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:
“In truth, the legitimate contention is, not of one age or school of literary art against another, but of all successive schools alike, against the stupidity which is dead to the substance, and the vulgarity which is dead to form.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)