Japan’s rugby coach John Kirwan will try almost anything to toughen up his players — from sumo and crash-test dummies to ancient “Jedi magic.”
The New Zealander’s latest brainwave is to tap into the mystical powers of a 90-year-old aikido master whose techniques help petite Japanese nurses lift patients off hospital beds.
“He teaches nurses to lift people who are twice their weight,” Kirwan said in an interview. “Like [Stars Wars character] Yoda! How’s that work?”
“I want to see if this can really help us. Japan’s players have a slight physical disadvantage but if we can turn that into an advantage through leverage or ‘Jedi magic ... ’” he said.
“We’re always pushing the boundaries. If someone comes to me with a new training idea, I’ll pretty much adopt it straight away if the argument’s alright,” the Kiwi said.
Kirwan famously began sending Japan’s “Brave Blossoms” to brutal sparring sessions with giant sumo wrestlers in 2008 in an attempt to add some steel to his side.
The former All Black watched from a safe distance as his players, wearing the buttock-bearing “mawashi” loin cloth worn by sumo wrestlers, took a frightful battering.
“It was successful in that it took our guys out of their comfort zone,” said Kirwan, who took over as Japan’s head coach at the start of 2007 after a spell in charge of Italy.
“All the boys were done up in the gear with the mawashi. Our guys would run full pelt at them and whack them. They didn’t even move. They just knocked our boys straight out!” he said.
“The sumo wrestlers had some techniques that we can adopt. The strongest part of a sumo wrestler is his toes because he’s not allowed to lift his feet,” the former All Black said.
“If he lifts his feet he’s gone. He’s got to grip with his feet. Rugby players don’t use their feet like that, so that was one of the things we got off them,” he said.
Kirwan, who is a fan of Inter’s charismatic coach Jose Mourinho, added: “It also helped us be more compact in the tackle and changed the way they tackled.”
The 45-year-old said he was having some life-size dummies custom made for his players to take their anger out on for a training camp in the southern Japanese resort of Miyazaki.
“We might stick some faces on them,” laughed Kirwan, who added that he was unlikely to stay in Japan beyond 2011.
“It’s 80 percent I’ll leave Japan in 2011,” he said.
“I’d like to stay involved with the World Cup committee,” said Kirwan, who played a key role in Japan’s successful bid to host the 2019 tournament. “But by 2011 it will be time to move on.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite