Joyce Shigekuni
It takes a lot of volunteers to put on an NABC. One of the hardest-working volunteers here in Hawaii is Shigekuni. In the mornings you can find her at the Prizes Desk. In the afternoons, she’s by herself staffing three desks at once: Welcome, Prizes and Information. Shigekuni, who is bilingual, also pitches in when someone is looking for assistance at the Japanese Welcome Desk, which has sparse hours.
“They nicknamed me Miss Aloha,” Shigekuni says, explaining she tries to be helpful wherever she can, around town as well as at the NABC. “If someone looks lost and needs directions, I’ll stop to help. It’s the aloha spirit.”
Shigekuni has been playing bridge for three years, and in that time she’s accumulated 3 masterpoints. Learning bridge was a struggle for her for two reasons: dyslexia and a brain injury she suffered in 2002. She went out in the morning and fell down two flights of concrete steps.
“It wasn’t until the evening that they found me,” she says. “I was unconscious the whole time.”
She was told she would probably be in a wheelchair, but she was determined to walk because she was concerned her health would suffer if she didn’t. She uses a walker.
She took a beginning bridge class twice and plans to retake the intermediate class.
“I’m really patient with myself,” Shigekuni says. “When I started bridge, I thought, ‘What am I doing to myself?’ It’s like slow Chinese torture. I don’t really care about points so much, it’s about having fun.”
Before bridge, Shigekuni was a lobbyist and advocate for mental health and disabilities for 30 years. Her last job was doing background checks for then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s staff in 2011.
Shigekuni likes to do puzzles and sudoku. She appreciates the workout her brain gets from bridge. “This uses your brain even more,” she says. “I think it’s fun. I like meeting new people and the challenge. And most people are patient.”
She jumped into playing right away before finishing the beginner class, wanting to get her feet wet. She plays in a practice group on Mondays and in a sanctioned game on Fridays when her partner is in town. But he’s spent a lot of time in Australia lately, so she hadn’t played in six months before last week, when she started playing the morning games every day.
As much as that is compared to usual, it’s a fairly small part of her tournament. “I’m volunteering a lot more than I’m playing,” she says.