Jodan at the Family Tournament

This year's Family Tournament was a great time and it was the first time that I have had good success with jodan. I wound up taking third place at this year's tournament by beating two very strong Detroit senseis. I was one match away from making it to the finals and lost to the eventual champion Murakami sensei. My first match was against Morita sensei and if you know him he is a firece competitor. The match was very tight and I could not seem to get an opening until I found one and scored hiki men. This has become a very good waza for me because of the thought that jodan competitiors are not very good at hiki waza. Anyway, he then got a kote on me and the match was all tied up. We went into encho and were both pretty tired but my jodan overcame his seme and I scored a katate men for the win. I was then up, immedieately against Takahashi sensei, the older one. I have always enjoyed practicing with him but had never fought with him before. This was another tight match and I wound up scoring a katate men and holding him off for the win. Then I had a break until the bottom round finished. The winner of that bracket was Murakami sensei, so it was him and I in the court final. I was prepared and ready for the match. The first point he got was a basic kote on me which was very frustrating. Then, for what has now become my focal point, he forze me with a kote, kote and scored the second point. I had lost, fairly quickly, because I let him into my maai. I have got to work on maintianing pressure on smaller kenshi in order to dominate them. The other thing that I have gained from this shiai is the fact that my waza has improved, but my seme now needs more work. That's the beauty of kendo, when you think you have something down and go onto the next thing, you usually realize that you didn't really have the previous down. Always learning, that's kendo for ya. I am very happy to have placed in this tournament and have not done so since I started kendo. Hopefully this is the start of some more medals. Cheers!