Rugby 10s tournament in a typhoon!

Well, perhaps it wasn't quite a tournament: two men's teams played a game, and then we played, and that was it.

And though a typhoon was certainly making its way up the island of Japan, it didn't feel much like one on the DoCoMo* sponsored field in Osaka - there was a pleasant light rain, but no torrential downpour or bone-chilling winds.

Despite that lack of excitement, last Saturday's 10s game was still totally fantastic.

I'd never played tens before; the main differences are the lack of players (scrums are the tight five with no back row, and the back line is comprised of only one center and no fullback), and the time difference (three 10-minute thirds, instead of two 40-minute halves). Additionally, our Kyoto team was playing with several girls from another team - I played wing with an unfamiliar scrumhalf, flyhalf (called "standoff" here), and center.

Since we had no fullback, I spent any time on the weak side running back around to stand in at full back position. Because there were so many fewer people, it was MUCH easier for me to get into trouble as a wing than in 15s - I had several nice tackles, including two or three throw-downs where I didn't even lose my feet, and got into quite a few rucks. On the other hand, I missed a number of open-field tackles,** lost a ball much earlier than I had to in a breakaway to the try zone,*** and got a penalty for holding on to the ball on the ground.****

We were playing the Hyogo Ladies, who (as in our previous game) had excellent communication, fast tackles, good ball-handling, and space awareness, so we lost 25-0. But Kyoto (et. al.) still played the best I've seen them - no one hung back from rucks or tackles, we were aggressive to get the ball, and we didn't stand around surprised whenever the other team got the ball.

Afterwards, we had a sort of "social" with a bucket of beer, lots of meat, and some sad salad for me. (Although I also had the spaghetti and pretended the small chunks of beef were either not there or tofu. :( I was hungry.) We also had our team meeting, and I was interrupted out of my usual reverie (our main coach talks very fast and imprecisely, so I don't catch much) by my name. As I looked up confusedly, the other coach translated for me - "You are... MVP?"

Duuuuuuuuudes! Kickass.



*DoCoMo is one of the big phone companies here, like Verizon or Cingular.

**I have this tendency to try and tackle people with my arms. This works well for me for close quarters because I'm pretty mean and decently strong, but when someone's running full speed towards the try zone, my scrawy little forearm doesn't do much to stop them. I know I have to get my shoulder in there, but I'm so in the habit of tackling with my arms that that's all I do.

***What I should have done: run straight on, fixed the defender, juked her at the last minute and eaten up that huge empty space between me and the try zone. What I did: ran in a big predictable curve, allowing the defender plenty of time to fix me and meet me, and didn't even try to juke or stiff-arm her.

****Heat of the moment. Slash stupidity.




After the game, most of us went to an izakaya (food and drinks place) in a train station mall in Osaka (the mall was named "Whity's"... oh, Engrish). Having slept about an hour the night before and played an intense (if short) 30 minutes of rugby, during which of course I hit my head at least once, I was feeling really tired and headachey and like I really wanted to be in a hot shower and then bed, rather than perched on a high chair in a izakaya with entirely too many mirrors.

But I'm still really glad I was there. My teammates were awesome at ordering me food - I missed most of the ordering from being in the bathroom, but when the food started coming I found it didn't matter. There was a ton of vegetarian stuff: tomatoes and tofu, tasty egg things, fried stuff on sticks, french fries, and salad. And in the typical Japanese manner (which I love love LOVE), we kept ordering more and more - someone would ask for the menu, point something out to me and ask if I'd tried it, and then order it. The only one of these I remember was chakome (cha-something, anyways) - "tea" over rice topped with dried seaweed, with tsukimono (pickles, more or less) and big chunk of wasabi on the side. The end result was, of course, me feeling ridiculously full and happy.

During dinner, we talked about a lot of things. The ones I both understood and remember (tired! fooded! beered!) were the game we'd just played (of course), where I was traveling after school, the design and price of polos Eri had decided to make, and the details of my farewell party.

Yes, apparently I get a farewell party. Awesome! And, even more surprising than that (or at least, it surprised me that they were outright discussing it with me right there - cultural differences?) I get presents. From everyone.

Dude. I just... this team keeps getting awesomer and awesomer, y'know? I mean, it'll be cool to get a big pile of Japan souveneirs, but it's more incredible to know that a bunch of people care enough about me, having just seen me once or twice a week at rugby practice, to go pick out things for me to remember them by.

However, I also have to think of things to get for all of them. Keeping in mind that I have no idea how many people I'm getting gifts for. That a few people I want to write personal notes to (Shima, Eri, Nabe, Aki, Yuka) but others I have nothing particular to say to or don't even know their names (like... what the hell is my main coach named?!) That I will feel really awkward trying to figure out when and how it is most appropriate to give gifts to people at my own goodbye party. Not to mention, what about my teammates who don't come?

These are the problems I like to have. :D

Varsity rugby

Saturday's A Rugby Day* made a post about women's rugby getting NCAA varsity status, which got me thinking about the nature of AU's team and ended up in this long comment, that I figured I might as well repost here.

American's team's been around for about 11 years, and right now we're one of the top club programs at AU. We've got great ambitions for the growth of our team - our board has been working with the club sports office for increased field access and equipment storage, and I'd like to think that the visibility and success of our program has been a factor in the university's recent decision to increase the office's total budget.

On the one hand, field access, equipment storage, and money would be easier or maybe unnecessary to fight for if we had varsity status. Not to mention that holy grail of getting access to a trainer.

But on the other hand, very few if any of us want the constraints that come with being a varsity team. As a club side, we can choose whether our focus will be on increasing our competitiveness or just having fun playing an amazing game, and individual members can join with the knowledge that rugby's a flexible commitment. Many of our best (and most dedicated) players participate in multiple activities or work jobs or just plain don't want the 24/7 commitment that comes with playing for a varsity team.

For the AUWRFC, moving to varsity status would effectively change the character of the team. Perhaps this wouldn't objectively be a bad thing, but I would personally be disappointed if the club attitude of self-determination and free-will participation were lost to that varsity designation.

The exquisiteness of a well-wheeled scrum

*sniffs* This ... it's just... so beautiful! I think I might cry. Rugby tears of joy.


PS Still climbing Mt. Fuji tomorrow!!! Send lots of no altitude sickness and no cloud cover thoughts my way; I want to see the sunrise from 12,388 feet!

It's a small rugby world after all

So I've been poking around the blog Saturday's a Rugby Day, which is about women's rugby... and kept running into things that reminded me that this is my world. Not just one I look into or enjoy, but a place I play in, live in.

First off was the article about Division I national championships. For the third year in a row the final match has been between Penn State and Stanford; this year, Penn State won.

Cool, right? But what's even better - Penn State is one of the three teams in PRU Division I. The other two are Navy - and American. And last time we played Penn State? We held our own. We didn't kick ass (even if it felt like it) but we did damn good for a club side team with barely a grand of financial support a year from our university.

Then I read an update on the MARFU U23 team at Ruggerfest. Not only does it specifically pick out one of my teammates for comment (and why not? 'Cause Sheri seriously rocks), but I've played with at least 3 other girls on the MARFU team (PRU what!) and have met one of the other women mentioned in the article.

It doesn't hurt that today was an especially awesome rugby day here in Kyoto - our original ground was rather small and full of baseball players, so we ended up holding a rather abbreviated practice in the tryzone of a lovely turf field (with no baseballs flying through the air to endanger us). But then we just chilled and watched the men's games going on - it was a serious of short matches versus alumni sides of Hanazono High School, celebrating the school's 50th anniversary (or so I surmise). I got teased by my teammates when a touch judge missed a lineout because he was too busy hitting on me, learned one of the girls can breakdance (and boy was she was excited when I told her about AUWRFC danceoffs), and just had a generally good few hours watching some rugby.

That day back at the beginning of sophomore year when I decided maybe rugby could replace martial arts as my "get beat up for fitness" activity? I made one of the best decisions of my life.

Last Thursday's rugby practice, there weren't very many people there, so instead of splitting into back/forwards we did just forward stuff. That is to say, scrumming! So not only did I get to scrum but I got to prop!!!

With five small, Japanese girls who mostly play as a back... but still.

Facts about women's rugby in Japan

- In Japan, there are about 400 women who play on about 25 rugby teams.

- Only one of those teams is a school-affiliated team; the rest are independent clubs.

- The Kansai region has only four women's rugby teams: one in Hyogo (I think that's the name of the area, anyways), one in Kyoto (mine!), and two in Osaka.

- This Sunday the KWRFC will play the Hyogoken Ladies.


I gathered all this information through a conversation entirely in Japanese with my teammates. Today a number of them remarked on how much my language skills have improved. I've got to admit, I've noticed a difference myself - this was part of a conversation which also included a discussion of rice, rice balls, what granola is, and what people eat for lunch in the States. It's AWESOME.

Kyoto rugby and the return of Pink the back

I have arrived in Japan! And today I was picked up from my dorm at 8:30am by two Japanese women (Shima, who drove, and Umi, who translated) to go play RUGBY.

We drove across the city (maneuvering streets that I didn't believe that cars could go down and still don't believe cars can go down, even though I was in a car at the time I was on them), ending up at what appeared to be a high school (Umi didn't know, because apparently they change fields every practice, with Shima sending out an email 2 or 3 days ahead of time with directions).

And I guess I shouldn't call it a "field" - it was a big area covered in... sand? I thought that was really, really strange, but when I pointed it out to Umi and said our fields back home were all grass, she looked impressed and explained that around here only the very good schools have grass fields.

Practice itself was a bit of an adventure. Umi and one other girl, Haruka, kind of spoke English, but no one else did, so I mostly hung back and watched to figure out what was going on. The team's ball handling is very good, and after we spent the whole first hour or so of practice doing purely ball handling drills, I figured out why.

We then did some contact drills, which were run very... interestingly. I somehow ended up in the group that didn't do more than very basic contact (just one-man rucking, no mauls, no going down, etc.), and the coaches apparently didn't care if people just stepped out of the drill to hang out for awhile. Because I was the foreigner and apparently very interesting, people kept stopping me and talking to me while I looked wistfully over their shoulders at the rucking going on the background. But it was pretty cool, and I definitely will be improving my Japanese with all that practice.

One interesting "oh hay gaijin!!!" moment was when one girl with kind of a rebel look introducing herself (forgot her name, though), declaring us friends ("Furendsu!"), and then standing up in my personal space to point out how long my legs were and how tall I was. Another was me explaining to two girls, Kira and Azu, that I had a girlfriend - no not a woman friend - no not a boyfriend - no not a girlfriend which is the same as a friend - hey what? Apparently rugby teams in Japan are NOT the same bastion of lesbianism as they are in the US.

Then we split into backs and forwards, and I was told to be a back. Furthermore, I was put into the position of fullback. For those of you following along at home, I haven't played as a back since last fall season, and even then I was primarily a wing and only occasionally subbed in as fullback. Add to that the fact that we were running multi-phase plays, when AUWRFC organizes only one-phase plays, and I was way confused. The coach kept explaining to me in Japanese, and even though the position names are the same and I understood words like "enter" and "right" and "left," it took a couple of tries and eventually the coach just running along after me and pushing me into place before I understood.

But, apparently the team has a game the last Sunday of April, and not enough of the team can make it - so I'll be playing in a game for them in just a month!!!