PEOPLE who excel at their craft often make it look far easier than it is. Take sushi chefs: Sure, it looks like all they do is cut up little hunks of eel and salmon and lay it over rice, but in truth there's a great deal of art to it. The California Sushi Academy, located on Main Street in Venice, has been giving both amateur and aspiring sushi chefs a crash course in sushi preparation since 1998. Though professional sushi chefs usually attend school for eight years, the Los Angeles school has stripped traditional courses down to the bare essentials. Staff reporter Conor Dougherty talked with director Phillip Yi about the school's classes and some of its graduates.

"We officially opened Sept. 4, 1998 The owner, Toshi Sugiura, is also the owner of Hama in Venice, an establishment that has been in business for 20 years. His reputation spread and people began calling him from all over the country looking for sushi chefs. So he decided to open up a sushi school, train chefs and then send them out. There is definitely a shortage of well-trained chefs.

"We have a six-month course for $4,000 for people who, want to become sushi chefs. In the course, we don't just do sushi; we cover all the traditional Japanese cooking techniques. Soups, all the stocks, sauces and dressings, the importance of ingredients, maintenance -- everything someone would need to know to get into the Japanese cuisine industry or add it to their repertoire as a chef.

"'I would say 80 percent of the people attending classes are in a different field (before attending the school). We've had investment bankers, veterinarians, CPAs, people in the movie industry, all walks of life. These people just want a change. The other 20 percent have been or are still involved in the culinary field, and most of them want to add sushi to their repertoires.

"We also have a class for the public -- a one-day, three-hour sushi class. This class is just for fun, to prepare sushi for friends and family.

"When someone completes the (six-month) course, they typically take a job in a restaurant to get experience. Some have opened catering businesses and a few have opened their own restaurants. For most of our graduates, their ultimate goal is to open their own restaurants.

"Upon graduation, a chef from our school makes $1,600 to $2,500 a month. But the average sushi chef makes around $3,500 to $5,000 per month."