TOKYO: “Sometimes I cry, but only when I'm at home on my own,” says Tetsuya Sakurai, one of a select few who has paid $6,000 for an intensive — and stressful — training course to become a sushi chef in Tokyo.

To the untutored, a little ball of rice with a slice of raw fish on top may look like a simple affair.

But students on the twice-yearly course in the Japanese capital soon learn that for masters of the art, there is so much more to it than meets the eye.

“The best students will take at least two years before they can do this properly,” said teacher Kazuki Shimoyama. “The slowest may take four.”

And before they even get to the stage where they are allowed to combine the delicately formed nigiri (rice balls) with a slice of sashimi, they have to learn how to cut the fish.

For Sakurai, hunched over a fresh mackerel as he slips the razor-sharp knife through its firm flesh, it's a nerve-wracking experience, made all the worse by the presence of three glowering teachers, watching his every move.

“It's very hard,” he tells AFP, a month into his course. “I train at school every day. Cutting the fish is like performing surgery. But what I really don't enjoy is removing the innards from a shellfish. It's really difficult.”

Like his fellow students, Sakurai eagerly answers when their tutor asks if they understand.

“To cut the fillet lengthways, pull the tail and slide the knife along. You follow?” bellows the teacher. “Yes!” the 20 shout in unison.

“Then cut each piece diagonally, making the tail end a little bigger. You follow?”

“Yes!” they reply again.

But Sakurai has not pleased his mentor this time. “That's your attempt at cutting a mackerel? Terrible. Do it again,” he is told.

Students work in silence in a classroom where harsh neon lights glint off steel knives, threatening to expose the tiniest imperfection on the bleach-white clothes they wear.

Sushi rice — perfectly plump Japanese shortgrain into which precisely measured quantities of rice vinegar, salt and sugar are folded — is pressed into a large pellet in the hands.—AFP