Backlog - Just do it: Sports in Japan

"So I was at the park one morning and there was a dad there with his three sons. They were running around the track and he was timing them."



Hardcore.

Even beyond the rapid fandom of national competition (Hanshin Tigers, anyone?) sports are apparently big in Japan, not just as something to watch but to do. The number of tracksuit clad students and adults alike, both outside but especially on the campus of our wonderful school, could possibly be said to boggle the mind. You do have your requisite sendentary population, but many of the people I've met here do something, from conventional sports such as basketball to the ever raised-eyebrow inducing Sepak Takraw of which I was a member at Kansai Gaidai for several months (with very little progress, I may add)



It sticks as well. Many of the people who join clubs here were doing the same thing in high school and many of the people in high school were doing the same thing in middle school. This is not sports specific, but seems to be a characteristic and any acitivity that has club-potential in it. The sports folk just seem to wear snappier and more recognizable uniforms. Well, if a tracksuit can be considered to be snappy. That and they turn a toasty brown color in warmer weather. And the bag which has a 50% chance of being Puma-made.