School Sports Festival

It’s School Sports Festival season again! Every late-spring, schools all across Japan are divided into teams and pitted against each other in a display of athletic prowess…manifested in anything from “fastest of the fastest” sprints to large-group jump-roping. It’s a great event, but it cracks me up every year just how much practice and preparation (starting minimum 2 weeks prior) they put into this event. The closest thing I remember to a school sports festival growing up was at the end of the school year when the teachers can’t be bothered with being in school any more than the students and decide to have a “sports day” in a day or two instead of having regular classes. When I talk about advanced preparation for Japanese school sports festivals, I’m not just talking about creating artistic decorations. I’m talking about all-team, ALL event practices, cheering practices, athlete oath practices, the whole 9-yards.

Tokigawa’s schools are small enough that only 2 teams are created for sports festivals. The JHS I’m at this term, Tokigawa JHS, has a Red Team and a Blue Team. This year I was assigned to the Red Team. That’s all well and good, but in attempt to be as supportive-appearing of your team as possible, all the teachers and staff try to wear as much clothing of their team’s color as possible. The last Tokigawa JHS sports festival I attended, I was on the Blue Team, which was all well and good since I have a seemingly endless array of blue clothes. Red clothes, however, are a completely different story. I improvised an outfit with a pair of Indonesian “wind-pants” (as I’ve dubbed them, because in a stiff breeze, anyone within viewing range gets to see a lot of leg!) and a red handkerchief whose origin I don’t recall. Ever since my first school sports festival here in Japan, since I’m not asked to participate in events, nor am I given a job for the day, I made it personal crusade to be as goofy of a “cheer-girl” as possible, which in Japanese “professional goofiness” standards, doesn’t take much to pull off. When you’re the only one who doesn’t show up in a classically matching track suit, it’s instantly radical.

I’ll let the photos speak for the day with just this final comment on the results. The kids, especially the 3^rd graders, for whom “this year’s” sport festival is always the last before graduation, take the day very seriously. So when our team lost by just 10 points, there were lots of tears. On the other hand, considering how our team looked during practices, I was so thrilled we lost by only 10 points, you would have thought I was on the winning team.

Opening cheers, and "warm-up" run across the sports ground to the opening ceremony area.

Oh, boy! Here they come! ;-)

Politely watching the other team do the same.

Opening ceremony; team leaders student oath to the Principal.

The morning is filled with running races.

My 'support outfit' this year. They put me on the Red Team, which is all well and good, but the only red clothing I own are sarong-esque pants from Indonesia, a red handkerchief, and red tennis shoes. They were just asking for me to look ridiculous (take note in these photos how all the other teachers are wearing some sort of pleasantly matching track suit). ;-) To cap it off, I put pom-pom streamers in my hair.

Me last year as a member of the blue team. Little do they know that it could be worse.

The lizard did not originally come with the outfit, but hey, I'm open to impromptu accessorizing.

Immediately after the lunch break, there is what amounts to a very serious cheer-off. ;-)

(^_^)\/

And then the afternoon is packed with "fun" events like mass tug-of-war!

Changing ends.

Another "fun" event they call 'The Typhoon."

And bean bag basket toss.\

End of festival team recap and words from the 3rd grade team leaders, for whom this is the final sports festival. There are always lots of tears from the losing team. This year unfortunately that was my team! But on the up side, we lost by MUCH less than I thought we would! We didn't have a very strong showing in the practices.... ;-D

Actually, this year there were a lot of tears from the winning team too. Go figure!

2010 Sports Festival winners!