Taro's Blog

In Japan, Taiikukai (体育会) is a kind of old boys’ network based on the sport you played in your schools. I just hated it. I am glad that I am not part of it. On the contrary, my younger brother, Sanshiro, is a beneficiary of the system. And another of my younger brothers, Jiro, seemed to be in the system whether he liked it or not.

外国人も不思議がる日本の体育会系。就職有利な時代は終わる?３つの理由。
冷泉彰彦のアメリカの視点xニッポンの視点 > 中高の体育会、アメリカ流にも問題点
日本の大学新卒就職における「体育会系神話」の成立と変容

If you were a successful athlete, you would receive lifetime respect from your network (as in Sanshiro’s case). If you have proved your perseverance by not quitting the 3-year torture of the after-school extracurricular activity (部活動) at high school, you are also the winner in life (Jiro’s case). From the viewpoint of Taiikukai people, I was a quitter, loser, and outsider because I quit competitive swimming (競泳) at the age of 15, or at the end of junior high school (中学校).

When I started competitive swimming at a local fitness club (スポーツ会館) during elementary school (小学生), my Swimming coach, Mr. Shinryo Meguro (目黒伸良), never behaved like a Taiikukai-kei (体育会系). Instead, he was following the state-of-the-art teaching method of swimming in the United States. He also organized the Swim Camp in the summer in Yonezawa, Yamagata (山形県米沢市), and the spring in Tokyo. 2 hours of training on 5 days a week was challenging, but it was also fun.

After Coach Meguro resigned for a personal reason, things got worse. His successor was a young Taikukai-kei who graduated from Jyosai University (城西大学). He was the opposite of Coach Meguro.　Bullying and verbal abuse crept in. He got angry for no reason. Swimming was no longer fun. He represented what Taiikukai was all about. I knew I should quit. Maybe meeting him was a blessing in disguise.