Jodan at the Family Tournament

This year's tournament was again a great opportunity to test out my jodan aganist familiar people. I was up against Akamatsu Asaoka again but this year she did not go for the precious area. ; ) I was able to win with a do and keep her at bay until the time ran out. I then proceeded to fight Matsuura sensei and lost to a do from him again. This is the second time I have faced him and lost to a do. I did feel that he had a plan to go against me and I did not and that was one of the reasons that I did not do as well as I hoped. He completely took away the kote angle and then kept the maai tight which forced me to think too much and drop my hands. This was detrimental and allowed for him to take full advantage of the scoring opportunity. It was great to fight him and talk with him afterward about the fight. During the keiko afterwards I was fortunate to be in with the yondan and up crowd for Tagawa sensei's lessons on men and zanshin. It was great to be able to practice with yondan through nanadan. I was able to practice chudan techniques as well as jodan techniques and it was great. All in all, a very nice tournament that I was happy went off well. Cheers!