memories and old pictures of dojos
I ran into Uematsu-san at the AACC Saturday evening! I asked him if he was here to spar because he was fighting soon, and he said, “Oh I retired. I’m an old man. I’m Gono’s grappling coach.” I was like, “WHAAAAAAAT!?” He’s thirty-three and has been fighting since 1997.
link to Uematsu’s sherdog page
Uematsu was the teacher of Cross Point Kichijouji when I first came to Japan! I wrote a lot about him in my book ( that I can’t seem to get published ;_;)
I think he cornered me in my debut fight in 2003. After I won, I asked him, “How many times have you fought?” and he said, “I don’t know…” I said, “HOW CAN YOU NOT REMEMBER?!” lol He was my idol! My role-model! He’s 15-8-2 now. Wow….
Here’s a pic from my college student exchange year in 2004: He’s in the middle, next to me. He said he opened his own club in Tachikawa, but that’s too far for me to go to on a regular basis. 🙁
I’ve been also reminiscing about my old team, Keishukai. Man, those guys were like my second family. I joined right after I came to Japan. They welcomed me in and did their best to communicate with me and accept me, even though I was a foreigner. Foreigners passed through, but I was one of the few who stayed for years. It broke my heart to leave, but things happen.
This is a group pic we took after I won my Fatal Femmes Fighting belt. There’s Moriyama-sensei before he passed away! Okami, Uno, Monma, Mitsuoka, Hashi, Sakura, Tetsu-san, Mizuho, many many!
This is when Moriyama-san invited me, Hashi, Kadowaki, and Uno to go to a matsuri in Koga….but he passed away, so we went anyway, to honor his invitation. It was a special time. Summer 2008(Moriyama-san’s friend’s wife lent me a Kimono).
Me, Kosuke Kudo-san, Hashi, Yokoyama-san, Hashi and Koizumi-san visited Serizawa-san’s Tsuruga dojo in Shizuoka in 2006! There’s Mt. Fuji in the back ground!
I went to Fatal Femmes Fighting with Hashi and her brother and Koizumi-san. I bet nobody remembers that she had a WAR with Amanda Buckner? Veronica and Kristin from http://wmmaroundup.com/, you remember, at least, I know! 🙂
Well, now I’m training at new places. Everybody has changed. Everybody’s careers have taken different routes. And nobody can predict what will happen, most of the time.…