School sports in Japan is an interesting setup, and I was fortunate enough to go to two different schools during my 10 month exchange in Japan, and of course even between schools in Japan there are large differences.
I joined the table tennis club, 卓球部「たっきゅうぶ」, although there were many other interesting choices like 剣道部「けんどうぶ」and 柔道部「じゅうどうぶ」. If I had my time over, I think I would probably choose Judo.
While referred to as 部活 or クラブ活動, the word ‘club’ was often thrown around, especially when fellow students saw me hanging around school after it was over, because my presence meant I must be in one of the clubs. I was asked a few times 何部？on my way to practice.
Almost the entirety of the school’s grounds are used for 部活. Obviously, there are no more classes going on so the classrooms are free to be used, and some clubs will just put mats down to do martial arts, the soccer field and baseball field is occupied by their respective clubs, and we also had a pool and a gym that held volleyball and basketball practice. There were other clubs like photography and likely a whole other range of activities that took place inside the school that I didn’t see. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that a few hundred students would stay back everyday to do the club activities.
The setup at my school was 2 hours or so structured technique practice, cardio work, and scratch matches at the end, spanning Monday to Friday. Each club has a 先生 in charge, and the table tennis club was fortunate enough to have 古井先生「ふるいせんせい」, a marathon-running, downhill-skiing, heavily-tanned, table tennis MASTER. He was very kind to me and always made sure I was looked after, although his actual role at the school was a 体育教師, I definitely saw him in the classroom in a suit and tie teaching other subjects. He was great fun, although 体育教師 have a reputation in Japan for being the enforcers and disciplinarians in school life. This meant he was very outgoing, and when he found out I didn’t know my 担任の先生’s name 「たんにんのせんせい」, he would then always ask me my teacher’s names to test if I had gone and found out.
He would often join around 5 or 6pm, near the end of practice, and proceed to whip a few of the senior players in a few games, laughing and mocking them while doing so. In his absence, the 先輩 is in charge. Being a high school student, this will be the 三年生, however a few months into the school year will see them drop out of 部活 because they want to focus on their studies. That means the 先輩 is the 二年生, of which there were two in the club, myself being one of them. School finished at 3:45, and 部活 started at 4. It was a short walk to the 武道場「ぶどうじょう」, which officially was the practice room for the 剣道部, but we shared half of it with them. Being the 先輩, I was expected to get there first and open it up, requiring a 失礼します～ and knock followed by acknowledgement to get the key from the teacher’s room.
There was a quick meeting at the beginning and end of each practice, called by the 先輩 yelling out 集合～ and everyone gathering around. After being dismissed by either 先輩 or in some cases 古井先生, it was time to ride home and get some dinner.
We attended local table tennis tournaments that were held in stadiums or convention centres with hundreds of attendees. I got caught out for the first tournament because I didn’t wake up early enough and also didn’t realise that I needed to wear my school uniform. It was a Saturday after all. One of my fellow club members came to my house on his bike so that we could both ride to the train station, and stood in the doorway in disbelief at me in a t-shirt, having just been woken up by my host mother. After arriving at the tournament, I was presented with a uniform that was about 2 sizes too small, and consisted of a very revealing tight shirt and short shorts. I guess I should also mention it was bright purple. I may have one my first round match but then lost the second, and lost my first round in doubles. From memory only one other member of our team won their first round so I was pretty happy with that.
If you found this lesson useful, I’d really appreciate a donation. It goes directly into supporting this website and me to produce more content that will help you improve your Japanese.
If you’d like to have personalised Japanese lessons, be they 1-on-1 or group lessons, contact me today via the website’s contact form. You can checkout my youtube channel for examples of what lessons will look like, and I have a professional home studio setup with microphone, lighting and software so that I can display anything on screen including articles, videos and much more.
