Fly Dance Studio is a dance studio located in Sanjo where you can attend a variety of classes ranging from beginner to advanced in styles ranging from k-pop to hip hop to breaking, locking, freestyle, jazz, and more.
Although this CIP would definitely require more effort on your part to make friends and connect with classmates and teachers, it is an especially great opportunity for experienced dancers to experience the dance scene in Japan firsthand!
I definitely recommend picking a CIP that has both components of something familiar and unfamiliar. For me, dancing k-pop was somewhat familiar, and attending class and dancing hip-hop were wholly unfamiliar to me. Whenever I was struggling with aspects of the unfamiliar like the classes going too fast or the teachers being scary, I was able to fall back on the k-pop class and my enjoyment of that choreography and that music, and that experience helped me to persevere past the others.
My biggest piece of advice is to try and make friends with the people at your CIP! Although it was extremely difficult for me in the moment for factors such as most of my classmates being middle schoolers and already in extremely tight knit groups coming to class and there being very limited space in the studio for talking in between classes, in hindsight, I could have definitely attempted to bond with the classmates I kept seeing over and over at the same classes. For this CIP in particular, foreigners are not an unusual sight at the dance studio, so it is definitely a little bit more of a safer space to attempt and speak to Japanese people you’ve never met before. Additionally, the dance scene as a whole appears to be somewhat casual and pretty social, so it definitely felt more approachable or acceptable to try and start a conversation than it might be in other more formal settings. The studio itself is also surrounded by a ton of trendy shops and a movie theater, so it’s a great place to hang out before and/or after class as well!
For my CIP, I participated in the hip-hop/breakdancing club called Egoistic Dancers. At the club, we did some workshops and taught each other moves. They have different group chats for what year of breaking you are at, for example, if you are a first year, they would invite you to beginner workshops. The club didn’t really do any cyphering, which I feel like was very much needed, as it allowed everyone to interact with each other. Many of the club members were very busy with upcoming tournaments and shows, thus there was not much room to interact with fellow breakers. Unfortunately, they also did not have a real break space, so I would often go to another place to break. Some advice would be to do some more research before committing to a CIP, and it doesn’t always have to be something that you are really into, because if I could go back, I would have changed my CIP to something I’ve never done before but had some interest in. I think CIP should be moreso a place to meet and interact with the local Japanese students.
For my CIP, I joined Intensity, one of Doshisha’s basketball circles, where I participated in weekly practices throughout the semester. This circle holds practices on MTF from 3pm-6pm, and there are usually around 10-15 members who always show up.
This semester, I had the opportunity to play basketball at the Kyotanabe campus with Doshisha’s basketball circle intensity. This club had practice about 3 times a week, during which the entire duration is provided for playing full court or shooting around.
For my CIP, I joined Wasshoi, a circle at Kyoto University focused on agricultural activities, community engagement and rural revitalization in the small but beautiful village of Miyama. Together with a group of core members, I traveled to this village bimonthly to participate in activities such as edamame harvesting, building a corn maze for kids and harvesting thatch for a local renovation project!