The sun had already set on the rustic beaches of Kamogawa in Chiba Prefecture as I drove to my first jiu-jitsu practice. I thought back to my first visit to Japan over seven years ago when I met my friend Hide-san at a tattoo parlor specializing in tebori (traditional hand-poke tattooing).
David Atti (Chiba)
We hit it off and have kept in close contact ever since. I affectionately call Hide, Ani (“older brother” in Japanese). A self-described “eccentric artist” and “Japanese patriot,” Hide-san is widely known throughout the area as a brilliant painter and entrepreneur. He is the czar of his own mural painting company, G”ART (which is located in neighboring Kimitsu City). As fate would have it, my JET placement ended up being just a 45-minute drive south of Hide’s G”ART studio. Having an “older brother” so close to my placement made my transition smooth and meant I would never feel lonesome. We had our long overdue reunion soon after my arrival and ever since Hide-san has always invited me to hang out with him and his friends. At our reunion, I expressed an interest in practicing martial arts during my time here. In America, I was an amateur boxer on and off for ten years and it had always been a dream of mine to study martial arts in Japan. Hide quickly arranged for me to try Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with a friend he’d known since junior high school, Hiroki Owa
80
