Jodan in Chicago

The midwest tournament was a great time for me and this tournament was the first time that I felt extremely confident with my jodan. The individual matches were great and I was fortunate enough to fight my long time friend Jon Condan first. As some of you know he also does jodan so my first match of the tournament was ai jodan. This was great and we wagered ont he outcome as well. After some varying attacks that were meant to put him off balance I managed to get him to commit to a men attack and struck men nuki men for the ippon. This was enough to win the entire match and he now owes me one. Then I faced the sensei from Moline Kendo dojo and again was faced with a strategy issue. I could not find a way to his kote. Instead I pushed a bit more and saw an opening and went for men. The timing fell that he went for tsuki and the same moment but I was faster and broke through the tsuki to score the men. Again, one ippon was enough to win the match. I was one fight away from facing Sugawara sensei for the court final and only needed to get through one more opponent. This was my downfall because my head was filled with that possibility and I was not concentrating enough on my opponent. He proceeded to score kote and hiki yaku do on me for the win way too quickly. I felt bad but knew why it happen right away. The main thing for me was that I felt extremely happy with the improvement of my jodan in the individual rounds. On to the team matches.

I was on the University of Michigan A team which was a stacked team. we managed to get to the court final against Detroit A. These matches were great. The first team match was against Purdue C who were a new group of kenshi with great spirit. I managed to get two points and we went through to the next round against Moline A. This next team was a combination of kenshi and I was up against someone that I have not seen before. We were up by three points at the time and I was able to keep it that way with a hikiwake. I was disappointed that I could not get ippon but we advanced to face Detroit A anyway. This was a great fight. We went down 2 to 1 but scored one ippon against Ryota Takahashi sensei. Then we managed to get another ippon on the older Takahashi sensei. I was up against Tani sensei and thought I could get at least one point on him. The match was tight and we were both playing very well. I went down to chudan after tsubazereai and right before I could get up he got my kote. I was extremely upset about not being able to give the team a lead. We went on to go down to Detroit A who continued on to take first place in the event. I had a great time and it was great to fight so many new people. Hopefully I will see everyone at the dojo soon. Cheers!