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!

Family Tournament

Thank you to everyone that came to the Family tournament. We had a great time practicing and competing with all of the dojos around Michigan. As you can see, Michigan kendo is very strong and continues to get stronger. I wanted to thank all of the people that drove a great distance to attend and the senseis that helped to lead the practice afterwards. If you have any good stories or pictures from the event please do not hesitate to post them here or at the website. Thank you again to everyone that helped set up. The results from the tournament are below.

Sandan and up:

1st: Murakami

2nd: Tani

3rd: Takahashi

3rd: Matsuura

Shodan/Nidan:

1st: Akamatsu

2nd: Kurita

3rd: Tanabe

3rd: Yamauchi

Mudansha:

1st: Brooks

2nd: K. Hwang

3rd: Marsch

3rd: Holmgren

Women:

1st: A. Akamatsu

2nd: Arai

3rd: A. Hanaki

3rd: Klar

Junior B:

1st: Hill

2nd: Akamatsu

3rd: Yamauchi

3rd: B. Hwang

Junior A:

1st: Arai

2nd: S. Suzuki

3rd: A. Suzuki

3rd: A. Hanaki

NonBogu:

1st: Thompson

2nd: Nagamine

3rd: Carolan

3rd: Sato

Fighting Spirit:

M. Suzuki

Ten Years Later!

Hello everyone. Please visit the pictures page on the website to view some great photos of Eastern Kendo's first years. We celebrate our ten year anniversary this year and these photos are phenomenally great. Here is just one of the first tournament. Who can you see that is still here?