Hello, and Season's Greetings! I am Ian Ruxton, a fan of Japanese rugby and long-term Japan resident. With support from the author I have completed a translation of a book from Japanese to English which is about Japanese rugby, with application to the business world, management and leadership theory. The author is a former captain of the Japan national rugby team and Kobe Steel. His name is Toshiyuki Hayashi and his official website is here. He kindly sent me the photo above. 

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Toshiyuki 'Maru' Hayashi was born in Tokushima prefecture in 1960. He began playing rugby at the age of 13, and was selected at the age of 17 to tour Australia with a Japan high schools team. He played for Doshisha University, then Kobe Steel (now Kobelco Kobe Steelers) and was part of the team which won seven consecutive All-Japan championships (1989-95).  He represented Japan for 13 years at lock starting in his third year at university, and at the first and second Rugby World Cups in 1987 and 1991. From 1989 he studied at Oxford University and played for Oxford in the 1990 Varsity Match against Cambridge. He is a member of the Barbarians. He is the founder and president of the HEROES NPO which promotes rugby for Japanese schoolchildren and organizes the nationwide annual HEROES CUP. He gives lectures at universities and motivational seminars for company employees.   

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Introduction by Ian Williams, friend and teammate of Maru. I read the introduction on YouTube here.

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You can contact the translator here. I would be glad to know your impressions of the translation. (But better still would be a review on amazon!) ;-)

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The main reasons why I wanted to translate this book are:

1. for the insight it offers into the Japanese 'sports mentality' and leadership style as they relate to rugby, companies and other organizations in the wider society

2. for Japanese the chance to learn some English by reading the text

3. non-Japanese will be able to learn some Japanese phrases in romaji, and kanji as well

4. The many examples drawn by the author from his deep knowledge and experience of Japanese culture (the business world, religion, philosophy, history etc.) should be of interest and enlightening to many readers.   

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The Japanese book, published in November 2021, is available on Amazon.co.jp here. If you can read Japanese, I think you would enjoy the original. 

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