Musuta Kusaka's Everyday Journey with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Japan

Autumn is the season for sporting events. Parasports are no exception. On Saturday, October 8th 2022, I went to an event called ” Challenge Sports! Tokyo

” held in Ariake, Tokyo . It was even more fun than I had imagined.

My 5-year-old daughter, who accompanied me, was also completely absorbed. She was running around from booth to booth.　Of course, all of the things there were designed to satisfy the curiosity of adults. I was one of the people who thoroughly enjoyed the “this is so interesting!” experience. Time flew by until the end at 5:00 p.m.

This event was not only free, but also featured the Deaflympics and Special Olympics. In other words, it had a broad perspective on sports. In that sense, it was different from the parasports events I knew.

In everyday life, you can enjoy various sports that you would never have the chance to play, let alone know about. It was also a time for parents and children to think about sports and, ultimately, the potential of humans.
In the midst of all this, I learned a lot from my 5-year-old daughter…

It was a very memorable day, so I would like to leave a report here.

Your heart will be locked within 5 minutes of entering the building. Houki to Chiritori’s goods.

As soon as I entered Ariake Arena, this is what really grabbed my heart. The false eyelash hand towel. It caught my eye and I bought it within 0 seconds. Isn’t this just too good to be true?

“That’s amazing!”
“So cute!”
A man in his 40s repeatedly shouted in a voice that was an octave higher. “So cute!”
That’s how cute she was.

There were a lot of other items with crazy taste. It’s been a while since I’ve been so cute! I was so dizzy. I bought a hair tie for my daughter. A T-shirt is nice too! A key chain! And a pouch! I don’t plan on using them though!

“Give me all of this!”
“Just cash.”

Ding…

My wallet only had enough cash for a school trip in the Showa era (is that really an adult wallet?). Of course, there was no ATM inside Ariake Arena.

I gave up on buying it with tears in my eyes. I was so disappointed that the store clerk tried to comfort me.
I’m sorry for being such a troublesome old man.

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Apparently these goods were designed by an artist called Houki to Chiritori . I think they are probably for users of Tanpopo
, an employment support facility in Nerima, Tokyo . They are also sold at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government shop , so I vowed to cancel my life insurance, exchange it for cash, and go buy some.

My daughter couldn’t bear to see me looking like the end of the world.
“Let’s do a stamp rally!”
That’s right. This event had a stamp rally system.
If you collected eight stamps, you could get a stainless steel thermos bottle. It was a pretty luxurious free prize.

Wait. If this quality and surprises are waiting for me in the future. I can get 8 of them with ease! I can easily get the stainless steel thermos bottle!

So I walked around the entrance floor, stamped my stuff and got three stamps, then bravely headed down to the main arena.

The main arena was a place where I could experience everything I had ever wanted to try or see!

This is the main arena. It’s spacious. There were so many people there just after the doors opened.

By mid-afternoon, the crowd was huge. There was a program featuring celebrities in the center of the venue, which created quite a buzz. It felt like a live performance.

Five-year-olds cling to the rocks like spiders. Bouldering is a kid-friendly sport.

Part 1 in the series of things I’ve always wanted to try:
bouldering.

For my daughter, who usually only plays by clinging to the stone walls in the park, it seems that she had always wanted to try the things she occasionally sees on TV. It
seemed like every child was doing the same thing, and there was a long line.

Of course, my daughter was no exception. She stuck to the wall.
But…
“What? Can you only use stones of the same color?”
“What? Both hands? Where? The finish line? And the start line?”

After seeing the athletes climbing up the wall ignoring gravity, she probably thought it would be easy for her too. But
it’s not that easy. There are rules to be followed in a competition.

But then my daughter smoothly reached the finish line,
with the help of the instructor, of course.

But.
If you let your guard down, when it’s time to descend, you’ll notice just how high you are. It’s probably about twice your height.
“Wow, I’m scared…”
“My hands hurt.”
Relive the things that athletes have overcome. You can’t really understand it unless you try it. I felt a sense of accomplishment right from the first program.

Delicate stick control is extremely difficult! Wheelchair curling

Next up is wheelchair curling. As the name suggests, this is curling that can be done while sitting in a wheelchair. This is also difficult.

The way you put in and release the force of your upper body is very delicate. In the end, my daughter couldn’t even get the stone into the house. It seems that the adults playing next to her were also struggling. Wheelchair curling is a deep sport.

Wheelchair curling has a special tool called a delivery stick that allows curlers to slide the stones while sitting. It
is hooked onto the stone. The tip looks like this.

Wheelchair curling also uses stones that we are familiar with, but on this day they were using indoor stones.
When lined up, they look like ladybugs and are cute.

There’s also the words “floor curling.” I see there’s equipment that can be used indoors.

This is what it looks like when you turn it over. It has casters, so it slides smoothly.

This is the official stone used on ice. It’s from a series I’ve always wanted to hold.
“Ugh…”
It was so heavy that it hit my hips and knees. And it was no wonder. It weighs 20kg. It’s a small gravestone (there’s no such thing as a small gravestone).

This is a series I’ve always wanted to see. A stick for sweeping ice.
It looked like it was “sweeping” or “rubbing,” so I thought it was more like a brush, but I was wrong. It has the feel of a sturdy Quickle Wiper.

This is what surprised me. They are curling shoes. The left and right shoes have different soles. One is studded and the other is smooth. They look like iced cookies. I had no idea!
“Oh, so they’re smooth,” the guide explained.
“Yes. You slide by putting your weight on the smooth side,” my daughter said without thinking. “They’re hard.”

This is how we experienced curling while standing.

Enjoy the festival atmosphere with Frisbee! The thrill of shooting through flying discs

This is the flying disc. It is also a Special Olympics event.

This was one of the programs with the longest line of children. Of course. It feels like a festival. It’s fun without any logic.

Pass the disc through the ring (the ring will light up when it passes through).

There was also a strikeout. The thrill of shooting through!

This is the disc used in the game. Don’t underestimate it as just a Frisbee. Did you know there is a correct way to hold it? Hold the disc with your dominant hand, and place your index finger on the edge of the disc. This is the correct way. This is how you can gain subtle control.

Is it really that hard? Learning theoretical perseverance through sweat. Wheelchair tennis

There’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while.
“How do wheelchair tennis players push their wheelchairs?”
This is a series I’ve always wanted to ask about.

Because, isn’t that right? The player has a racket. And yet, they make the wheelchair take off and spin around and around, over and over again.

Maybe. There must be some kind of know-how that’s invisible to the spectators that allows them to efficiently control their wheelchairs. They really are athletes, after all.
That’s what I thought.

So,I decided to take a chance and ask the instructor, “How do wheelchair tennis players push their wheelchairs?” The answer was , “They push their wheelchairs as hard as they can. ” What a gutsy guy!

“However, you hold the racket from your pinky to your index finger. You stroke it with the base of your thumb. Grip as far back on the hand rim as possible, and stroke each stroke as long, strong, and fast as possible. By doing so, you can minimize the number of strokes. Top athletes catch up with the ball by inertia, so they are not stroked at the moment they swing the racket. ” So if you keep on strokes until you catch up with the ball, you won’t be able to accurately hit the racket. A theory of perseverance. Just as you would expect from an athlete .

Actually, my child and I tried it out together. The wheelchair itself is light and easy to control.

But… “I’m going to die…”

“Is it really that hard? Do you really want to go to such lengths to play tennis?”
It was such a tough sport.

First of all, you can’t catch up with the ball in a wheelchair.
Even if you did catch up with it, it wouldn’t hit the racket.
Even if you did hit it, it wouldn’t go over the net. If you swung it with too much force, the ball would go in the wrong direction. Before you knew it, your cardiopulmonary capacity was at its limit.

“Ha ha ha… No, this is impossible…”
I turned to look at my daughter covered in sweat, and she was calmly rallying with a bang.
“You can do it, daughter.”
The instructor’s expression at that moment was the biggest smile of the day.

By the way, my daughter said she
was “scared .” When I asked her “What was it?” she said “The wheelchair was like, ‘Oops!’ ” That shows how maneuverable and maneuverable the wheelchair was.

My daughter was in awe of paracanoeing, going from “That guy has no legs” to “Amazing!”

“That person has no legs,”
my daughter told me in a small voice while we were waiting in line.

It was a paracanoe booth. It was a program where you could experience canoeing using a machine. There were many instructors.

Among them, there was a man with rock-hard muscles on his upper body (I think he was a top athlete). However, he was missing both legs and in a wheelchair. That’s what my daughter said.

“Yeah, no. But take a look.”

The man demonstrated how to paddle the machine canoe with ease.
“Your legs don’t matter,”
I said.
“Yeah, I want to try too.”
His legs didn’t matter at all. He seemed to be captivated by the attraction of this machine. That’s it! That kind of experience is wonderful.

I got in the machine and started paddling…
“It’s heavy!”
This made it hard to control. Everyone was trying to help me, but it just didn’t work.

I tried it too. This is what it looks like when you sit down.
When I started paddling, I felt an incredible strain on the muscles around my shoulders, especially on both sides of my spine, around my shoulder blades, and on both sides of my abdominal muscles.

I’m a beginner, so it’s possible that I’m putting too much force into the wrong parts. Canoeing on flowing water…
I realized that this is also a hard sport.

But I also thought it would be very pleasant to go down a river on this. In real life, canoeing is on water. Maybe your legs don’t have much to do with it.

The pamphlet I was given said, “Water is the ultimate barrier-free environment.”
I knew it couldn’t be that simple, but it was persuasive enough to make me think that there was some truth to it.

After leaving the booth, my daughter said, “That man had amazing strength!” She doesn’t usually compliment people, but she was very impressed. If you look only at things that don’t exist, there are things you can’t see. If you can intuit that, that’s perfect. It was a worthwhile experience.

By the way, there was a booth for Deaf Soccer, a Deaflympics sport, at the venue. This experience was also popular and closed down quickly.

On the court, players were able to communicate using sign language while playing. There were also wheelchair users.
I wish I could have tried it… What a shame.

So we got three stamps in the main arena one after another.
“Yay! Two more to go!”
My daughter seemed excited as her stamp sheet steadily filled up. Just a little more to go until we got the stainless steel thermos bottle!

At this point, it was past 4pm, and there was less than an hour until the closing time of 5pm. Oh no. We rushed a bit and headed to the final stage, the sub-arena.

A world you never knew existed. The sub-arena where people shouted, “I want to do it again!”

A mixture of thrill and wonder. Blind soccer

In the sub-arena, we first tried out blind football. They let us touch the ball so we wouldn’t get bored while waiting in line. We were even allowed to kick it.

“Why is it so hard?”
my daughter asked simply.
“It has something like a bell inside, so you can tell where the ball is by the sound it makes,”
explained the boy in front of us.

Something like that. There was an atmosphere at this venue that said, “It’s natural to reach out to someone when they have a question. That’s normal .” 

Maybe it’s the same for all parasports venues. Even if it’s a stranger, you communicate without hesitation . I brought my daughter here because I wanted her to feel that kind of “wind.”

In preparation, I put on an eye mask and got used to the pitch black world.

“Try taking a walk,”
I suggested, and my daughter took a trial walk with her eye mask on.
“Hya-ha-ha-ha-ha! It’s fun!”
“Where’s Daddy? Where did you go?”
It seemed the thrill was more exciting than the fear of the dark.

The best part of playing Black Soccer is the otherworldly feeling. It’s a big mistake to think that closing your eyes will take you into the world of the visually impaired. You have to use all your senses except for sight to understand the space around you, and ultimately the world.

And then it was time for our black soccer experience. A player (called Kuma-san) from the black soccer club “SFIDA SETAGAYA” in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo,

gave us instructions. As the caller, I banged on the cones and told my daughter, who was wearing an eye mask, where the goal was.
“(Bang, bang, bang!) This way, right!” “(Bang, bang, bang!) This way, left!”
My daughter kicked the ball, but it didn’t roll down the course I’d imagined.

“Huh? Why?”
It seemed like she was trying to kick the ball straight ahead, but no matter how many times she tried, the ball would just crack the left post. My daughter was watching the direction the ball was rolling.

Even my own body doesn’t move the way I imagine it.
It’s common for children.

But by putting on an eye mask, I can look at it calmly and objectively. Instead of getting annoyed, frustrated, or irritated, I wonder, “Why?” It’s a mysterious experience that begins in a different world. I secretly hope that one day this will turn into someone’s imagination. As a parent.

Kids get super excited! Do you know Pegasus Ball? It’s a surefire kids sport!

The last game we played was Pegasus Ball , which I learned about for the first time on that day.

The rules are very simple. You chase the demon and hit it with the ball, and the one who gets the most balls wins. It’s basically a game of tag with balls. It’s a new sport that has been developed so that children with and without disabilities can enjoy it.

The association’s website also describes it as “the most popular recreational activity for special needs schools.”

I bet they did! The kids were so excited that I wanted to say that.

My daughter also said
, “Let’s do it again!”
and got her first second helping of the ball that day.

Even though she had been playing all day, she kept chasing and throwing, throwing and chasing, repeating the same pattern like she was possessed.

On the other hand, the demons were running away and the instructors were exhausted. But that just goes to show how successful the event was.

Certainly, this is interesting. The rules are simple, so it can be applied in many ways. It is easy to take into account the characteristics of the players, such as whether they have a disability or not, and how severe it is. The equipment is soft (basically all fluffy cotton), so it is safe. This will be popular. Absolutely. As a kids’ sport.

I wonder if I should propose it to my daughter’s nursery school. That’s what I thought.

I looked at the clock and was shocked!!! There were less than five minutes left until closing time at 5pm! This is bad! Really bad!

I urged my daughter, who was panting and straining her shoulders , saying
“Stamp! If you don’t hurry up, the venue will close!”
and we got two stamps.

That was it!
“Yay! We got them all!”
My daughter’s sense of accomplishment was at its peak.

Now it was my turn to sprint. Holding my daughter, renched in sweat, I took off up the stairs in one breathless motion and dashed to the prize exchange booth.

However, there is an unexpected ending…

Did you have fun? My daughter showed me the true essence of sports.

“Stamps! I’ve got them all!”
With the same excitement as when I won a Supreme Court case, I thrust my stamp card at the staff member.

However, he said,
“Sorry, we’ve run out of prizes, so here you go, just stickers.”

To my surprise, the prizes for the stamp rally were sold out.
What’s more, the prize exchange booth had almost completely closed.

What? I worked so hard to collect all those stamps? Where
are the thermoses? Don’t they have stainless steel ones?
“Hey! Wait a minute! That can’t be it!”
I was about to blurt out.

My daughter said,
“Oh, I see. Let’s go home. It ‘s fine.” I thought to myself, and we walked casually to the exit.

Meanwhile, as I followed her, my head was boiling with anger. Damn it, I’m a taxpayer!

But as we walked through the streets of Ariake after dark, my daughter said,
“It was fun!”
As I watched her back, a wave of deep regret washed over me.

My daughter enjoyed the stamp rally as a game, while I was dazzled by the prizes. I wondered what I had learned throughout the day. Or rather, what I had been playing.

Games, play. In other words, play. In other words, I think the essence of sports is a highly playful aspect. This does not mean that it is not serious. It’s about how much fun you can have playing. Did you understand someone? Did you feel renewed? Or maybe having fun and things you like can brighten your days. That must have been important. I feel that this essence is particularly strong in so-called sports for people with disabilities (I hate to say this).

So prizes and records should only be a way to make the fun more exciting. Being obsessed with those things, I was the polar opposite of the appeal of today’s event. It was a Showa-era victory-first mentality. What are you here for? It was like that.

It’s so mean to blame the taxpayers. It’s a free event after all. There’s no point getting so angry. If you forget the joy of playing with someone and the value of having fun, it’s so easy to fall into the dark side. Just realizing that was a huge learning opportunity for me.

My daughter, who thoroughly enjoyed today, seems to understand the essence of sports much better than me.
After running a lot, she continued to sprint all the way to Ariake Station. On the way home, I admired her powerful steps in many ways.

That’s it. Thank you for reading to the end.