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:
“Dad, if you really want to know what happened in school, then you’ve got to know exactly who’s in the class, who rides the bus, what project they’re working on in science, and how your child felt that morning.... Without these facts at your fingertips, all you can really think to say is “So how was school today?” And you’ve got to be prepared for the inevitable answer—”Fine.” Which will probably leave you wishing that you’d never asked.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
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—George Orwell (1903–1950)