February 23, 2008
Tights are not allowed!
A Seiritsu player makes a dash for it...!
Hi everyone, posting my monthly report on how life in Japan is going. It’s middle of winter and its freezing. Coming from down under, this is the first time I have ever experienced a cold winter like this. In Australia during winter all the sports players wear tights even though it’s only 10 degrees. Although here in Japan its 0 degrees and even lower, no one wears tights and so I decided to ask around to see if we were allowed to wear them. I received the same answer from both my coaches and teammates. That was not wearing tights makes us mentally stronger, that tights don’t look appropriate with our uniforms and that they are unnecessary because it’s not even that cold.
Our coaches really believe that not wearing tights during winter will make us mentally stronger, therefore making us better players. This theory I think is a little too harsh because it freezing!!! But as many foreigners that have lived in Japan will tell you, “rules are rules and they don’t change them for no one”.
The coaches also said no because they thought that wearing our own tights with the team uniform didn’t look appropriate. It all comes down to opinions and the coach’s opinions are the ones that count. I personally think they look quite good with our uniforms.
After asking the coaches a number of times, they still told us that we weren’t allowed to wear tights. Again, they gave us reasons for why they said no and even said that tights were unnecessary because it wasn’t even cold enough to use them. Not cold??? It’s minus 0 degrees!!!
All in all I must say, after training almost for half a winter without tights I do believe that without the tights all of the players have become a lot more mentally stronger, including me.
Jason Davidson