The real reason I came to Japan...

was to play dodgeball with little Japanese kids! Actually the real reason was to take photos, but playing dodgeball is always fun! I remember when I studied in Tokyo, once a week I along with some other exchange students volunteered at a local elementary school once a week and one time we played dodgeball with the kids. The teachers literally told us (remember this Mark??), "please do not go easy on them, they are built to take pain." Of course we then injured 3 or 5 students...just kidding, of course we didn't go all out on the little kids, but it was fun and nobody got hurt.


Anyway, last December I got a chance to go play dodgeball again! This time, one of my students at my boys school is an assistant coach of an elementary student aged dodgeball team that has won a few regional tournaments and he invited me to one of the practices. It was pretty amazing how organized and how they had so many skill specific drills (such as getting up off the ground without using your hands, the correct defensive stance and how to throw the ball). As you can see from the photos, during a match the best team formation is to get in a line next to each other (so you can catch the ball if a team mate gets hit with the ball). Again it was a lot of fun and again nobody got hurt :-).