When JIA Yu Table Tennis Club opened, it was still difficult to recruit students. Nowadays, many parents often call, "Some 3-year-old children also want to train." Li Juan, who has been engaged in table tennis for nearly 30 years, is deeply touched by all these changes.
Can you make a living by playing table tennis?
Li Juan came to Japan for the first time at the invitation of Nissan's corporate team. At that time, in Japan, table tennis was mainly supported by big companies, which formed teams and held various competitions every year, among which Nissan Automobile Team was the strongest. Li Juan represented China's national team in the World Table Tennis Championships in Dortmund 1989 and Chiba199/KLOC-0. At first, she had almost no rivals in Japanese table tennis and won the championship for two years in a row.
Caption: Li Juan when he was young.
In 1990s, China's table tennis rivals in Asia were mainly South Korea and North Korea, and Japan did not rank first. In order to help Li Juan adapt to work and life in Japan as soon as possible, Nissan Motor Company specially assigned an interpreter to accompany her to the competition. In the 2000 Malaysian World Championships, the Japanese Table Tennis Association found Li Juan and hoped that she would transfer to Japan and play for the Japanese team.
In this World Table Tennis Championships held in Japan, Li Juan, who left the table tennis world 10, came out again to help the Japanese women's team win the third place. Not only Li Juan, but also former table tennis players who came to work and live in Japan during that period, such as Nan Wei and Gao Zhiliang, all played an important role in promoting Japanese table tennis.
At that time, Li Juan was married and had children in Japan. Besides taking care of her family, she also wants to run her own business. Japanese mothers (elderly housewives) like to play ball, and the club run by Ichiro Ogimura, the former president of the Table Tennis Association, is very popular. So, Li Juan went to the club to teach members to play ball, and he also taught local children when he was free at night.
Caption: Li Juan instructs young players.
The influence of "love sauce"
Baseball and sumo were the most popular in Japan, when table tennis was not the mainstream. "Very rustic people play." When Li Juan first arrived in Japan, he didn't enjoy the treatment of the national team. Someone asked her: Can she make a living just by playing ball? "Even some of Nissan's teammates don't have a comprehensive understanding of this sport. Some of them only came into contact with table tennis when they went to middle school. "
It was not until the appearance of Fukuhara Ai that her healthy, lovely and enterprising image was exposed on TV, prompting Japanese parents to change their ideas. "They found that it is also good for children to practice table tennis, and Japanese teenagers also regard' Aijiang' (Fukuhara Ai) as an idol."
In 2009, Li Juan built a house in the west of Tokyo, and the JIA Yu Table Tennis Club officially opened. The registration age of the club was relaxed to 5 years old, but no one came after the advertisement. By 20 13, the wind changed, and many parents took the initiative to knock on the door of the club and sign up their children.
Different from China's system, table tennis is gradually popularized among Japanese teenagers, and family is the main driving force. Parents all want to train their children to be the next Fukuhara Ai, and TV and newspapers also add fuel to the fire. Since then, these young and cutting-edge competitions, such as Hirano Miwoo and Zhang Benzhi, have often been broadcast and reported, becoming household names.
Description: coaches and young students
Ask Ito, a junior at JIA Yu Club, who is your idol? The answer is Miki It?, the number one female player in Japan today. Another male classmate, Kitajima, said that he likes Shunichi Mizutani. As for the reason, "because he is left-handed, so am I". In addition, Shui Gu's technology is particularly comprehensive. "
After the enrollment expanded, JIA Yu Club rented a house around the corner for training. The elementary class faces the street, mainly to cultivate children's interest in table tennis, and the advanced class is just around the corner, with the goal of building elite teenagers.
From popularization to elite
A few days ago, Li Juan led a team to Kobe to participate in the National Youth Table Tennis Competition, which is a single event held every July. In the competitions of Grade Two, Grade Four and Grade Six, the small members of JIA Yu Club have achieved good results. Next month, the club will team up to participate in the annual national team competition.
"The allocation of competition places is based on the population of each place. For example, there are five individual events in Tokyo and three in Hokkaido. If there are two small players in Tokyo entering the quarter-finals this year, one can be added next year. " Li Juan said that there are 70 or 80 table tennis clubs in Tokyo, and the competition among small players is fierce.
Caption: Photos and awards of young players from JIA Yu Club participating in the competition.
Due to its good performance, JIA Yu Club has established a perennial cooperative relationship with the Japanese Table Tennis Association. When Meiyu in Ye Ping first appeared, her mother asked the Table Tennis Association to hire a full-time coach for her daughter. Therefore, Emperor Taishō Miyazaki, head of the Table Tennis Association, specially came to Li Juan to invite Jassamyn Liu, coach of JIA Yu Club, to give lessons to Ye Ping. During this period, under the leadership of Jassamyn Liu, Ye Ping's ranking in the world rose rapidly from 200 to 40, with a qualitative leap.
After this year's national competition, Yuki Mishima, a club student and a sixth-grade student, received an admission notice from Japan Life Team. This means that this player will get a better education and become a reserve talent of Japanese table tennis. Li Juan said that apart from Kanto and Kansai, the Japanese Table Tennis Association has also established elite colleges to attract more outstanding young people. "Enterprise teams should also establish youth echelons, so that children who play table tennis well have more ways to grow up." (Xinmin Evening News correspondent leijin, Tokyo today)
Description: The curriculum of JIA Yu Club.
It is a blessing for reporters to remember the two modes.
At 4: 30 in the afternoon, several mothers gathered at the gate of JIA Yu Club, waiting to take their children home. Some students live far away and it takes 40 to 50 minutes to get home. On the wall of the training room, China's calligraphy is hung, which is "practice courage, accumulate health and be a hero". The young students lined up and were listening to the coach's comments on the training results. If you don't understand, please raise your hand and ask questions. After taking a shower and changing clothes, they carried their schoolbags and saluted and said goodbye to everyone.
Many Japanese children really like this sport when they pick up rackets. In order to support children's interest, parents also set up a table at home. Besides training in the club, children also touch the ball at home and often play at home for a while before going to school. Like Ye Ping and Ito, when they were young, they practiced a lot. When others work 2 hours a day and they work 5 hours, their technical completion is high and their progress is rapid. Moreover, Japan now provides rich competition opportunities for young people, so that children can grow up in the competition, enhance their understanding of technology, put them into training after understanding, and then find out good seedlings. The state will invest financial resources and manpower to focus on training.
Caption: Little players and coaches.
Another feature is that young national players like Zhang Ben, Ishikawa and Ito all participate in the competition with their families. This is not a pressure on the players, but a strong support. Li Juan recalled that before she played, the Japanese coach told her: Don't be under pressure. If you can't win, no one will blame you because you are the best in the country. If you lose, others will lose. This kind of culture helps Japanese players to devote themselves to the competition and give full play to their best level.
Before the outbreak of the epidemic, Li Juan took his team members to China for communication every year. "They like to go. Every time I communicate with small players in China, they are particularly energetic and have made great progress. " The confrontation between China and Japan has become and will continue to be the main theme of table tennis in the world, and it is the cultivation of elites under two modes. Japanese athletes who have paid attention to training their competitive ability since childhood will have a wonderful collision with China athletes who have grown up step by step under the professional system. For table tennis, this is a blessing. I believe that the opponent's strength will also make China by going up one flight of stairs in table tennis. (leijin)