Undokai

My host brother and sister's undokai was postponed because of the rain on Sunday and I wasn't able to attend the rescheduled day, but on Saturday we went to watch an undokai at a middle school down the street from our house.

One of the things I noticed was that during some of the longer relays was that if one team fell far behind the other three, it only drove them to try harder. More often than not this lead to an exciting comeback and made the race more exciting. In this kind of situation in the US, I think sometimes that we accept the fact that we can't possibly catch up and so we settle for just finishing the race. I never got this impression from the students at the undokai. They fought hard until the end. It seemed that as long as they did their best, they could be proud of themselves.



I found that after watching the undokai it reminded me less and less of the physical fitness tests I talked about last week's preview, and more of my high school's winter carnival. It was all about fun and friendly competition. Even students that had been defeated happily high-fived and congratulated each other.




In addition to footraces and relays, there were also different game-type races. For example, there was a relay in which the participants had to pick up a slip of paper with an object written on it. The students had to go into the crowd and find that object (be it a flag, a teacher, another student, etc.) and run with it to the finish line.



The festival was a big family event, and even the parents got to participate. They called everyone out into the middle of the track for a parents vs. parents game of tug-of-war. It was interesting to see the group mentality and team spirit mirrored in both parents and children.