Eastern Kendo

A blog on the Eastern Kendo Club and Kendo related issues.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Semester Break and Family Tournament

Hello everyone. We will be off the week of May 2nd due to the school being closed between semesters. I hope to see everyone on May 8th. Have a nice time off but remember that the Family Tournament is just around the corner on Sunday May 20th. Get ready for a great time with all of our Michigan dojos. The best thing about this tournament is that you get to meet and fight with people that live extremely close to you. Please be sure to come out, even if you are not in bogu, to help with the event and participate in our 4th year of hosting this great tournament. See you in a couple of weeks. Cheers!

Monday, April 16, 2007

Cleveland Recap

Congratulations to Grand Rapids/Battle Creek on their Championship win over JCCC! What a great day for Michigan kendo. It was an overall wonderful tournament, and much shorter this year. Congratulations to everyone who competed. Please relay your experience as a comment. From what I know, Nathan had his first win and John Ellison had multiple victories during the mudansha division. Jack fought hard throughout the day in multiple divisions and earned a lot of respect from the surrounding sensei's. Our team was lucky enough to fight with Hajime Sugawara sensei who has been a good friend to me for a long time. We had a great first match against Purdue and then faced Shidogakuin DC and went down on points. Everyone fought extremely hard and Eastern Kendo shone throughout the day. Thanks to everyone that came down and we will see everyone at the Family tournament. If you have any pictures or comments please feel free to add. Cheers!

Jodan in Cleveland

To reflect on this past weekend's tournament let me begin by saying that everyone that participated was great. I was lucky enough this year to face another nito kendoist in my first match. It was great to have the opportunity to face someone new using nito. I scored a kote nuki men for the first point and then another men from there. It was great to face a strong kendoist and come away with a two point victory. I was then up against Onitsuka san and the fight was very competitive and balanced. I thought that I had him and was fairly confident in the way the match was going. As soon as I thought about that I went for kote and he scored with a kote nuki men. This has become the downfall for me and I really need to work on getting my kote a bit faster. The team matches were great because I got to fight alongisde my jodan sensei Sugawara sensei. He was gracious enough to be our chuken and we got through our first opponenet. I did what I could and tied the match to put us through on points. Then we faced Shidogaukiun DC and I was up against Kamata Sensei. He was extremely hard to face but, after he socred hiki do I was able to get a kote from him and it was great to score another kote in a tournament. Until the Family tournament. Thanks to Cleveland for hosting a great event. Cheers!