Train Ride with a Drunken Master

It was the end of a sunny 2010 summer training day spent in the Honbu Dojo in Sugamo and the SA team arrived at Ikebukoro station after a short train ride. It was another 20 minute train ride from Ikebukoro to Hibarigaoko. On this particular train, a drunken Japanese man was hanging on for dear life with both hands on one of the train handles. He could barely stay on his feet and struggled to keep his eyes open. The team packed into the train like sardines along with the other passengers. As fate would have it, Sensei André ended up beside this man well aware that he had enough alcohol in his body that he appeared to be standing still between the swing of the train and the swing of the beer.

Noticing Sensei André looking at him, the Japanese man started throwing challenging looks in his direction. His eyes grew big at the sudden realisation that this man looks nothing like a Japanese. Without thinking twice he uttered with a lazy tongue: ‘gaijin’, meaning ‘foreigner’. In his head, a curse word. Knowing the language, Sensei André calmly continued to study this man as the train and the passengers swayed back and forth, all but the drunken Japanese.

The Japanese summoned up new energy from this discovery and his looks become (attempted) precisely timed movements in the direction of Sensei André. At this point, the entire SA team was rolling with laughter! The Japanese man wanted to teach this ‘gaijin’ a lesson, you cannot simply come into this country and ride his train. The movements become more aggressive but Sensei André just swayed along with him, keeping to his drunken rhythm. Of course the failed head-butts aggravated the Japanese man and he kept trying intently as the train swayed and he swayed and Sensei André swayed, all the way to Hibarigaoko.

Elana Kruger