Interview with Antti Törmänen

[lovely]

I don't feel my remark was really a personal attack, just something off the cuff and mostly sarcastic. I think it would have done to just edit that part out instead of deleting the whole post. Nevertheless, good job Hushfield. This was an insightful read. Are there any other Western insei at the Ki-in now, or perhaps pro/insei that speak English? It would be interesting if you could interview a few of them as well

[jts]

I don't know about the insei, but the pros switched to recording their games on PC's a couple of years ago. Naturally they do it after the game. If you read the entry again, I think you will see that the point was that the insei are not allowed to have their phones out while playing. I assume it has less to do with recording the games and more to do with the fact that young Japanese will choose to use their phones constantly given the chance regardless of what else they are doing!

Okay, but you've got to admit that it's peculiar that they get lectures in manners rather than in go theory!

Not at all. Remember That Antti is a complete outlier. Most of the insei are little kids, and some of them will be professionals as young as eleven years of age!

Is the significance of their being 11 that they're too young to understand Go conceptually, or that it's especially important that they keep their hands out of their pockets?

[John Fairbairn]

Okay, but you've got to admit that it's peculiar that they get lectures in manners rather than in go theory!

Since the vast majority of pros end up teaching go and relying on private patrons, it would be very peculiar if they were not taught how to maximise their social encounters.

Since at least some patronage of the western go world by Orientals has been lost through our apparent lack of manners, it seems peculiar that more attention is not paid to the necessary skills here.

"Manners" is perhaps misleading though. We are not talking about learning which hand to use a fork with, but mainly respect for other people and the self discipline that goes with that.

[Bill Spight]

I'm reminded of a cartoon of a dirty backpacker arriving at the cave of a holy Himalayan hermit: -"Master, how can I reach enlightenment?" -"No idea."

I am reminded of part of a Buddhist Q&A that I read as a kid:

"But Master, if what you say is true, then there is no reason to search for anything!"

"By admitting that you would save yourself a lot of trouble."

[ez4u]

...
Is the significance of their being 11 that they're too young to understand Go conceptually, or that it's especially important that they keep their hands out of their pockets?

Two points as I understand the insei training process:
1. It is especially important that they are trained how to act because they will miss some of the socialization that would naturally occur if they were typical full-time students and finally entered a Japanese company at age 22 or so.
2. They will never receive lectures on the conceptual side of Go. That is not part of the program. They will learn Go in competition with one another and what they study with their teachers will not be abstract concepts but rather the specific games played on that day. (This of course is how I understand it, never having experienced it myself. I am very interested in how Antti finds it! )

[Hushfield]

I don't feel my remark was really a personal attack, just something off the cuff and mostly sarcastic. I think it would have done to just edit that part out instead of deleting the whole post. Nevertheless, good job Hushfield. This was an insightful read. Are there any other Western insei at the Ki-in now, or perhaps pro/insei that speak English? It would be interesting if you could interview a few of them as well

I never got to read the deleted post, so it doesn't really matter ^^. Glad you liked the interview. I think Antti said he's the only western insei at the moment.

Regarding your suggestion to interview some of the pro's at the Nihon Kiin: I got invited to a study session with professional players (lead by Kobayashi Chizu sensei) where Antti presents one of his insei games, and 4-5 young pro's comment on the game. They can only do it in English though (Kobayashi sensei is very strict on this part, hehe), and that's basically where a kyu player like myself comes in. I can help them understand European culture or help out with English commentary.
Kobayashi sensei wants to train new pro's to teach go in the west, and so these study sessions are a win-win situation where Antti can get his games reviewed by pro's, and they get to learn English.

During last week's session there was a photographer, I think he was from Go Weekly, so I'll try to get hold of the article and see if I can translate it.

As I'm currently looking for a job and a place to stay in Tokyo, however, I haven't got a lot of spare time on my hands, so it might take me a while to do this. Should I happen to stay here longer, and I can continue to go to the pro study sessions, I might interview some of the young pro's there (I'd have to ask Kobayashi sensei, but as she's trying to train them to function in a western setting, an English interview might be a good practice opportunity)

[kivi]

I just read the weekly email of EuroGoTV saying that Antti will be on NHK. You can see some pics on eurogotv.com as well. Says "NHK has interviewed and made a film of Antti on 11th March. ".

Antti writes about it on his blog as well. Makes me realize I somehow forgot about his blog - it is interesting, I shall read more often.