Detroit 2007 after glow
Congratulations to Team Eastern! What a great day for everyone involved with Eastern kendo. First, congratulations to everyone that passed their shinsa. Jack Ponchart is our newest shodan at the age of 14, watch out everyone and Nathan Haley is our newest ikkyu. It was a great way to start the tournament off. After the shinsa, we had a wonderful seminar and practice with Satoru Harada Sensei the All Japan Kendo Tournament Champion of 2005. It was great to be instructed by such a force in kendo. He is truly inspiring. My favorite moments were when he kept stating "back when I was competitive." After the practice it was off to the pub with the folks from Pittsburgh. It was great to meet everyone and the Oatmeal stout wasn't bad either. The tournament was great and as I was shimpan, I was unable to see everyone's matches. Please comment on how you felt during each match if you would like. The team did great again and it was great to hear everyone cheering for us. Our first match was a tough one but we managed to get through to face our down the street rivals, UofM B. Ypsi pride won out on this day and we were then to face Louisville A. The team consisted of great kenshi and we were soon down two points. The we gave up another two and were down by four. In a great comeback, Charlie gained two points for us and it was up to me to tie it. The pressure was on but I felt very confident in my jodan. The first men was solid and now we only needed one point to force the tiebreak. Hajime was called and I went for a men morote kote and scored the ippon. It was a great feeling to come back with that ippon. The tiebreak was ippon shobu and I was up against Sakagawa sensei. His hiki do strike rang out throughout the shiajo and we had lost. It was a great tournament and it was very nice to see all of the people that came in support. Thanks to everyone for participating and making Eastern Kendo shine in the eyes of our fellow kenshi. Kampai!
posted by eric | 11:25 AM
3 Comments:
I totally destroyed my voice during the shinsa, but I passed despite being a complete nervous wreck for the first time in my life beforehand.
Comment on the matches, eh? This may be long...
I saw some video of my shinsa jigeiko. I can see my leading with the shoulders now rather than moving with the body. I found a lot of things to correct in this past week that I really didn't realize were all that wrong before.
I got first match of the day on my court fighting Brooks from Grand Rapids. I had a couple of what seemed clean kote, but they lacked any pop so my step and timing were probably off. We went into encho for quite a while. I was probably over thinking and not aggressive enough as his last men came in.
Teams was incredible. I went all out, but I continued to have trouble finding and taking advantages of openings. What I did hit, I probably struck with poor timing resulting in bad contact. Lost one point to Etobicoke.
Against U-M B, I drew their ronin from Detroit. He let me charge in and pass, and I flew threw all right--straight out of the court. He played pretty rough in tsubazeriai, and I was probably breaking posture trying to open up or break free. I did a much better job of holding on to center and trying to manage ma-ai. It was a draw.
Both of the opponents looked considerably tired in tsubazeriai, but I really couldn't figure out how to capitalize on it. More working on controlling and breaking the opponent's center.
Against Louisville, uh... I guess I lost center--because he popped me faster than I could see the opening. It was like playing with a faster version of Perry. Both of us can probably step a over a 39 shinai, so the range was different than every other match of the day.
My list short of things to work on: ki-ken-tai-ichi, fumikomi, posture, and center.
My pictures from Detroit are here
I wish that I could comment on the matches, but I am still at the point where I sometimes wonder why a hit wasn't a point. I was able to understand a few of them though, so I'm going to pay attention to the commentary so I can keep improving.
Such a great time. Nathan, you looked good out there. As always I am eager to get back to the dojo and practice practice practice! You guys all did great.
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