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Joseph R. Svinth: Pacific Northwest Judo: The Seattle
Dojo, 1924-1953
With the New Year, Kumagai introduced kangeiko, or winter
training, to the Seattle Dojo. "In order to inure the pupil
to the two extremes of heat and cold and to cultivate the
virtue of perseverance," Britain's E.J. Harrison wrote in
The Fighting Spirit of Japan (1982):
all [Japanese judo] dojo including the Kodokan hold
special summer and winter exercises. For the former,
the hottest month of the year, August, and the hottest
time of the day, from 1 p.m., are chosen; and for the
latter commencing in January, the pupils start wrestling
at four o'clock in the morning and keep it up until
seven or eight. The summer practice is termed shochugeiko
and the winter practice kangeiko. There is likewise the
"number exercise" on the last day of the winter practice
when as a special test of endurance, the pupils practice
from 4 a.m. till 2 p.m. and not infrequently go through
as many as a hundred bouts within that interval.
From the standpoint of an adult practitioner, this was
an accurate recollection, as on January 8, 1913 an article
in Tokyo's Japan Times said:
The 'Kangeiko' has just begun at private schools of the
arts. As early in the morning as three or half-past three,
students go to those schools, with bamboo-swords or a
training suit on their shoulders, awaking the slumbering
street with Shigin or singing of Chinese poems in a loud
voice. They are not afraid of the cold air and are proud
of being thinly clad and without socks. Cold rains or winds
never affect their weather-beaten bodies. They would
consider it a disgrace to be thought insensitive to the
weather.
Unfortunately, from a juvenile standpoint, kangeiko was
about as good for building character as Halloween. As M.
Yoshimatsu, a seventh dan from Kagoshima, Japan, recalled
in Revue Judo Kodokan in March 1956:
In those days [1935] I was a playful truant. I wasn't
a 'good' boy in the least and I played the fool both
before and after the exercises. It is even probably
for this reason that I went to the Kan-Geiko with
such good will. What pranks! ... The changing of the
shop signs was particularly funny, a chemist landing
with an undertaker sign... That is why when the
Kan-Geiko was nearing everyone took precautions.
Parents didn't like such antics, either. "There was a
time when boys roamed unleashed through the streets
tearing down fences, hiding gates, swinging garbage
cans on flag poles," editorialized the Great Northern
Daily News on October 30, 1936, but that was a long
time ago, and the Nisei were expected to be smarter and
wiser. Plus there were many after-hours clubs in downtown
Seattle whose patrons parents preferred their sons
avoid.2 As a result kangeiko was rare
until Yasuyuki Kumagai started holding regular sessions
in January 1936. And even then it started at 5:00 a.m.,
by which time the drunks were safely home in their beds,
instead of 3:00 a.m., at which time the after-hours clubs
were just letting out.
According to the Japanese-American Courier, seventy
members of the Seattle Dojo finished ten days of kangeiko
on Sunday, January 17, 1936. During that time, the 70
participants did calisthenics, judo instruction, and
drills, and 44 of them received certificates honoring
their perfect attendance. Leaders included Masao Nishimura,
Michio Shinoda, Hiroshi Watanabe, and Mitsuru Yano.
In 1937, kangeiko results were not published in the
English-language sections of any of Seattle's three
Japanese American newspapers. Based on other years, the
likely dates were January 8-17.
Seventy judoka participated in the Seattle Dojo's kangeiko
exercises of January 9-18, 1938. Training started at 5:00
a.m., but now lasted just an hour and a half instead of
two.
On December 30, 1938 the Seattle Yudanshakai (Grade Holder's
Association) awarded sixty-seven promotions. The ceremonies
took place at the Seattle Dojo. Immediately following these
ceremonies, the club closed until 5:00 a.m. on Monday,
January 9, 1939, when the now-standard ten days of winter
training began. But only fifty judoka participated, perhaps
because the sessions were again two hours in length.
Although I've been told that Ryoichi Iwakiri used to wait
for the coldest days of the winter to turn off the Fife
Dojo's stove, saying it built character, I've found no
evidence suggesting that kangeiko was especially common
in judo clubs outside Seattle. At least, if it was, said
Seattle Dojo's 1939 captain Hank Ogawa, "I never heard of
it."
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