02-29-2020, 02:30 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-03-2020, 11:14 AM by Fordhammer.)
Speed: a player's perspective by S21 DSFL prospect Tatsu Nakamura
I think that the track & field coach at Bellevue High School might have totally hated me.
I mean, Coach Grossman and I always got along and had good conversations whenever I ran into him at school. I had him for US history my freshman year too, and other than a group project that we definitely should have gotten an A on if our poster board hadn't gotten soaked in the rain on the way to class, Coach Grossman and I never had a bad interaction my whole time in high school. So why do I think he hated me? Because I was fast.
Despite being the fastest kid on the football team every year, and maybe even the fastest person in the district, I never joined the track team, I never went to a track meet, and I never showed off my speed to the fullest. I know Coach Grossman talked to my football coaches; I would have the same conversation with every one of them every season: "Hey man, you should consider joining track, I've seen that 40 time! You know all of our best players are participating in multiple sports every year, you've got to keep up with that competitive spirit!" And every time I would try to shoot it down without making a fuss: "I don't know coach, I always have a lot of time commitments during the spring season, and I don't know, maybe an individual sport like that isn't for me. But, I'll keep it in mind." That'd buy me some time at least, but not for too long. I could see it in Coach Grossman's eyes every time I saw him, just the knowledge that I had the speed I have, but that I wasn't using it.
I'm not a sprinter though. I really don't care for track, and I wasn't lying to my coaches when I said I had a lot going on during the spring seasons. See, even though football was the only sport I participated in at BHS, it wasn't my only sport. For most of the offseason, for every year of my football career from middle school through high school, I spent the time that I wasn't spending on school, my personal life, or getting ready for the next football season in a kendo dojo.
I'd been training in kendo since I was a small child in Yokohama, but I had almost given up on it after moving to Seattle. The couple of dojos that I had visited and tried out just made me really sad and homesick. They were so different and even the similarities just reminded me about how I wasn't in Japan anymore. I got so mad about everything that I tried to throw away all of my kendo gear. It took a while until I found something in America that captured me in the same way that kendo had. And what better to fall in love with than the most American sport possible, football. The speed, precision, and strength all reminded me of the same things I had loved about being in the dojo. Football even has its own kind of rei-gi, or etiquette. Although the "etiquette" in football is certainly a bit more brutal, there is still a similar kind of warrior's sportsmanship that I loved from the beginning. And it was with football that I found my path back to kendo. Hanging out in the locker room one day, I overheard one of my middle school teammates mention something about a dojo and found out that he had started learning kendo the previous summer at a dojo in town. I talked to him more about it and told him about how I had been studying kendo for years before coming to America, and he convinced me to come after football season was over and he picked up the shinai again.
I hadn't been expecting much when I went, it was just cool to share something of myself and my culture with another guy on the football team. It was a pretty unassuming place too, tucked away close to our school. It definitely had the smell of must and sweat that I remembered, something about the bamboo really traps it in. My old bogu absolutely didn't fit, so there I was in an oversized, lender bogu set in a novice class with my shinai clutched tightly in my hands. It had been years since I'd done any of this and my body had changed so much, but I still had an expectation there in the back of my head that it would all be a breeze for me. And it super was not. The first time that the instructor led us through a footwork exercise I straight up tripped and fell on my ass. Hard.
But man that felt good. It felt good to remember that I have to work at these things to even keep up, much less get better. And so I humbled myself and kept at it, pushing my effort and focus up the rest of the session. I could feel all of that dust-covered muscle memory coming back slowly but surely as we went on. By the end of the two hours that I was there, my footwork might have been better than it had ever been and I was feeling great. Having a friend there, knowing that this city was my home now made the whole thing feel so right again. I was so happy to have it back in my life. Our instructor came up to me at the end of the practice session and asked if I would be joining on a regular basis. When he looked at me, I saw a look that I wouldn't see again until I met Coach Grossman and he asked me to join the track team, I could see that he believed in me and I knew that he saw true talent in me. Except, that first time, I said yes.
And so I kept kendo in my life from there on out, and I got pretty damn good at it if I can say so myself. I celebrated my 18th birthday at the same time as I celebrated passing my examination and gaining the rank of yondan, usually the lowest rank for instructors of kendo.
I love running, don't get me wrong. I love being fast, and I work hard to be the fastest man on the field. But there is something in kendo that I have always loved, and always tried to bring into my life on and off the field and inside and outside the dojo. In a kendo match, there is a lot of waiting. Not waiting and doing nothing, but waiting for an opportunity and making small movements, trying to get the advantage before striking or parrying in a flash of blinding speed. Kendo is a patient sport, and I believe that football is the same way. So, when I get the ball, when I know the defenders are expecting to see the flash of blinding speed that they read about in their scouting report or saw on tape, I wait. I'm patient and I keep my eyes open as I let my offensive line do their job. After all of my time training in kendo, I get a similar experience where time slows down just enough to see the defenders' eyes. I can see what they're expecting, where they think I'll go, and I can see the whole field line up. And once I see my gap or once I see the perfect opportunity to juke an opponent out in the open field I show it off that speed.
I didn't always like the look that Coach Grossman would give me. The expectation that he and all my football coaches had. The anticipation. They knew what I was capable of and they knew that I was unstoppable. But when I see that in an opponent's eyes? Oh man, I live for that.
I think that the track & field coach at Bellevue High School might have totally hated me.
I mean, Coach Grossman and I always got along and had good conversations whenever I ran into him at school. I had him for US history my freshman year too, and other than a group project that we definitely should have gotten an A on if our poster board hadn't gotten soaked in the rain on the way to class, Coach Grossman and I never had a bad interaction my whole time in high school. So why do I think he hated me? Because I was fast.
Despite being the fastest kid on the football team every year, and maybe even the fastest person in the district, I never joined the track team, I never went to a track meet, and I never showed off my speed to the fullest. I know Coach Grossman talked to my football coaches; I would have the same conversation with every one of them every season: "Hey man, you should consider joining track, I've seen that 40 time! You know all of our best players are participating in multiple sports every year, you've got to keep up with that competitive spirit!" And every time I would try to shoot it down without making a fuss: "I don't know coach, I always have a lot of time commitments during the spring season, and I don't know, maybe an individual sport like that isn't for me. But, I'll keep it in mind." That'd buy me some time at least, but not for too long. I could see it in Coach Grossman's eyes every time I saw him, just the knowledge that I had the speed I have, but that I wasn't using it.
I'm not a sprinter though. I really don't care for track, and I wasn't lying to my coaches when I said I had a lot going on during the spring seasons. See, even though football was the only sport I participated in at BHS, it wasn't my only sport. For most of the offseason, for every year of my football career from middle school through high school, I spent the time that I wasn't spending on school, my personal life, or getting ready for the next football season in a kendo dojo.
I'd been training in kendo since I was a small child in Yokohama, but I had almost given up on it after moving to Seattle. The couple of dojos that I had visited and tried out just made me really sad and homesick. They were so different and even the similarities just reminded me about how I wasn't in Japan anymore. I got so mad about everything that I tried to throw away all of my kendo gear. It took a while until I found something in America that captured me in the same way that kendo had. And what better to fall in love with than the most American sport possible, football. The speed, precision, and strength all reminded me of the same things I had loved about being in the dojo. Football even has its own kind of rei-gi, or etiquette. Although the "etiquette" in football is certainly a bit more brutal, there is still a similar kind of warrior's sportsmanship that I loved from the beginning. And it was with football that I found my path back to kendo. Hanging out in the locker room one day, I overheard one of my middle school teammates mention something about a dojo and found out that he had started learning kendo the previous summer at a dojo in town. I talked to him more about it and told him about how I had been studying kendo for years before coming to America, and he convinced me to come after football season was over and he picked up the shinai again.
I hadn't been expecting much when I went, it was just cool to share something of myself and my culture with another guy on the football team. It was a pretty unassuming place too, tucked away close to our school. It definitely had the smell of must and sweat that I remembered, something about the bamboo really traps it in. My old bogu absolutely didn't fit, so there I was in an oversized, lender bogu set in a novice class with my shinai clutched tightly in my hands. It had been years since I'd done any of this and my body had changed so much, but I still had an expectation there in the back of my head that it would all be a breeze for me. And it super was not. The first time that the instructor led us through a footwork exercise I straight up tripped and fell on my ass. Hard.
But man that felt good. It felt good to remember that I have to work at these things to even keep up, much less get better. And so I humbled myself and kept at it, pushing my effort and focus up the rest of the session. I could feel all of that dust-covered muscle memory coming back slowly but surely as we went on. By the end of the two hours that I was there, my footwork might have been better than it had ever been and I was feeling great. Having a friend there, knowing that this city was my home now made the whole thing feel so right again. I was so happy to have it back in my life. Our instructor came up to me at the end of the practice session and asked if I would be joining on a regular basis. When he looked at me, I saw a look that I wouldn't see again until I met Coach Grossman and he asked me to join the track team, I could see that he believed in me and I knew that he saw true talent in me. Except, that first time, I said yes.
And so I kept kendo in my life from there on out, and I got pretty damn good at it if I can say so myself. I celebrated my 18th birthday at the same time as I celebrated passing my examination and gaining the rank of yondan, usually the lowest rank for instructors of kendo.
I love running, don't get me wrong. I love being fast, and I work hard to be the fastest man on the field. But there is something in kendo that I have always loved, and always tried to bring into my life on and off the field and inside and outside the dojo. In a kendo match, there is a lot of waiting. Not waiting and doing nothing, but waiting for an opportunity and making small movements, trying to get the advantage before striking or parrying in a flash of blinding speed. Kendo is a patient sport, and I believe that football is the same way. So, when I get the ball, when I know the defenders are expecting to see the flash of blinding speed that they read about in their scouting report or saw on tape, I wait. I'm patient and I keep my eyes open as I let my offensive line do their job. After all of my time training in kendo, I get a similar experience where time slows down just enough to see the defenders' eyes. I can see what they're expecting, where they think I'll go, and I can see the whole field line up. And once I see my gap or once I see the perfect opportunity to juke an opponent out in the open field I show it off that speed.
I didn't always like the look that Coach Grossman would give me. The expectation that he and all my football coaches had. The anticipation. They knew what I was capable of and they knew that I was unstoppable. But when I see that in an opponent's eyes? Oh man, I live for that.
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