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Home >> Icicle Village Resort Leavenworth News Room >> Olympian Travels
Travels with the Leavenworth Olympian - "China to the Land of the Rising Sun" - Torin Koos Photo Story February 2007
Setting off from China to the Land of the Rising Sun
The Japan inoculation begins at the public bath. Visiting one says something about culture, ritual and Japan hygiene. First, cleanliness in Japan is not just a personal issue, but a public one. In the winter city of Asahikawa streets are swept, walking paths plowed and public walls, halls and railways purified several times daily.
Cleanliness here seems an obsession. There could be worse ones. For a people of 127 million spread out over the four island country, to a traveler this comes as a welcome curiosity.
Back to the public bath; after losing shoes at the door, then clothes in the locker room, the public bather cleanses off in a sixteen head personal shower before heading off to the sauna, steam and pool room. It’s a 100 degrees Celsius (211 F) in the sauna, but unlike the northern European cedar walled variety, this one, with its stone flooring and granite bricked walls, resembles a cave.
After mixing campaigns in the sauna to the cold whirlpool’s tepid 7 degree C water (44 F) – imagine running in a cotton sweat suit on the hottest part of a July afternoon in Vegas then jumping into the icy waters of Lake Superior – my skin tingles, muscles loosen, mind unwinds.
Now purged of sweat, the time comes to wash, exfoliate, then recondition. The next labyrinth opens to the shampoo and scrub phase. Here I am, sitting at my own cleansing station on a small bucket, buck naked, with a group of guys, buck naked. A collection of bathers soak their feet in buckets of water while shampooing hair & body, then shave, then finally brush their teeth before heading to the reconditioning room. Once again, multiple stations line the room. Only this time each comes complete with a salon grade blow dryer and conditioning products like hair tonic or hair re-conditioner, two different aftershaves and three various strengths of hairspray. The array of men’s beauty products is…. impressive. Somewhere Hank Stamper shakes his head in disbelief.
Seaweed Donuts, a Japanese culinary curiosity and stomach ache all in one.
Outside the bathe, even the hotel toilet is a sophisticated mechanism, with digitalized settings, showers and privacy noises all within a fingertip’s grasp. To germophobes the world over, Japan must be an almost dreamlike utopian land.
The U.S. Ski Team, however, didn’t exactly travel to the Far East for the cleanliness nor its culinary skills with creatures from the sea. No, we’re here for preparations leading into the 2007 Sapporo World Championships.
It’s much as Chuan Tzu outlined in The Five Rules of Combat. Six thousand years later - from West Point students to U.S. Ski Teamers to business moguls - the text still finds an eager audience.
Faith concerns Chuan Tzu’s first commandment. Before battle one must believe in the reasons for the fight. At a time of Port-au-Prince, Rwanda and Darfur, pursuing excellence in sports can be difficult to believe in initially. Yet people witness the work being done, hard onto impossible, and know its aims reach beyond mere vanity. A former college teammate of mine was convinced physical training could cure most of the world’s problems. Who am I to argue?
She believes. Changchun World Cup Banquet Dinner Show.
The second rule of combat is companions. One must choose their allies and learn to fight as a company. No war was won single-handed. Nor any ski race. There are the coaches – the first ones to the one’s you have today. There are the friends and family and community who supported the lifestyle. These are the skier’s enablers. Then there’s the servicemen who get to the race course early, then stay late. Then there’s one’s family. And friends. And the community they grew up in. These are the providers. Everyone who shares what they know are one’s companions.
Chuan Tzu’s third rule is time. A battle in winter is different than a battle in summer. Being fast in February is different than being a brightly burning star in November. Being fast in Sapporo is even more special than just being fast in February. For European, American and Canadian athletes, trans-Atlantic flights and time changes await. For non-Asians there’s also the honorifics - the picture based language, the different culture, lodging and food in Japan and China. To be fast in February in Sapporo… what must Chuan Tzu’s commandment of time say to this?
The fourth rule of combat is space. A warrior does not fight the same in a mountain pass as one does in a plain. Compared to the climate-controlled confines of an ice-skating rink or basketball court, skiing is naked to nature. Hard-packed snow conditions call upon a different tempo and timing of technique than that used in a blizzard. Courses with undulating hills or mass-starts demand differing strengths than those required in individual start and rolling terrain race courses.
Chuan Tzu’s fifth rule is strategy. The best warrior is the one who plans his fight. Strategy comes not as the last commandment because it’s the final piece of the puzzle. Strategy, rather, is last because it’s foundational. Coming up with a winning strategy, then having the strength and faith to see it through is what builds the fitness and resolve.
Coming to Changchun, China to race the World Cup is part of my World Championship strategy. Picking up at fistful of points for the World Cup overall ranking doesn’t hurt either. When people think of America, they think big. Automobiles - the Cadillac Escalade. Buildings – the Bellagio Hotel. Big Macs – the name says it all. But in China it’s at another level. Apartment complex’s running beside the road from hotel to race venue stretch beyond my eyesight. “Just there, a million people must live,” says Trond Iverson on the bus. Government buildings look like Paul Bunyan could hold court there. Even the chop sticks are bigger over here.
The city of seven million gets its name from the alchemist Ch'ang-ch'un who journeyed across China’s heartland in search of the great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. A member of a Taoist sect known for the doctrine of extreme asceticism, perhaps the city’s namesake is partly to credit for today’s reinvention of sulfur-smelling manufacturing hub (Changchun: cradle of China’s automobile industry) attempts to diversify itself as a winter sport center. To be apart of that? Unique.
And the races for the American foursome? Kikkan Randall led the way with a seventh in the women’s sprint. Kris Freeman had his best international finish in three years. Andy Newell just missed out on the twelve-man semifinals. While for the author a run-in with a Russian around the final u-turn in the quarterfinals put an end to an otherwise optimistic race day. I guess that’s racing. Every single week will not be an Otepaa. But every race start has at least that potential.
Snow Princesses Made of Snow / Melt Away Eventually…
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Torin Koos
is a member of the National A Team for the United States and a World
Cup, World Championship and Olympic competitor. If you are interested in supporting Torrin Koos we will be happy to pass your information along to him. Your partnership will help support the lifestyle needed to keep the dream alive. As an athlete, Torin hopes his Olympic journey inspires the community to participate in the free air lifestyle, the same customers that come to visit the Leavenworth area.
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