School and Sport
There are opportunities to play various sports for all age, and school plays an important role in community. Kindergarten and lower elementary school students can play in a private sport club that can be joined for a moderate fee. Most martial arts can be started as little as 4 or 5 years old. When a student starts 5th grade, school offers free after-school activities for its students to participate. Middle and high schools also encourage their students to join school sport clubs.
Prefectural and national-wide level contests and tournaments are held every winter and summer for all sports. Some of the tournaments, such as National High School Baseball Championship have an inordinate level of popularity among fans as much as professional sports.
Read more about this topic: Sport In Japan
Famous quotes containing the words school and/or sport:
“Miss Caswell is an actress, a graduate of the Copacabana school of dramatic arts.”
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)