The 5th Annual Japan Karate Shotokai National Tournament: Day One

The JKS Nationals were held in Matsuyama this year. This affected the people from my dojo in two important ways - we saved on airfares (last year we flew to Tokyo) and we were all conscripted as volunteers to staff the event. Parents, relatives and friends too. At 8:30 a small army of 100 or so staff, all wearing t-shirts which read "Head-on Fighting", squeezed into a briefing room in the newly constructed Botchan Stadium Budokan and received their instructions. By 9am everyone knew what they had to do. The first event started right on 9.30.

My teacher, Nagaki Sensei, had given me announcement duty. I shared the table with Ms Aono, a former announcer from local TV station Nankai Housou, and Mayumi, a fellow karateka. The two women spent the day announcing the events and calling competitors to report to one of the twelve courts. Day One comprised the childrens' events, so there was a lot of paging. I had been picked to help because of my linguistic skills, ie I speak English. There was a contingent of seven Australian kids and in the event a table official came running up saying "Err, this Australian hasn't shown up yet" it was my job to page the competitor in English. This only happened three times so I had a lot of sitting down time. My co-workers took pity on me and let me make the "please collect your bentos" announcement too. I also made myself busy by fetching coffee for everyone and studying the kanji in the programme.