First Road Trip

We had a two game preseason road trip. We started out on Monday morning and got onto our team bus that is painted out and decal ed so that anyone within a one mile radius knows the Shiga Lakestars are on that bus! It's pretty sweet. It's a nice charter bus and good thing because we spent a lot of time on it.

Evidently it is Silver week here which is a vacation week for all of Japan. They have National holidays a lot here because otherwise people will not take days off. They work incredibly hard here. The front office of our team works incredibly hard and almost lives there. Our promotional manager Buchi had actually been at the office 5 days straight before we had our press conference last week.

Anyway, everyone took vacation. I mean everyone. Our 4 hour bus ride took us about 5 and a half. We got to the gym 45 minutes before the game started. We played like we had just gotten off the bus 45 minutes before. We didn't hit many outside shots and they hit all of theirs. We lost by about 15. Then we had what was supposed to be about a 4 hour bus ride to the hotel for the night. It was about a 5 hour ride. We got into the hotel at about 12:30.

It was a really nice hotel. It had a big bed, but not much else to the room. Then, it had a toilet that looked like the air force one of toilet. You could warm the seat and use the spray that would clean you instead of wiping. That had different pressure settings and everything for it. I opted out of all of them and tried to guess left or right flush for #1 of #2. So I went to sleep that night and then had to get up at 8:30 for breakfast before shootaround.

Then after shootaround we came back to the hotel for a little while before heading to the game. The game didn't go real well. I didn't play well, but ended up with 17 points. We lost by about 20. We are still in preseason form for sure and have a lot of things that we need to work on, but that is what the preseason is for. Then after the game we supposedly had a 6 hour bus ride. The ride ended up being much longer than that. I'm not sure how long but I'm going to guess about 9. It was a long time. I read an entire book on the way up on the bus trip and on the way back watched Braveheart and the Bourne Supremacy so I was very productive just in different ways.

Thanks to everyone for the emails and messages on facebook!!! It has been so good to keep in touch with you and I appreciate it so much!!

Who Wants to be a Millionaire In Japanese

So I've been busy with practice and everything here, but I just wanted to write a quick story. We had our first practice game against KCC - the best team in Korea and lost by about 15. They are very good. Their center Ha played for the Trailblazers for quite a while - he is 7"3. He dunked once and he lowered the goal in our gym. (Our gym that we have to tape down the lines to be able to play in it. I always go around and look for where the shortest spot of the 3 point line is. It's like finidng the dead spots on your home court)

We play them again on Thursday. They are good, but we should be able to do better. So my main reason for writing tonight. As I write I am talking to Hope as she gets ready for work and watching Who wants to be a millionaire in Japanese. It is hilarious. I thought it was slum dog millionaire the first time I saw it. Then I realized that the answers were in Japanese and it wasn't. (I was kind of upset - thats a great movie!!)

Here is the highlight of this episode so far. The guy went and took a 50/50. The crowd cheered. I have no idea why. Then he said one thing in English - he said final answer. The Japanese Regis Philbin took a 500,000 yen check ($5,000) and ripped it up very dramatically. I waited and waited to see this guy's crushed reaction - and then...it went to commercial. America has influenced everywhere!!!! Then they came back and he had gotten it right. All that drama for a correct answer - some Japanese millionaire torture for you there.

Preseason Training Camp

Our training camp is somewhere about an hour away from where we stay. We are staying at a bed and breakfast that literally looks like just another house along an offroad, but it is nice. We had weightlifting this morning for about 2 hours because we had orientation with our strength coach for a long time. The weightlifting isn't really anything too strange. It is not as tough as the St. Vincent's workouts I was doing with Greg all summer, but they're good enough. Then we had lunch.

Today at lunch I decided that if I eat outside of my apartment the rest of the time I am here I am going to use chopsticks. It has been pretty interesting so far. I am not that good. Not good at all. All the Japanese players laugh at me when I try to pick up something like a piece of lettuce and right as I am about to eat it it drops to my plate again. Hunger is the best motivation for learning though. I am nearly always hungry and so it motivates me to learn quicker how to use chopsticks. For someone that wanted to go on a diet but didn't want to stop eating. Buy them chopsticks. Take away everything else and they will take a long time to eat or just get frustrated and stop eating. I will get better at it.

Then we hung out in our little bed and breakfast here. I am rooming with Bobby Nash and he speaks good Japanese because his mom used to so it is interesting when he actually know how to talk with people here. After we went to practice.

Today's practice was just over 2 hours. I finally made it all the way through practice. My ankle hurt like crazy and I am still not at full speed, but I finally made it all the way through. The trainer here is really good and has been giving me ultrasound, stem and massage between every workout. He also has me doing about an hour of rehab everyday to get the strangth back in my calf and ankle.

Tonight's dinner was really good. We had fish, chicken, salad, meatballs, rice (of course), green beans with sesame, lots of different fruit (oranges were the only thing I knew but I ate all the different kinds), and miso soup. After dinner I had treatment again.

Now I am in the room with Bobby and there is some Japanese game show on. It is not like you would think of a Japanese game show (not wipeout). Here is my guess at what it is - except its in Japanese so I don't know for sure. It is these kids that are in asked academic bowl type format. It is a tournament to get there and it is so serious. The losers cry. The winners cry from being happy. The highlights of the kids as they get introduced are of them putting library books away and studying in school. It is unreal. I have no idea what is going on, but I can't turn away.

Well, I'm going to watch one more episode of this Japanese game show and go to sleep. Hope all of you have a great Friday. It's been great for me as I am finishing Friday here.

Photo Shoot

Today was a very, very long day. We started out and got picked up at our apartment at 9. We had to be in our suits and we drove about 40 minutes to get to the place. Then we took pictures for about an hour in our suits.

Then we waited for a long time. After, we got into our jerseys and took more pictures. Then we had lunch at noon in their company cafeteria. The lunch was good. It was noodles, rice, soup, and some chicken type stuff. It was all pretty good.

Then we went back and took more pictures. Then we waited. Then we took pictures walking. Then they changed the backdrop to black. We took more pictures. Then we waited....and took more pictures. It was a long boring day. I smiled and I stared at the camera. We were there for 9 til 5 just taking pictures. I guess I should wait to get a 9 to 5 job since I am not cut out for that.

Tomorrow we leave for training camp. It is about an hour away and we will be there for 2 a days for 4 days. I will try to blog while there, but I'm not sure if I will have internet. Thanks for following.

First Day of Conditioning and Practice

I woke up this morning and via skype had a premarital counseling session with Hope and our mentors - John and Diane Diendu. They both go to our house church and John was a pastor for a long time. It was a good session and thanks to technology that we are able to continue moving our relationship forward from many miles apart.

This morning we went back over to the weight room and had conditioning with our assistant coach Big Bashi as we call him. Big Bashi is a mammoth of a man. For those of you that have seen the movie Troy. The big champion that Brad Pitt fights in the beginning. A Japanese version of that man is Big Bashi. For those of you that haven't seen it - he is a Japanese Shaq.

I still can't do sprinting yet, so I had to do bike sprints. I went down with two of the other Japanese players to do bike sprints. I got to the bike put the seat as high as possible...let's just say it was close to fitting. The bike sprints were pretty tough and if you were under the 120 rpms it made a loud warning sound. It was kind of annoying, so I tried to avoid it as much as possible. Mine went off only once or twice. The other players...well a couple more times than that. Little Bashi as he told me to call him is 35 years old, so I guess he has an excuse. Coach told me that he tried to talk him into retiring and becoming an assistant coach, but he wouldn't. In my mind he is like the Brett Favre of Japanese basketball.

After bike sprints I headed upstairs to join the rest of the guys for the rest of the conditioning workout. We had to do some drills and then Bashi (whose English is very limited) told us to go to the baseline and sit down. I thought we were done because we had going a little over an hour and had a 2.5 hour practice later that day. We sit down and Bashi tells us we can't move our upper body. We have to put our legs out straight in front of us and then lift our butt and our hip and move it forward. Then do same to the other leg. I didn't move very far after doing this and guessed we would do 10 reps a piece. Bashi says go to half-court and back. It was crazy. Try it at home. It is very difficult and your hips will burn if you do it right. Don't use your upper body, just your hip and buttocks and go a good distance and then back.

Later today we had another practice. It was at a different gym. On the other court in the gym there were about 3 ping pong tables set up and some very intense ping pong games happening. They looked like something that would be on the Olympics. So after that we got practice started and I felt a lot better today. I practice quite a bit more but didn't do any of the live 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 drills yet. My ankle was much better today. Afterwards I went to the store and got some food to cook up for dinner. I had egg sandwich and some cereal tonight for dinner and then later had some ramen noodles (which are way better here).

Weights in Japan and First Practice

Today I woke up and made some breakfast. I had eggs and some cereal. It's a good thing I learned how to cook a little bit this past year or else I would be going hungry. At about 8:40 Mike and I met coach downstairs and followed him to the weight room. We went through some back alleys and it was about a 10 or 15 minute bike ride.

We got there and I still haven't gotten used to the custom of having to take your shoes off everywhere you go. Even in the gyms you have to take your shoes off when you get there, put them on a shelf and then change into your basketball shoes. I didn't realize this and just took my shoes off and put them back on.

The weight room isn't much but it gets the job done. It is a public weight room so there is everyone from middle aged women to professional athletes to old guys just trying to make sure they can move. After we started lifting for a while they told us we had to do some orientation.

For orientation I had to stand on a machine with metal on the bottom and then hold a couple of metal handles. I felt like I was going to get shocked or something. After about a minute I stepped off and they had the most detailed analysis of my body I have ever seen. I couldn't read it but my translator told me what all it said. It had measurements of details like the size of my right calf, left calf, the balance from my right side and left side. It had details about my muscle mass, my body fat (at a lean 5.6%), and the number of nutrients I have in my body. It was impressive. Then he taught us a few things about positioning your arms different ways to have more effective strength while playing. He was very good. Then we lifted for a little while and just headed back.

After we got back I saw Martin, who lives in our building. He manages some of it, but also runs a small English school close by. He lives here with his wife and two kids. Martin let me into storage because one of my friends that I played with in Australia with the Athletes in Action team, Ray Schafer had stuff in storage. Ray played here last year. Ray and his wife Sara left a lot of stuff in storage. I got into it and it was just like Christmas. I now have many, many things I thought I was going to have to live without. Things like big bowls and an iron skillet. Very valuable things. So I carted some of those up to my room and by the time I was done unpacking it was time to head off to practice.

Mike, Gary and I got on our bikes and took off for practice. The ride to practice is all along the lake and was absolutely beautiful. Our practice gym for the day is on the second floor of the building and when in there we open a bunch of the big doors to let air in. It opens up right to the lake and it is absolutely beautiful - still very hot, but beautiful. Practice went well. My ankle is still sore. I've been doing anywhere for 1-2 hours of rehab everyday on it and it is getting better. I still can't go full for practice yet. I made it through a lot of practice though and then we walked through plays at the end. It is definitely going to be a fun year. I'm excited to get back into playing 100%. My ankle really needs to hurry up because I hate sitting out.

Well, I made a decent dinner and I talked to Hope while she got ready this morning like I always do and now I think I'm gonna call it a night.