(NOAH) "Fans may be worried..." Kaito Kiyomiya, dojo head, touches on the reason why Noah trainees went from three to one in half a year.
Yahoo.co.jp/BBM Sports
On April 18th this year, Noah introduced three trainees in the ring at a Korakuen Hall event. Half a year has passed, and only one trainee was seconding at the Noah Special Arena (Club Citta, Kawasaki) event on October 17th. We asked Kaito Kiyomiya, currently the dojo head, about the circumstances surrounding the trainees.
Last year on the 28th November, Noah held a public audition for trainees. Alongside Yosuke Sasaki and Haruto Ogawa, the other person who passed left the dojo immediately after entering. Sasaki and Ogawa, who graduated from High School this April started training alongside the addition of Keisuke Ota, meaning there were three trainees. In August of this year, Dai Ozawa entered the dojo, but Ota left soon afterwards. Noah has a rule that new trainees should debut within a year and a half from the beginning, but Ota was unlikely to make it.
"Ota had to build up his basic physical strength from the initial stages, and it took a long time. He finally started to learn passive* practice just before summer, but it took him a long time to learn passive. It wasn't just his responsibility that it took so long, it's also mine as the dojo head.
Wrestling is not a sweet world where once you start, your debut is promised. At Noah, when you become a trainee, while living at the dojo you will do training such as push-ups, sit ups, squats, neck flexibility, sparring and running. After you have learned basic physical strength, then you learn how to be passive.
"The passivity of pro wrestling is special. Those who can do it will be able to do it immediately, but those who cannot do it will take time. There are considerable individual differences. Either way, the outset is important. If there is a slight deviation in skills or pace, you will not be able to proceed to the next step, and you will not be able to correct it later. Even if you can do it once, but you cannot do it the next day, then you need to go back to the beginning. That's fine, but if you don't have a solid foundation, then you can't apply that."
Pro Wrestling Noah is a promotion that values passiveness in particular. The acquisition of this greatly depends on potential and intuition, but you will not be able to reach your debut unless the minimum level is reached. Naturally, practice is harsh and there is a risk of injury. Kiyomiya himself had a broken costal cartilage when he was a trainee and was absent for a month, both Sasaki and Ogawa have been injured this summer and are currently resting.
"Sasaki sustained a concussion during passive practice. He was examined at the hospital, and was banned from practicing until he is completely healed. He is resting at the dojo and not attending events. Ogawa broke his left wrist in sparring, and as he can't practice or work as a second, he has temporarily returned to his parents house in Kagoshima. He will return when he can rehabilitate, and the date has been fixed. Fans may be worried about the overlap, but please be assured that neither of them have left the dojo."
With Sasaki and Ogawa both injured and unable to come to events, Ozawa is currently working hard as a second alone. Ozawa has excellent physical ability, and at the time he entered Noah with basic physical strength meant that he cleared the requirements one after the other. He is making a steady progress towards his debut, but there are also obstacles...
"Ozawa's entry has been a little over two months. Pro Wrestling trainees also need a relationship of trust with their seniors, and I have to get my own seniors to admit "He is doing it properly". In order to gain the trust of your seniors, you have to practice hard and be quick as a second."
As in any world, it takes time for newcomers to integrate into the organization. For trainees, it is one of their big hurdles for their seniors to both see and remember their practice.
"It is natural that practice is difficult. Some people quit in a day or two after they enter, and some people drop out at passive. However, if you can overcome the harsh trainee era and make your debut as a pro wrestler, depending on your motivation, you can chase your dreams anywhere. I think the three trainees now in Noah have high potential and each have their own characteristics; Ozawa has physical ability, Sasaki works hard in practice, Ogawa has impetus. I want them to do their best to reach their debut. It is Noah who can teach you the best pro wrestling. Yoshinari Ogawa, Naomichi Marufuji, Takashi Sugiura, Go Shiozaki...they are seniors who have inherited and preserved the tradition of pro wrestling. And what I learned from such seniors is definitely priceless. Furthermore, Noah now has a wonderful atmosphere that I envy. It can be said that this is the best Noah dojo team ever."
Since 2015, when Kiyomiya started, Noah has changed ownership three times and the dojo itself has moved from Differ Ariake to Saitama. Kiyomiya has grown as a professional wrestler in the midst of turmoil. Since Noah joined CyberAgent in January last year, and with CyberFight as the parent body, trainees can practice for their debut without worrying that management will not be stable.
After Kiyomiya, trainees made their debuts smoothly with Junta Miyawaki in August 2017, Yoshiki Inamura in September 2018, Kinya Okada in December 2018, and Yasutaka Yano in October 2020. Noah, whose updraft does not stop, has a lot of young warriors and if the current trainees make their debut, the momentum will be further accelerated.
Note: Kaito Kiyomiya is the dojo head (aka dorm leader), this means that he oversees the cleaning, shopping etc and the day to day life of the dojo. Kiyomiya may oversee training sessions, and help train the trainees but he is not the head trainer, this remains as Yoshinari Ogawa, whose role is only concerned with teaching and deciding who debuts and when.
"Passive": Keiji Mutoh explained Noah's passive wrestling as "Always aggressive Inoki, and always passive Baba" - this means that while New Japan's Antonio Inoki taught how to attack and how to do a move, Giant Baba taught how to defend and how to take a move. In the West we could roughly term this as "the art of selling" or "how to sell a move". Baba once said about people who sent him tapes that he wasn't interested in what they could make a move, he wanted to see how they could take a move and sell a move.
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