We knew it was bad the instant Sensei sat us down.
It was a semicircle in a corner of Chung Hwa No.1's multipurpose hall, and he gestured for even the girlfriends of the judokas to have a seat. "Come come," he said, "You're all involved in this together." They sat. We stared.
He began with a frustrated sigh. "I really don't know what to say. I am very glad you people are not representing Penang."
Penang was Sensei's hometown. It was where he originally played Judo. We kept dead quiet, heads bowed.
"Now, there was a stage where I was very frustrated in Penang ... I could defeat everyone in Malaysia, but I couldn't get anywhere in SEA. So my instructor said, 'I've taught you all I know, maybe it's time for you to go somewhere else.' And that's why I went to Japan. And now here I am, trying to teach you all I know, and how am I going to do that if you keep giving me this kind of shit?!
"I got back from Japan ... the Germans came and invited me to teach at one of their Junior Olympic training centres. Germany has quite a few of those, you know, to train people up for their sports ... Judo, football, you name it. But I thought for awhile ... and I said: well, my mother is here, my country needs me, and I was in the Kodokan so long because they (the Japanese) wanted me to raise the level of Judo in Malaysia. So I declined. And now I wonder why I don't leave Malaysia. It's so hard to train Malaysians! Heck, if I'd accepted I'd be earning three thousand Euro instead of two thousand seven hundred shit here!"
This was made with a gesture much resembling taking off a cap and throwing it on the ground. It was frightening, seeing this side of Sensei. He didn't look angry ... but his words and his tone of voice betrayed his emotions. Disappointment. Frustration.
"I sometimes don't know what to do with you people ... how to push you people. At first I did light training, then I pushed and made it harder, and y'all couldn't take it. So I went back to light training. How to motivate you? A good example is some of you telling me you're going to your church camp. You are representing your state here. All the people of Sarawak ... and you tell me you want to go to a church camp last minute?! Take representing your state seriously ... I understand about studies and exams. I've already given you much leeway in that aspect. But when you're free don't go out for birthday parties, go dating your girlfriends (and here he gestured at the GF group), or having a good time! Studies first, that I grant. Judo second. Everything else later.
"Now you look at the Malaccan group. They are not as good as you are technically. Physically they are not stronger than the sports schools, and to top that off the sports schools play a very strange form of Judo. They don't have the facilities, and they're even banned from participating in the Nationals because of a political problem. And yet ... did you see how many of the sports school people that were taken out by the Malaccans?! They just refused to give up! That match between Nurul and that Malaccan green belter ... do you know who Nurul is?! She is a National Champion, for goodness sakes! The match was impossible! And that 15 year old green belter, what is she?"
"Nothing." mumbled Max.
"Exactly! Nothing! And she refused to give up! And eventually Nurul started to slow down and that 15 year old attacked, and - whup!" He didn't need to say any more. All of us could still remember the throw - a fast standing seoinage, perfectly executed to the right. It was breathtaking ... beautiful.
"So ..." He paused and looked at each of us, one by one. "I come to Sarawak expecting to bring up a pool of strong athletes. And then I find out that the men here ... are women! Some of you did worst than the girls! You girlfriends over there, I don't know who is with who, the boys you are dating here are not men ... they are women!" Sensei chuckled to himself, and some of the judoka secreted a sideways look at Gan. His girlfriend was sitting two rows behind him.
"Joking aside," Sensei said, " Why are the Malaccans better? Why are they tougher, so spirited? Is it because their parents pamper them less? Why? Why? Keep asking yourself that."
He paused here, letting us mull over the question. The shadows were growing long by then, and the lights to the multipurpose hall was off. Dank and grey - a perfect complement to our mood.
When Sensei started again he was on a new tack. "Back in Penang my instructors told me there are two kinds of Judo players: the normal, average Judoka, and The Fighter. The Fighter never gives up. Even with the odds all stacked up against him he just keeps on going at it. This Fighter, when he fights, he fights to the death. I've never seen a Fighter cry when they got injured. I really dislike it when I see somebody crying when they sprain an ankle or tear a ligament or what. Real fighters don't do that. Normal Judoka okay la ... understandable ...
"Even the Senseis I had in Japan made the same distinction. Two kinds of Judo player. And this is something I have only begun to understand recently.
"Oh, and do you know that if you can feel pain in a match something is wrong? When you're really fighting, you're so pumped up you don't even know what happened to you. I remember one tournament where I injured my ankle. I didn't even feel anything! I finished the match and then only when I stepped out of the arena I collapsed. And then I was wondering what is wrong with my legs? And I looked down and it was -" Here he curved his hands over his ankle to indicate the seriousness of the swelling "- that big. So they pulled me out and sent me to the hospital and I had to rest for 6 months.
"You need to be so pumped up that you can't feel pain. And The Fighter knows when his confidence is slipping, and he pumps it up when that happens. There are actually people that can maintain that same level of confidence no matter what. And you can't!
"Christina, when you were fighting that first match, you gave up so fast. She was just pushing you away ... all you had to do was to take that arm out, and keep doing it! Instead you slowly gave up on taking the arm out, and the match was hers.
"Cedric, when you entered that match with the Under-15 boy your spirit was very strong ... even higher than the boy, in fact. But then as the match dragged on and your techniques failed, then your spirit dropped, dropped, until it was the same level as his. And the match went from your hands and into his!
"Heng Lim, Enoch ... same goes for you. You started off at around the same level, but then as the match went on one of you rose and one fell. So Heng Lim won.
"Are any of you Fighters? I can see some of you can be, and also some that just isn't made out for this. And this applies to every sport, not just Judo. Badminton ... ah badminton."
Badminton
"When was it that Rexy Manaiky wanted to quit coaching that Malaysian doubles pair - was it last year?"
"This year," I said, quietly. The irony of my reply struck me: if it hadn't been for UGS and all the badminton freaks there I wouldn't have heard of this. And the
last person I expected to talk about badminton and Judo in the same sentence was Sensei. Sensei, of all people!
"Well, Rexy is my friend. He's Indonesian, and we went to the SEA games together. And he said Malaysians have no fighting spirit. Oh, when it's easy the Malaysians are happy. But you stretch the badminton match a little bit and they give up. And all the other countries walk all over us. What is wrong with Malaysian culture? Why do we keep on producing such weak people? Is it because your parents pamper you so much?"
Sensei shrugged. "In Japan you can probably find 3 Fighters in every 10 people. And in Malaysia? Probably only 1."
Spirit
I don't remember all the things he talked about. But Sensei closed with this:
"Have you heard of Talent Scouting? No? We have this in Malaysia: those people will go from school to school and they will measure your arms, your legs ... they will go 'oh, this boy is tall, he'll be good for basketball' and 'oh, this boy has strong legs, he'll be good for athletics' and 'oh that boy has strong arms, he'll be good for shotput. And come a few months they'll take this boy and place him for shotput, and take this boy for athletics ... and take that boy for basketball.
"So this German consultant came and he told us that this wasn't 100%. It wasn't effective. There is one element we cannot measure. So he told us to send the boy for competition, and watch him. If he wins, don't need to watch. He's happy, everyone's happy. If he loses, however, now is the time to watch closely. Do you get a knock on your door the next day, that boy at your doorstep telling you he wants to train harder? If you do you've found yourself talent."
By then the gold slits of sunlight were long, and the caretaker of the school was impatiently jangling his keys. Sensei looked around the semicircle again. All of us here had represented Sarawak today, and most of us here were guilty in one way or another of not giving our best. We were upset, and we were tired.
Sensei took a deep breath. "Are there fighters in Sarawak? I need to know, because we need them. I need tough people. This doesn't mean you have to be muscular. You can be like Max, who has more fat than muscle. The toughness I mean is up here ..." And he tapped his forehead.
"That is something you can keep all your life, because - face it - real life is a lot tougher than a Judo match."
We went over the minor details of the day again, that the Junior Circuit in Terengganu wasn't confirmed, that there would be no joint training on Monday because Malacca wanted to go shopping (
hah! he said,
look at our Malaysian spirit!).
And then we got up and we left, and the hall was empty in its darkness.
