This is a report from Mr. Tadaaki Yamamoto, a member of JICA's Volunteers (JOCV). Mr. Yamamoto is dispatching to Uzbekistan from July 2017.

Activity Report 
I am mainly coaching in Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan, and may also visit other cities to coach. In Uzbekistan, there are club teams in various areas. In the first year, I traveled and coached different teams once a month and have participated in the practice of seven teams including the local city Bukhara. In each club, there are about 20 players, both male and female, between the ages of 10 and 20 years. The experience levels vary as some players just started to play and some have been playing for a few years, therefore, we can only practice basic skills such as passing. However, everyone's motivation gets very high when it comes to practicing game format, which I think is the same everywhere in the world. The practice frequency depends on the team and the season, for example, some teams practice three times a week and some teams practice six times a week.

Regarding the weather, because Uzbekistan has many deserts, it is very dry. The temperature rises to nearly 50 ° C in the summer and drops to -15 ° C in the winter. Summer is very hot, but the humidity is not high compared to Japan so it feels cool in the shade. For that reason, everyone goes to the shade during the practice break. Because it is very cold in winter, I often practice weight training and indoors. Although I played rugby several times outside, the core of my bone cooled down and I was trembling all the time, but the kids were running cheerfully.

Difficulty 
When I coached for a month in the local city Bukhara, rugby had only been introduced a month before I went. The coaches had never played rugby so I was wondering how they were practicing. When I observed their practice for the first time, the players did not pass the ball forward, they were blocking similar to American football (players who do not have a ball interfere with defense), and they did an alley-oop, similar to when playing basketball (catch a mountain pass in the air and dunk). I was surprised to hear when the coaches asked me "This is rugby, isn’t it!?” That’s where we started and from there, I taught them that rugby is a sport that cannot block other players and you must pass the ball to your teammate’s chest rather than using alley-oop pass. I used YouTube and some materials in Excel. After working together for a while, they stopped blocking, but the alley-oop pass had become a habit so there was still a need for improvement. It was only a month that we practiced together, but we spent time together doing things other than rugby such as going out to eat and watching soccer together. It was a very fun month. The local children contact me every once a while asking when I am coming back. I'd like to visit Bukhara again in the second year.

Previous coaching experience
I started playing rugby in junior high school, through high school, university and all the way up to the club level.  Before being dispatched, I had never coached rugby before. In addition to learning about technical cooperation training coaching before being dispatched, I got the World Rugby coaching qualification at a seminar hosted by JRFU and prepared to be a coach.

Characteristics of Uzbekistan rugby
Uzbekistan is known for individual sports such as martial arts and many players have been transferred from other martial arts such as judo and boxing to rugby. For that reason, athletes are very competitive. For example, when you compete in running, you often see athletes saying, "I slipped" or " I could have run faster if I were wearing cleats".  During my first year, the Uzbekistan National Rugby Tournament was held twice. Rugby teams gather in the capital city, Tashkent. Some teams came from the areas that I have not visited yet. There were seven men’s and five women’s teams who participated playing both 7’s and 15’s rugby in the tournament and the tournament was held over two-day period.  As a prize, trophies, medals and other awards were available so the players were more competitive than usual.

My goals for the second year
In the first year, I wanted to be part of Uzbekistan rugby so I worked very hard to earn their trust. As a result, I received some comments and questions such as "What is missing from my team and how do we improve from here? ", "When Yamamoto comes, everyone gets positive and everyone has fun playing rugby" and “When are you coming to visit our teams?".  And some players said to me "You are my brother". These comments have been the driving force of my stay here in Uzbekistan.  I strongly believe that I am here today in Uzbekistan coaching rugby and having fun because of my junior high school coach who taught me about the enjoyment of rugby. Therefore, in my last year, I want to be a coach that allows players to like and enjoy rugby. At the same time, I will work to increase the number of coaches so more than one person can deliver my guidance.