18- Tokyo Sushi Academy: A Different Kind of Dojo

Before I enrolled, I believed—like almost all of Japanese —that becoming a sushi chef required endless, almost mysterious years of suffering.

It is said;

Three years just to be allowed to cook rice.

Five years before you could touch the rice for sushi.

A lifetime to be trusted with nigiri.

Long hours.

Little pay.

Almost no structured teaching.

Just being shouted at in a cramped kitchen and learning by surviving.

I had always assumed: That’s just how it is.

So when I walked into Tokyo Sushi Academy for the first time, I was prepared for something harsh and painful.

Instead, I found something else entirely:

logic.

From day one, every technique was broken down into reason and method.

How to hold the knife.

Where to place your thumb.

How much pressure to use when cutting through fish so you don’t crush the fibers.

How to combine vinegar, sugar, and salt so rice doesn’t just “taste good,” but tastes balanced.

Nothing was “just do it this way because tradition says so.”

It was always why and how.

Every class fed my curiosity.

Nothing felt like blind obedience.

It felt like investing in a new version of myself—and for the first time in a long time, I could clearly see the return on that investment.

When it come to see the sushi master’s work, making sushi looks like creating art.

But No.

There are always logic.

Logic is behind the sushi art.

That’s why one can master how to make a beautiful sushi piece.