20-Where Strangers Became Sushi Dreamers
I attended class every Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., for a full year.
The classroom was like a tiny United Nations of sushi dreamers.
A restaurant owner planning her next concept.
A salaryman from a seafood processing company.
A sports journalist from a major newspaper.
A former art teacher.
The second-generation son and dauter of sushi shops.
A cooking researcher.
Different ages, careers, and stories—but there we were, all lined up, hands smelling of vinegar and fish, united by the desire to learn how to shape rice and fish into something meaningful.
Between practice rounds, we’d chat.
About work. About why we came. About what we wanted to build next.
Those conversations were as nourishing as the lectures themselves.
The biggest lesson wasn’t only about sushi.
It was about how to learn.
I realized that if you set a clear time frame, and pour your energy and resources into it with focus, you can achieve a surprisingly deep level of mastery in just one year—at least for the fundamentals.
Compared to that, spending years in the back of a restaurant doing nothing but menial prep, never being properly taught, hoping that “one day” someone will let you touch the fish…
This school showed me a different model:
Structured knowledge. Clear curriculum. Focused practice.
Respect for both the craft and the learner.
This made me think of how my class should be in the future.
