The Traveling Board

Report from Shikoku
September 29,, 2003
by Solomon Smilack

In preparing to come to Japan to teach, I was looking forward to playing go every day, since whenever I logged on to IGS back home I saw many Japanese players. But after a month here I have only played once. Muroto is neatly tucked away on the eastern cape of Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four main islands and go has turned out to be hard to find in this fairly rural area. An invitation by Akita Sensei (a fellow teacher) to his father's house in Ogata, a four-hour drive from Muroto, brought my first game in months, where Akita's father deftly cut off and smothered an enormous group of my stones in a running battle. It was tremendous fun.

My office has introduced me to Yokoyama sensei, a pleasant old man with a four-dan certificate who retired from our school some years ago. He promises me that if I study with him for three years I will reach shodan (I am currently somewhere around seven kyu). 

So far, and bearing in mind that these are impressions from just a month in rural Japan, it seems like go in Japan is a bit on an antique.  Although 'Hikaru no Go' has apparently jumpstarted a new generation of young players, they are just that: young (elementary school students). Out of 600 senior high school students, not a single student of mine knows how to play go. Once in a while a student (or even a fellow teacher) will tell me that their father or grandfather plays go and while of course I would welcome meeting any go players, my contact is limited and indirect - lack of rapport prevents me from being able to solicit games with people I have never met.

So go has become something rare and special. As with improving my game, the very process of finding opponents takes dedication and time. I'm looking forward to spending a year with Yokoyama sensei.

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