute reshuffling, our team of International Commissaires was smaller than usual, consisting of Wayne POMARIO, the jury president; ZHAO Jinshan, the Starter; Walter Ka Lok YUE, the Judge-Referee; and myself, the Race Secretary.  We were assisted by 22 National Commissaires from the Chinese Cycling Association, who took care of numerous tasks such as equipment checks and assisting in the track refereeing.  The race organization itself was quite large, including logistics, technical support, facilities management and transportation.

[slideshow id=1][imagebrowser id=1]

It’s very common for Japanese companies to own a resort house for its employees to use as a “getaway”, much like having a subsidized company-owned hotel put at the disposal of the employees. The Shimano corporation has just such a place, called Kita Komatsu Villa, a stone’s throw away from Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan. And, thanks to one of our number who works for Shimano, we were able to secure sole use of the resort house for our small group’s party.

Shimano’s two-story resort house has a staff that tends to the kitchen (for a dining room that seats about 30 people), cleaning and administration. I didn’t count the rooms, but I would guess that there were about 8-10 rooms, each one a Japanese-style tatami-mat room sleeping about 4 on futons.  The centerpiece of the resort is a large “living room” style area, complete with tables, chairs, sofas, and an immense television.

Our bounenkai was really tiny — only five people — but we had a really enjoyable time.  First off we had a nice and very delicious Japanese-style dinner with all the trimmings. Naturally, that was followed up by the obligatory watching-of-cycling-videos from the year, accompanied by beer and, later, sake.

After completely dissecting all of the Japanese cycling events we could handle, we all took to the ofuro (Japanese hot bath), which seems to be where all the serious talk happens.  After that, with everyone pretty well exhausted, we retired to our large sleeping room, laid out our respective futons and crashed for the night.

In the morning, I experienced my first actual Japanese breakfast — in other words, one that involved eating raw eggs.  I must say it was much easier to deal with than I’d anticipated.  The key is in knowing how to mix the eggs with the soy sauce and that the eggs go into the rice while the rice is still quite hot.  It doesn’t completely cook the egg, but it is much more palatable than I’d imagined.

After breakfast and packing up, we checked out and headed to Kyoto to spend some time visiting cultural heritage sights sights before going our separate ways.  All in all, it was a remarkable couple of days!

This was my first trip ever to Okinawa, a really beautiful sub-tropical island that is Japan’s southernmost outpost. Part of the Ryūkyū island chain that extends southward in an arc from Kyūshū, Okinawa is about mid-way between the southern tip of Kyūshū and Taiwan. [map]

The weather was quite pleasant when I arrived there, with short sleeves being the rule. That was a far cry from Osaka, whose weather had long since turned to long sleeves and jackets by then. However, the good weather was not to last, as the forecast was for rain, sometimes heavy, on both days of the two-day race.

However, despite the gloomy forecast, I thoroughly enjoyed the good weather while it lasted. The race was headquartered in Nago City, about 70 kilometers north of the main international airport at Naha. The trip took about 1-1/2 hours by car each way.

The race consisted of two stages: a criterium stage on Saturday followed by a road race stage on Sunday. The criterium started without a hitch, but quickly fell apart when a brief but heavy burst of rain struck at about 1/3 of the way into the race. As is always the case at criteriums, rain produces crashes, and this event was no exception to that rule.

As a result of the rain, the results team had a difficult time keeping track of which riders were on even laps and which riders had received lap neutralizations.  This kind of confusion, of course, is the very reason why the UCI does not normally permit criteriums to be used as part of a professional road stage race. And I doubt it will be allowed in future editions.

The road race on Sunday, by contrast, was run on a very nice course that wound its way through the mountains on the north end of Okinawa island, effectively making one very large loop before returning to the finish in Nago City. The only blemish on the race was that the rain continued throughout the day and the winds became quite gusty at times — so much so that the locals even remarked that it was highly unusual. However, the occasional unobstructed view of the ocean from the race course was simply breathtaking.

Kokushikan University dojo

It was really hot and humid. By the time the morning session had ended, I think that the entire dojo raced to the nearest vending machine for a cold bottle of Pocari Sweat. My judogi was completely saturated by sweat before lunch, and the afternoon was even hotter than in the morning.

However, the seminar covered a lot of useful topics, focusing on application of basics (kihon waza) in randori situations. It seemed that there was remarkably little practice during the seminar, which is too bad because I would have liked to have had more time to try to practice the materials presented by Nariyama-shihan. But, even so, the trip was worth taking even if just to meet aikido players from the Kantō region.

Nili leaving the dojo

After the training, the Kansai participants (and some Kantō friends) went to dinner together at a local izakaya where a fair quantity of beer was consumed.  For me, it was a great chance to meet new people and try out my fledgling Japanese. I particularly enjoy talking to the university students because they are such free spirits. It’s quite interesting to find those who are about to graduate and enter the “real world” in Japan, because there seems to be a moment of reality hitting squarely between the eyes.

The president of the Keio University aikido club is a case in point.  He’s just been hired by a large American electronics company to work as a systems engineer in their Tokyo office starting in 2009. I asked him if he intended to continue practicing aikido once he leaves university.  He said that he wants to, “but…”. In this instance, the use of the word “but” is a way of saying, in Japanese, that “I’m not going to be able to”.  He said that he knows already that his work days will be long and very tough, and that this is the way of Japanese business.  It’s a shame, because it means that another very good aikido player will likely vanish before our eyes.  And that’s too bad.

The training plan handed out last week said that the first session (10-12:30) will focus on randori kihon (basics) and practical application (ura waza, kaeshi waza, renzoku waza no henka [reacting to change]. The second session (14-16:30) will focus on perfecting & correcting kihon dousa and helping develop the ability to use waza in competition.

It should be interesting and fun!

Before traveling to the conference, I decided to seek out an aikido venue in which to train whilst there. Finding a venue turned out to be an adventure in and of itself, for it appears that aikido in the long shadow of Tomiki-sensei in the United States is somewhat cantoned up. This goes back to my earlier comments about the confusion between terms like “Tomiki aikido” and “Shodokan aikido”. I’m not going to follow that line of discussion here, but simply point out that it led me to a variety of disjoint answers to the question, “where can I train?”

In the end, and after several quite helpful e-mail exchanges with people from JAA/USA and other organisations, I found a Tomiki Aikido club at the University of Baltimore’s Athletic Club. With e-mailed instructions from Jaime Williamson in hand, on Monday, 26 April, I set forth to find the University’s athletic club and its aikidoka. The University’s club practises aikido according to the principles set forth by Aikido America International, which is apparently a parallel to JAA/USA that aligns itself more with Waseda University’s aikido practises than with those of Shodokan hombu.

I was traveling around Baltimore by hire car, since it is nearly impossible to navigate around any American city using solely public transit. I was fortunate enough to have been given a car with satellite navigation. All I needed to do was to plug in “1420 N. Charles Street” and it whisked me away to the University campus. Alas, the directions were so straightforward that I arrived just over an hour early! I had to find a place to pass some time, so I drove around aimlessly looking for a coffee shop.

And, wow, did I find one! All I saw was a sign saying something about coffeehouse, so I stopped in to Red Emma’s Bookstore & Coffeehouse, an anarchist/communist bookstore situated not far from the University campus. It was hilarious walking in and then realizing that I was probably walking in to one of the more radical bookstores in that part of the country. So, I enjoyed it by having a nice latte, browsing the truly unique collection of books, and departing. It did occur to me that maybe the police were photographing those who went in and out of the place… But I digress.

At the appointed hour of 6:30 PM, I arrived at the club and found Jaime with no problems. After changing into my dogi, I met the other people with whom I would be practising that evening. It was a wonderful group. Remembering that I was, at the time, a freshly-minted 8th kyuu (the lowest kyuu grade in the Shodokan system), I was working on extremely elementary things. My goal for this trip was to practise zempo kaiten ukeme (“forward rolling breakfalls”) from a standing position. It turns out that I had a real fear of doing rolling breakfalls, and it took quite some time (far beyond this one trip to Baltimore) to get over that fear. However, the good patience and help of the club members went far in helping me get there.

What were my impressions of this Tomiki aikido system? The taiso and the exercises were, in my opinion, quite different than what I had experienced at our Shodokan club. However, it is clear that there is a common source of, and a common heritage between, the two strains of aikido. No matter how you look at it, the aikido that Professor Tomiki developed is very elegant, and its stewards have done a good job in developing it.

But aikidō has given me a new opportunity: now, before I travel, I look for shōdōkan aikidō venues in which I can train whilst away. This has been fun and, frankly, quite enlightening in a number of ways. After all, I started this blog precisely because I wanted to share my views about the venues I’ve visited and the great people I’ve met along the way.

As of this writing, at the end of 2006 and at the close of only my first year of practising aikidō, I’ve been a visitor to dojos in Wales, Scotland, Australia, three places in the United States, and two places in Japan. I plan to write more about these places and the people in them, but, for now, I’ll simply say that visiting these clubs and meeting their members has been a fabulously rewarding experience. If you practise aikidō and you find yourself “on the road”, like me, don’t miss out on an opportunity to train!

But, I suppose I should say that it’s through traveling that I have also found out some of the less desirable features of aikidō:

• there seems to be a needless splintering-up of shōdōkan aikidō, some preferring the term “Tomiki aikidō” and others preferring to emphasize the links that Tomiki-sensei had with Waseda University;
• in some parts of the world, shōdōkan clubs don’t follow shōdōkan hombu’s grading syllabus, which can lead to some awkward moments; and
• kyū grade uniforms (obi colors) are not globally uniform, which can cause some confusion and, potentially, extra expense

One thing is common, however, and it is a very positive aspect:

• every dan grade I have met is willing to go out of their way to help kyū grades attain proficiency in the art

To the extent I can, I ignore the politics. Frankly, one of the great things about being a kyū grade is that I couldn’t get involved in the politics of aikidō even if I wanted to. But it does bear mention that I am aware of what goes on around me, and to that extent, observing the operation of shōdōkan aikidō is interesting.