I throw, you throw. (Angry White Pyjamas - Robert Twigger)

Member Name: paulhanton

Product:	Angry White Pyjamas - Robert Twigger
Date:	05/11/09 (136 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fascinating insight.

Disadvantages: Not if you have no interest in martial arts.

Angry White Pyjamas

Robert Twigger

This book caught my eye for two reasons, firstly it is about Aikido, a martial art that I practised for nine years (but gave up about 12 years ago) and secondly because it is about an English guy living and working in Japan.

My wife read the book first and gave it to me saying, "I hope you get on better with this than I did, it was all a bit dull". Was she right?

This is an autobiographical account of 'Twigger' who was living in Tokyo during the 90's, teaching English in a school and sharing an apartment with a couple of friends. One day he wakes up (not literally) to the fact that he is putting on weight, eating junk food, drinking too much and is generally unfit and unhealthy. He decides that he will take up aikido (of which there are many styles).

His plunge into Yoshinkan aikido, a particularly tough style is total. He does not dally with the odd lesson here and there but enrolls on a year long course (well almost a year) with the Tokyo riot police. He trains five days a week, for hours at a time, experiencing unbelievable levels of physical and mental hardship and pain. The aim of the course is twofold: get to black belt and, complete the course. there is a supplementary goal as well....stay alive and do not get injured too badly!!

This is a fascinating book on many levels:

We get a no holds barred, personal view of how he mentally and physically fares throughout the course, whilst of course trying to hold down his 'day job'. The descriptions of the pain he goes through are graphic and intense.

He talks for instance of the repeated kneeling exercises that leave his knees bleeding so that everyday for weeks there is no opportunity for the skin to heal and each time he kneels he sees the blood and pus stain his clothing. He talks of the repeated injuries that participants on the course suffer, sometimes enforcing their withdrawal. More than the physical elements he talks of the intense mental endurance skills he learns and develops throughout the course and how sometimes he and others 'break'.

We also get to see a bit of how foreigners are viewed by the Japanese, especially Western foreigners attempting something as Japanese as this course, steeped in 'spirit' and history, there is undoubtedly a harder time given to the foreigners by the mainly Japanese instructors, but especially by the Western instructors who must show no favours.

Alongside this we get an interesting insight into both how the Japanese culture views martial arts in general and in particular how the progression and spirit of this particular course and its elements are viewed.

We also get an insight into what is like to be a foreigner living in Japan, I love the way Twigger 'courts' a girlfriend and the mires he gets into trying to do the right thing and not come across as the clumsy Englishman, which of course he does.

I really enjoyed the book, my wife was wrong, the book is not 'dull' it is just quite detailed. It is the detail and the personal observations that made it for me. I loved the fact that I knew most of the moves he describes, even more, I loved his accounts of his thoughts as and when he had taken part in a practice session.

He is a great narrator and observer, his social commentary on other members of the dojo are really quite cutting and insightful. This is the joy of this book, it pretends to be nothing other than what it is; an account of one mans journey, through a martial arts course, as a foreigner, in Japan.

As to whether he makes it, gets his black belt and/or finishes the course, I'll leave that for you to find out.

As a non-fiction book, one of the better ones I have read for a while, you might like to know also that this book apparently was the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, interestingly however these are not the authors first awards as he is a quite well known poet and his previous awards have been for poetry.

Summary: An Englishman in a Japanese World.