Judo Club member Wakana Miyao, a third-year student in the College of International Relations, traveled to Equatorial Guinea in Central Africa to provide judo instruction to the country’s national team for three weeks in February and March 2024.

Equatorial Guinea’s national team consists of 15 experienced judo players between the ages of 18 and 30, but judo is not a major sport in the country, so the level of its coaches and teams is not up to the standard required to win an international competition. When the country’s Ministry of Sports was looking for an instructor to strategically raise the level of the judo athletes on its national team, it chose Miyao, who happened to have an acquaintance working for the Equatorial Guinean government.

Miyao, who has been competing for more than 10 years since the second grade, stayed with a local homestay family while coaching the national team. Because the official language of Equatorial Guinea is Spanish, Miyao, who had only studied Spanish for one year as her second foreign language, was faced with a communication barrier. She overcame this challenge by carefully preparing for her trip, researching the vocabulary she would need to provide instruction for a practice regimen she developed in advance.

In order to help the athletes improve within the limited time span of three weeks, Miyao made sure to explain the meaning of the movements in the basic exercises so that the members could understand them logically. Miyao reflected on her experience and expressed her hopes for the future, saying, “By providing instruction in a foreign country where I did not speak the language, I learned to think more logically than when I am practicing judo on my own. I was also impressed when all the students told me they loved judo, and it was heart-warming to know that there are people on the other side of the world who are so passionate about judo and are willing to support it. If another opportunity like this arises, I would like to promote and coach judo overseas again.”