Angry White Pyjamas - A Scrawny Oxford Poet Takes Lessons From The Tokyo Riot Police

Author: Robert Twigger
Pub: 1997 by Indigo
Pages: 316
Ranking:
In Print:

An absolutely fascinating story of a year's worth of traditional Aikido training. Excellent reading for those who have the 'newage' view of Aikido as all "sweetness and light". I really enjoyed this book... and couldn't put it down. Filled with 'dojo stories' and the difficulties of a foreigner living in Japan, this book will give you a very good idea of how Yoshinkan Aikido is practiced.

I particularly recommend this for Judoka - as it's an interesting look not just at the life of a foreigner in Japan - but training methods of a related martial art - Aikido. If I had to recommend another art for the Judoka to study, Aikido would be it. I had the opportunity to train for a year (even attended a two week seminar with Koichi Tohei), and I'm quite convinced that my Judo improved because of the training I received in Aikido.

Contents

How Does a Man Prove Himself in the Age of Nintendo?   9
Beginner’s Mind                                       23
Cannibal Talk                                         37
Foaming at the Mouth                                  57
Police Academy                                        77
Zen and the Art of Being Really, Really, Angry        93
Challenge                                            114
Good Cop, Bad Cop                                    134
The Hottest Summer Since l963                        144
Punch-Up at a Funeral                                170
The Bad Guys Have Hairstyles                         188
How to Commit the Perfect Murder                     226
Survival                                             246
Natural Nazis                                        260
The Mount Fuji Test                                  274
Breaking the Mirror                                  283
An Honourable Exit                                   292
Unlikely Bodyguard                                   304
Glossary                                             309

From the back cover:

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE 1998 SOMERSET MAUGHAM AWARD FOR LITERATURE

Adrift in Tokyo, translating obscene rap lyrics for giggling Japanese high school girls, "thirtynothing" Robert Twigger comes to a revelation about himself: He has never been fit nor brave. Guided by his roommates, Fat Frank and Chris, he sets out to cleanse his body and mind. Not knowing his fist,from his elbow, the author is drawn into the world of Japanese martial arts, joining the Tokyo Riot Police on their yearlong, brutally demanding course of budo training, where any ascetic motivation soon comes up against bloodstained "white pyjamas" and fractured collarbones. In Angry White Pyjamas, Twigger blends the ancient with the modern - the ultratraditionalism, ritual, and violence of the dojo (training academy) with the shopping mails, nightclubs, and scenes of everyday Tokyo life in the 1990s - to provide a brilliant, bizarre glimpse of life in contemporary Japan.

ROBERT TWIGGER was educated at Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Poetry Prize. In 1996 Twigger trained as a bullfighter in Spain, went looking for bona fide zombies in Haiti, and reported for the Daily Telegraph on chain gangs in Arizona. In 1997 he spent four months in Indonesia, attempting to capture the longest snake in the world. In addition to writing books, he is a regular contributor to Esquire, Maxim, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times. He lives in London.