Failure

With a job as exacting as kaiseki cuisine, there's going to be a lot of failure at first, and a fair bit even down the line. Chefs make mistakes, have bad ideas, and ruin food often. If it's the owner or the top chef doing something funky, it's overlooked, but us little guys get hauled over the coals frequently for screwing up, whether it was really our fault or not. I was recently subject to a full-on explosion when I didn't vinegar mackerel correctly and the flesh broke apart. Never mind that the fish was too fatty to take the salting and vinegar (salt will melt the fat and make fish with lots of fat disintegrate), it was my responsibility to turn out a class product regardless of the original materials. As my direct superior, Fugu Senpai got it twice as rough as me for not following my every move. I felt terrible about that; it's not as if he doesn't get ripped up by Soba Master every day without me contributing to his stress load.

The upshot of all this is that when you do obtain the stray phrase of approval (usually expressed along the lines of 'that's acceptable', or by not getting yelled at), it means so much more. Japanese kitchens are not there to built up future chefs, they are there to rip you to your bones, extract every mistake and weakness, and reform you in their image. It's a very rough life, but that's why Japanese food is the classiest in the world.