By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

A Hays Aikido instructor recently spent more than a month of grueling 15-hour days in Japan studying with a martial arts master.

Brandon Nimz, second-degree black belt, said he gained a new perspective of his martial art, the Japanese culture and life.

Nimz started practicing aikido about 13 years ago when he was a student at Fort Hays State University. Since, he has trained for several thousand hours.

When Nimz visited his first aikido class, he almost didn’t go back. The students were practicing advanced break falls, and he thought he would never be able to do that. However, he was drawn to the aikido’s philosophy.

The philosophy of aikido is fundamentally different from other martial arts in that it is not competitive and it does not seek to have you force your will on others. It seeks to protect the person attacking you and yourself, Nimz said.

“It may seem strange, but it is based on the philosophy that everyone including the one attacking you has value and should be protected,” he said.

“It is harder to do effectively and well,” he said. “It is very easy in a self-defense situation to poke someone’s eyeball with your thumb, to kick them in the groin, to punch their throat and do very horrible things to a human, but it does not take a lot of skill or training. It just takes resolve. To try to neutralize someone who is trying to do harm to you without permanently injuring them or you is very hard.”

Nimz said the philosophy is in tune with his own Christian beliefs. In addition to Aikido of Northwest Kansas, he also runs the Gamers Guild and a nonprofit pantry located between the two.

Nimz said his trip to Japan, which was Feb. 28 to April 4, helped him gain additional perspective on aikido. Many different groups from different cultures train with Nimz’s instructor in Japan, Yasuo Kobayashi Sensei. They respect him and work well with him. Nimz said he thinks that is because Kobayashi Sensei is humble and genuine.

Kobayashi Sensei, 81, is one of the older instructors who studied under aikido’s founder.

“He is like a ornery Japanese grandpa, who goes out and is joyful all of the time. He is just sincere. When you are training with him, you feel you are training with him and not training under him,” Nimz said. “He is old enough and has enough respect he could lord it over people, but he does not in any way. He just does his aikido, and you get to do it with him, which makes people inherently want to respect him, want to help him and care for him because he is so sincere and loving.”

Other instructors in Japan and America are not like this, Nimz said.

“They demand respect due to the structure. It is a very traditional society with traditional hierarchy, and they have the right within the society to do so. They force obediencey or they force respect on people, which makes people resent them in their hearts. They will still do the form, but their hearts are far away, and many of them eventually leave the groups they are in or that instructor.”

Nimz said he prefers to operate his school as Kobayashi Sensei does.

“It is good that can still exist in a very hierarchical structure—that you can still be humble in yourself. If people like what you are doing, great. If they don’t, that’s fine. You don’t have to demand respect,” Nimz said. “Eventually through sincerity, you can natively create respect, which is more how we run our school here. I was happy to see that is also done over there.”

Nimz’s current instructor, Toyoda Sensei, completed a residential study program in Japan under Kobayashi Sensei. Nimz’s instructor helped him apply for the program. Only a handful of students are accepted each year.

The program is intensive, usually going from before dawn until after dusk. Nimz, 32, said the program almost broke his body.

During his time in Japan, he lived in a dojo. Four days a week, he and the other students woke up at 4:30 in the morning. The students began cleaning as soon as the woke up and had their first class at 6:30 a.m. Throughout the day, they had a combination of cleaning duties and classes.

These would conclude about 9:30 p.m. followed by final tea, final clean up, supper and then sleep at 11:30 p.m. or 12:30 a.m.

All the cleaning is part of the work-centric nature of the program and the culture. Cleaning included sweeping the streets with wicker brooms, including leaves and flower petals.

“… which leaves everything looking like a picturesque garden,” Nimz said, “but it is both positive and negative because some people really like it and it is beautiful, but it also makes you do things that many of us would consider unimportant as though they are very important.

“That is part of the program — to establish that every minute of your day should be mindful or intentional.”

When you are studying at a dojo in Japan, you go wherever your instructor goes. Your primary responsibility is to the instructor. Your secondary responsibility is to the dojo or the community in which you are living. Lastly you tend to your own needs or wants.

The dojo in the Tokyo metro area, but Kobayashi Sensei took the students on a hike into the mountains. The group viewed shrines and other cultural sites. The students also accompanied their sensei to a lecture at a university and went to local festivities for a national Japanese holiday.

Nimz attended a sakura festival (cherry blossom viewing festival) with Kobayashi Sensei’s son, who lived above Nimz’s dojo. They ate a picnic lunch under the cherry trees. All Japanese meals usually include rice with fish or other meats. They also ate shrimp chips, tomatoes, strawberries and a rice candy called mochi.

This was Nimz’s first trip to Japan. He noted order and rules are very important in Japanese culture. An example of this is subway, which is completely silent.

“Culturally it is rude to talk out loud. It is rude to be on your cell phone,” he said “It is rude to have anything but ear buds in, but they follow it over there. There is no talking, no sound.

“People tend to follow societal rules a lot more over there, and they are just kind of known. It is a country like the UK where you drive on the left, so when you get on an escalator, everyone immediately goes to the left side and stands. That way people in a hurry can go up the right side. No one tells you to do this. There are no signs, but everyone knows to do it.”

The country is so crowded the Japanese have a rule similar to our Golden Rule: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself.”

“They follow it for the most part,” he said. “There is very little litter or trash. Everything is upkept to the nth degree, and everyone tries not to be a bother to other people.”

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Officials at Big Creek Crossing announced Friday that Stage in Hays will close as of June 30, and Gordmans will be opening in its place this fall.

Both stores are owned by the same company. James Younger, Big Creek Crossing property manager, said Stage company officials thought Gordmans would be a better fit for the Hays market.

Stage will have a closing sale that will start next week. The store will be closed through the summer for remodeling, and the Gordmans store is set to open this fall in Stage’s 30,000-square-foot space in the mall.

Gordmans is described as an off-price department store.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Sheena Zeng on paper is not your typical 14-year-old.

In April, Zeng, of Hays, won a national chess championship in her age class—14 and younger. She also was recently admitted to the prestigious Kansas Academy of Math and Science program.

Students in the residential program on the Fort Hays State University campus, which is also known as KAMS, study at an advanced level and earn both their high school diplomas and 68 hours of college credit.

The program usually admits older students (sophomores who are entering their junior year in high school), but Zeng, whose peers are in the eighth-grade, has already completed her sophomore year of high school at Thomas More Prep-Marian and was admitted early. She skipped second and sixth grades.

She may be a whiz kid on paper, but Sheena says she is like most other kids.

Although she devotes a lot of time to studying and chess, she also spends her free time doing fun things, such as watching anime, listening to music (especially K-Pop. Her favorite bands are BTS, 2NE1 and Red Velvet), and hanging out with friends. 

She also plays the piano and likes to write fantasy fiction. Her characters often have magical powers. She loves to read and is a big fan of Harry Potter and the Percy Jackson series, as well as a book called “The City of Brass.”

Sheena does not think of herself as a genius or prodigy. She sees herself as someone who works hard.

“People sometimes think that everything is really easy for me in school. ‘Yeah, Sheena this is really easy for you, so you won’t understand how we feel.’ It is hard for me to maintain my good grades and stay on top of things, but I guess I do it well enough that people don’t think that it is difficult for me.

“They all think I am some sort of super genius, but I’m not. I just sort of enjoy learning and working hard for what I have. I wasn’t necessarily born really, really intelligent.”

At one point Sheena said she wanted to be a doctor, but after taking biology, she said she may change her emphasis to biochemistry. She hopes to attend John Hopkins University after completing her studies at FHSU.

Sheena learned to play chess from her father, Hong Biao Zeng, when she was 7. A chess board still inhabits a prominent spot in the family’s living room. However, because of her family’s busy schedules, Sheena mostly plays online these days. She also spends hours studying chess theory and solving online chess puzzles.

“I like thinking through the positions and finding ways to solve all my problems,” she said. “I just like thinking during the games.”

Sheena has competed internationally, including in Canada, South Africa and Costa Rica and will attend the World Youth Chess Championship in Greece in October. She tied for first place in the Pan-American Chess Championship in Costa Rica last year, ultimately taking home a second-place trophy on a tie break. Sheena is in the top five for her age group nationally. On the world stage, she is a women’s candidate master.

She said her latest title was special.

“It felt really special when I was winning it. The second I knew I was the champion, I just felt really relieved and happy because I never won before. I was always second or lower, but never first. It felt good to finally win first place.”

Competitive chess can be stressful. Sheena described it as a test of your mental strength and stamina. Some games can go as long as six hours.

“Playing in competitions is stressful, especially when you are expected to do well, but once I get into it, it is a little bit more fun. It also feels good when you win,” she said.

Sheena definitely has some wins under her belt. Besides her recent national championship, she also has two second-place national trophies for girls 12 and younger and a third-place national trophy for girls 10 and younger at the All-Girls Nationals in Chicago.

Her long-term chess goal is to be ranked among the top 100 in the world.

Sheena wants to let other kids know chess can be fun. She started a chess club at O’Loughlin Elementary School. She volunteers regularly with children in first through fourth grades.

“I wanted to spread chess around Hays in general,” she said. “Not many people are aware of chess. O’Loughlin is where I used to go to elementary school. There wasn’t a chess club or anything, and I always wished I had teammates to play with, so I thought I could start a club so they could play with each other and play chess as a team instead of just individually.”

Sheena said she enjoyed working with the younger children.

“Yeah, it’s fun,” she said. “I have learned a lot working with them, but sometimes they don’t listen to me, so that is hard too.”

Sheena encouraged other kids to give chess a try.

“It is very challenging, but the benefits such as better problem-solving skills and that kind of stuff are worth it as well.”

Sheena’s next step academically will be to start the KAMS program in the fall.

“Sometimes I am really excited, and sometimes I get nervous,” she said “I think, ‘Oh no, what if everyone there is smarter than me? What if they know more than I do? But I guess that is more motivation for me to work harder.”

Sheena’s mother, Michelle, said she thinks Sheena is ready for the next step at KAMS.

“She likes a challenge,” her mother said. “She is going to be going to college pretty young—at least two years younger than her peers, so this KAMS will really prepare her for that.”

By CRISTINA JANNEY 
Hays Post

The Bickle-Schmidt Sports Complex was host to one of its biggest tournaments of the year this past weekend with some improvements to its fields.

The sports complex hosted 53 teams for an NBC points tournament for youth baseball teams from 8 and younger to 14 and younger. This year’s participation is up from 33 teams last year. Each team has 10 to 11 players.

The city of Hays has been working to replace dirt in the infields that had been lost to wind erosion. Work was done on the south fields this year, and the city and the complex director hope to complete work on the rest of the fields next year, said A.J. Preisner, complex director.

The erosion on the fields is a hazard. It creates a lip between the dirt infield and the grass outfield. This can cause balls to pop up as they roll from the infield to the outfield and strike a player who is trying to field the ball. It has been especially a problem for the rec teams and younger players who play closer to the infield.

The lips can also be a tripping hazard.

“We here in the western part of the state get wind blowing the majority of the time. It is hard to control. We have brought in as much in-fill mix as we can. This is our seventh season, so for not doing it for six years, it definitely needed to be built up,” Preisner said.

The city brought in 750 tons of a mix of sand and red shale. The repairs cost the city about $39,000.

Tournaments like the one last weekend can be a significant economic boon to the local economy. Preisner shared an example of spending from a survey completed by one of the teams that came from Wichita.

The team reported they booked 20 hotel rooms and spent about $120 per family. They also ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in Hays during the two days and spent an average of $25 per family on retail items. Thirty-eight of the teams that were in this weekend’s tournament were out-of-town teams, traveling from as far as Manhattan to play.

Tammy Wellbrock, executive director of the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce, said these types of sporting events are a good opportunity for local businesses to showcase their goods and services.

“The chamber recognizes that it is common when people spend their entire day or weekend in Hays they are going to spend money at hotels and restaurants and make incidental purchases, and that must have a major impact on the economy and the city sales tax, plus repeat customers.

“We don’t have a mechanism to show how many of these families are here for the first time and then return to Hays for other leisure purpose. I myself came here as a senior to watch state basketball. I loved it so much I chose to come here for college. We don’t know how one visit for one reason may influence a decision for another down the line.

“Many chamber members and businesses truly appreciate the opportunity to showcase their goods and services to a new audience,” Wellbrock added, “and we will continue to work together to get these types of events hosted here.”