Shoryuhai report
Apr. 29th, 2006 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of Ste. Catherine
Long overdue tournament report. For those of you new to my friends list (and kendo babbling), the Shoryuhai is the largest annual intercollegiate kendo tournament, and it's held here every April. I write lengthy posts about it afterwards, as per tradition. This year was the tenth anniversary, and it took place last weekend. Every year, it gets larger than ever, although I think we've nearly hit our maximum capacity. UCLA and UCSD both sent two teams, Stony Brook sent five (including an all-girls team dressed entirely in white). Our shimpancho (head judge who presided over the tournament) was Tahara-sensei, who is an 8-dan hanshi and director of the All-Japan Kendo Federation. He was...a really odd old man, but more on that below. We also had several Keio alumni come to judge at the tournament, including Ohta-san who visited last November and Kyoko who stayed with Jenny at last year's Gasshuku.
All right, just to get all the unpleasantries out of the way...the level of snarking at this tournament wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was still enough to get me seriously annoyed. For example, on Sunday, Eva and I were changing in the bathroom when one of the UW players came in, loudly complaining that we wouldn't have time for all the individual matches and how at their tournament, which only had half the number of competitors, it still took them until five to finish. I got so annoyed that I told her, "We've been running this tournament for ten years. Trust me, we know what we're doing." Probably not such a wise thing to say, considering how the other kendo clubs dislike us, but I was so pissed off. Of course, the comment just bounced right off her because she paused then continued complaining, not in the least discouraged by my putdown. "They don't separate by rank, and they don't even separate the women from the men." Okay, the ranked vs. unranked is probably a legitimate issue, but not all collegiate clubs can afford to send more than one team, and asking them to separate their ranked and unranked players would prevent them from participating. It would be easier to separate ranked from unranked in the individuals tournament, but given the already limited time and space, it won't be easy. Maybe five years down the line, when collegiate kendo has expanded to the point where there are enough high-ranked players to warrant such a step, although that opens up even more issues about strong unranked players, etc. But the second point particularly infuriated me. A female player placed third in individuals last year; this year, a female player placed second. All of the semifinals team had female players in their line-ups. Separating women from men?! It's like saying that women can't win against men in kendo. Which actually is true at the national and world level, but definitely not at U.S. collegiate level as anyone who's watched a full day of Shoryuhai matches could attest. It's ironic because later that day she defeated the UCSD A taisho (who was male). Would you be able to enjoy that kind of victory if we held a separate women's tournament? I don't think so.
The day before, I had really admired her kendo while watching the UW team in the semifinals--she had nice form, great kiai and really good shiai instincts--so it was doubly disappointing to hear her bitch and moan about the Shoryuhai all during individuals.
Not to mention, all the stupid comments I overheard from various teams, asking, "Why are there so many female shimpan?" Argh. They were referring to our Keio guests. Those female shimpan could probably wipe the floor with you, idiots!
Ranting aside, apparently many of the clubs didn't like "Harvard's attitude", and the alumni suggested that we take some effort to increase the goodwill between us and the other teams. This issue seems to turn up year after year, and I'm not sure why. Well, there was definitely an inadvertent offense to Virginia Tech, but that was just one school. I do think that a large part of the resentment stems from the fact that people perceive us to be, well, rich and elitist, although ironically we're broke at the moment. But I do see that if you look at our tournament and compare it to other collegiate taikai, it's easy to make that mistake. We fly in high-ranked shimpan from Japan, when other competitions often have to ask their competitors to fill in as judges. We have alumni to man courtside staff, with walkie-talkies and computers. Heck, our trophies look larger and more expensive. It all seems much more professional than it really is--which is why people are so much less forgiving of any mistakes or inefficiency. They don't realize that in fact the tournament is really run by a bunch of scatterbrained undergrads who are worrying about whether they'll be able to get all their homework done at the same time they are preparing this tournament. They also don't realize that Harvard, with all its money, barely cares about the kendo club and wouldn't even know that it existed if we didn't beg them for grants every semester. So any small blunder on our part becomes that much more magnified. At least that's my theory.
It would help though if we participated in other tournaments (Cornell, West Point, Yale) and actually socialized with the other teams. I noticed that the East Coast teams, like Cornell and Yale, are actually pretty friendly with each other, presumably from having seen each other at the same tournaments before.
That's enough of my ranting. Otherwise, the tournament ran pretty smoothly, much to my relief, and I enjoyed myself. I was fukusho for Harvard A, and we played against Soka (in California, apparently associated with a Japanese uni), Virginia Tech B, Yale, SUNY C, UCLA A and UChicago, in that order. (You know, it just figures that the one year UChicago does send a team, Jacob would be off studying abroad.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cletus12, if you're reading this post--which you probably aren't--all I can say is, you have horrible timing. The UChicago taisho kept addressing me as "Jacob's friend", by the way, which was a novel experience of sorts. -_-) We won against Virginia Tech B and UChicago, but I don't know if we managed to tie any of the other teams. I suspect not, although I didn't really keep track. It was a pretty tough bracket actually. I didn't score once during the tournament, and I lost every match except for two, where I tied (against SUNY C and UChicago). That disappointed me initially--you see, it's my next-to-last Shoryuhai, and I would like to say I've won one match before graduating--but now looking back on it, I'm pretty happy with the way I played after all. Don't remember much about the Soka match, except that it was against a girl my height, and she scored two points on me. I do remember the Virginia Tech match because we'd both hit and miss center, I'd run through, and then turn around to find him at the other end of the court. In these situations, one should take advantage of the opportunity to chase the opponent down and hit him as he's turning around...I had a really hard time judging the distance, so I only pulled it off once. At the beginning of the match, I kept running through too far myself (at that point, I was trying to work on my own zanshin), and then later I kept turning around too quickly and meeting him in tsuba-zeriai instead. Then he managed to hit a men on me while I was completely open, before time ran out. ::sighs:: Not exactly the best match I could have played. Then the Yale match was against Kozuki, against whom I held out for a while before she scored two points on me. Was not too smart in that match either. ::sighs again:: I also wish we had won against Yale, but it wasn't very likely in retrospect. Not that I have anything against Yale--actually Kozuki is one of the female players I like to watch because she plays very intelligently and stands up to stronger opponents really well--but they did beat us pretty badly at Cornell.
I did better against SUNY C. Actually, I was completely unnerved throughout that entire match because my opponent would just stand in kamae and not move. Still as a stone. Then one of us would attack (usually me, out of sheer nerves) and then it would be a flurry of exchanges, often involving me chasing after him in weird circles around the shiaijo, before returning to the whole standstill situation again. I had more kiai and energy for that match though, and I managed to tie it, although I did get a hansoku...I forget whether it was for stepping out of bounds or for losing my shinai. (I had two hansoku that day, and the other one was in the Virginia Tech match.) The match after that was with UCLA A, and the opponent was one of those tall, bulldozer types that I hate going up against. I remember he knocked some of his opponents over in previous matches. I guess I should be pretty proud that I didn't get knocked over and didn't get eliminated too quickly. The final match was with UChicago, and since they were a four-person team and both Ong and Brian had won their matches, I didn't really try to score and just made sure the match ended in a tie. It wouldn't have been feasible against a more experienced opponent, but luckily their fukusho was a beginner. He was pretty huge though, so I did have to be careful not to get pushed around.
As for the rest of the team, Ong did pretty well and won at least two matches. He was sempo, which often meant facing the most aggressive players on all the other teams, but he definitely played his best throughout the day. Joe was on a roll and won or tied all of his matches--I don't think he lost a single one all day. It's definitely boosted his confidence in his kendo, and I'm glad he had that experience. He'll definitely be a killer at the next Shoryuhai. Brian had a bit of a tough start because the Soka chuken defeated him extremely quickly (I was barely finished putting on my men, which warned me to start preparing earlier), and then the Virginia Tech chuken, who had actually played with us at Cornell, accidentally struck him in the balls...yes, literally. >_< I got the sense that it took him a while to get his momentum after that, but he definitely won his last two or three matches with flair. Jenny had the hardest time of it all as taisho, playing against the best players of the other teams, but she acquitted herself well and managed to tie several matches. All in all, I think we did rather well, given the level and experience of our opponents. Alex and Jesse were sitting on our court, and they came to give us advice after every match--so awesome! It's really encouraging and supportive, especially when you're feeling kind of lousy after a loss, to have people matter-of-factly explain to you what you did well and what you did wrong and what you should focus on for the next match. They are definitely on the list of my favorite alumni.
UCLA A and Stony Brook C won our bracket. Actually, three Stony Brook teams (A, B and C) made it to quarterfinals, which only goes to show how strong Stony Brook is. They didn't make it into semifinals though, which I think is a first since they began competing at the Shoryuhai. Both UCSD A and B made it to semifinals, as well as UCLA A and UW, making it a West Coast showdown. Actually, at first I didn't think UCLA A was going to win because they hadn't seemed so overwhelmingly strong as they did in previous years. (By which I mean, they didn't just defeat everyone in ten seconds.) But when I started watching the semifinals, I realized they had been holding back during the round robin; now they were ready to compete. Both semifinals matches were exciting, but UCLA definitely wanted to win more than any other team. The final round was between UCLA A and UCSD A (a faceoff that had occurred my freshman year as well) and after two wins by UCLA, two wins by UCSD, it was down to the taisho match. Oh, the tension! I think we were holding our breaths the entire time. No one dared to cheer, it was so intense. The match ran into overtime, at which point Hsueh, the UCLA taisho, finally scored the final point that won the Shoryuhai.
I must say that I really do think UCLA deserved that trophy because they played as if their life was on the line. That's the kind of mentality that wins you tournaments. Skill matters of course, but your desire to win does too. Both the UC schools are my favorites; the people on them are really nice in addition to being great at kendo. I felt bad we couldn't let Makino play this year (he graduated early so he's not officially affiliated with a uni at the moment, which disqualifies him from our tournament), but he didn't seem the least bit resentful about it.
Individuals on Sunday...well, my match was with the chuken of the Soka team, so my goals going into the match were to keep up my kiai and last as long as I can, both of which I achieved (I think) so I was satisfied despite the loss. You know, every match I lose has the same format: no point scored for a while, then opponent scores point on me, after which he or she scores second point on me really quickly again. The same thing happened at Gasshuku, and I remember Chit and Kofi saying that I should take my time returning to the line so I could settle my mind. I kept that in mind during the tournament although it didn't make much difference. Oh well. Howard taped all the individual matches and put them up online, so I got to watch a video of myself in shiai and also properly hear my own kiai. I've been videotaped before, but the sound quality was bad so I never really heard my kiai in a match, and now I know whattryogeru means when she says I sound like an evil baby from a Japanese horror movie. -_- My footwork has improved by some miracle, and I look more relaxed, although there's some weirdness to my shoulder (a problem with posture or too much tension?), and of course, my strike is too slow or off-center or both.
Among the undergrads, Ong and Kacey made it past their first round but were eliminated after that. Not surprising because as Zach pointed out, by the second round, the matches were already quite intense and high-level. Which just goes to show how many high-ranked players there were at the tournament, including a member of the U.S. team for the World Kendo Championship, Chinen, who judged during Saturday's team tournament. He's 4-dan and a jodan player to boot...needless to say, it was a slaughter. I didn't get to watch him play until the semifinals though because he was on court A. Eva and I were on court B, helping keep track of matches, and the star of our court would have to be Tamura, the UCSD A fukusho, who is also a member of the U.S. team and plays the most gorgeous kendo ever. Seriously, each point she scores is like a work of art. She had to play several really long matches consecutively--they all went into overtime--but she made it to the final round. So awesome! Apparently, she's only a sophomore?! She was also on the winning team last year, and I remember being really impressed by her then too, but after watching her play for twenty minutes, only then to play another ten minute match and win that too...downright incredible. Chinen lost to the Soka taisho, who then went on to win the tournament.
What else? Oh yes,tryogeru and ayatsujik visited on Saturday. ^_^ At one point, while I was waiting for my next match, we were standing on the sidelines when Tahara-sensei came up to me and started speaking in Japanese, despite my utter lack of knowledge of the language. Heh. Tahara-sensei is...what's a good way to describe him? Living incarnation of Kuwabara from Hikaru no Go, except without a malicious streak, I suppose. He would keep talking to all of us in Japanese, regardless of whether we understood him or not, leaving us totally mystified while he went off smiling and laughing. He came to our practice on Friday and had us sit in seiretsu for some incredibly painful length of time while he went on a lecture about how kendo begins even in seiza. I don't think he realized how unused we are to kneeling, but we were all in pain after the first minute. Also, he would speak on and on, while Jeff helplessly waited for a chance to translate, and would cut in before Jeff finished translating as well. One of those grandfathers who really like to talk. That being said, he was quite genial and much friendlier than any of the other shimpancho who came before. He sent this hilarious email in broken English that said what a great time he had at "Harbart". ^_^ I had a chance to go up against him in jigeiko at the Friday practice...it's so true what the senpai say about playing hachidan sensei: all they do is twitch and barely move, but they still slaughter you. It's like...fighting against water; it just flows around you, and there's no way you can win against it. Pretty cool.
I've realized that the mental dimension of my kendo is still very basic--I don't really know how to take center, only to strike when it's given to me. The physical dimension needs work too, but I think my coordination really has improved by some strange miracle this past year. I need stamina and speed, but at least my fumikomi doesn't land a full second before my strike does...well, it still happens in practice but much less often. I think this summer Gasshuku should come at exactly the right time for improving my kendo...that is, if I survive it. >_<
I've done no homework all weekend. This is probably not a good sign. Have been writing drabbles to procrastinate...some of them are quite terrible though and will need rewriting.
Yours &c.
Long overdue tournament report. For those of you new to my friends list (and kendo babbling), the Shoryuhai is the largest annual intercollegiate kendo tournament, and it's held here every April. I write lengthy posts about it afterwards, as per tradition. This year was the tenth anniversary, and it took place last weekend. Every year, it gets larger than ever, although I think we've nearly hit our maximum capacity. UCLA and UCSD both sent two teams, Stony Brook sent five (including an all-girls team dressed entirely in white). Our shimpancho (head judge who presided over the tournament) was Tahara-sensei, who is an 8-dan hanshi and director of the All-Japan Kendo Federation. He was...a really odd old man, but more on that below. We also had several Keio alumni come to judge at the tournament, including Ohta-san who visited last November and Kyoko who stayed with Jenny at last year's Gasshuku.
All right, just to get all the unpleasantries out of the way...the level of snarking at this tournament wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was still enough to get me seriously annoyed. For example, on Sunday, Eva and I were changing in the bathroom when one of the UW players came in, loudly complaining that we wouldn't have time for all the individual matches and how at their tournament, which only had half the number of competitors, it still took them until five to finish. I got so annoyed that I told her, "We've been running this tournament for ten years. Trust me, we know what we're doing." Probably not such a wise thing to say, considering how the other kendo clubs dislike us, but I was so pissed off. Of course, the comment just bounced right off her because she paused then continued complaining, not in the least discouraged by my putdown. "They don't separate by rank, and they don't even separate the women from the men." Okay, the ranked vs. unranked is probably a legitimate issue, but not all collegiate clubs can afford to send more than one team, and asking them to separate their ranked and unranked players would prevent them from participating. It would be easier to separate ranked from unranked in the individuals tournament, but given the already limited time and space, it won't be easy. Maybe five years down the line, when collegiate kendo has expanded to the point where there are enough high-ranked players to warrant such a step, although that opens up even more issues about strong unranked players, etc. But the second point particularly infuriated me. A female player placed third in individuals last year; this year, a female player placed second. All of the semifinals team had female players in their line-ups. Separating women from men?! It's like saying that women can't win against men in kendo. Which actually is true at the national and world level, but definitely not at U.S. collegiate level as anyone who's watched a full day of Shoryuhai matches could attest. It's ironic because later that day she defeated the UCSD A taisho (who was male). Would you be able to enjoy that kind of victory if we held a separate women's tournament? I don't think so.
The day before, I had really admired her kendo while watching the UW team in the semifinals--she had nice form, great kiai and really good shiai instincts--so it was doubly disappointing to hear her bitch and moan about the Shoryuhai all during individuals.
Not to mention, all the stupid comments I overheard from various teams, asking, "Why are there so many female shimpan?" Argh. They were referring to our Keio guests. Those female shimpan could probably wipe the floor with you, idiots!
Ranting aside, apparently many of the clubs didn't like "Harvard's attitude", and the alumni suggested that we take some effort to increase the goodwill between us and the other teams. This issue seems to turn up year after year, and I'm not sure why. Well, there was definitely an inadvertent offense to Virginia Tech, but that was just one school. I do think that a large part of the resentment stems from the fact that people perceive us to be, well, rich and elitist, although ironically we're broke at the moment. But I do see that if you look at our tournament and compare it to other collegiate taikai, it's easy to make that mistake. We fly in high-ranked shimpan from Japan, when other competitions often have to ask their competitors to fill in as judges. We have alumni to man courtside staff, with walkie-talkies and computers. Heck, our trophies look larger and more expensive. It all seems much more professional than it really is--which is why people are so much less forgiving of any mistakes or inefficiency. They don't realize that in fact the tournament is really run by a bunch of scatterbrained undergrads who are worrying about whether they'll be able to get all their homework done at the same time they are preparing this tournament. They also don't realize that Harvard, with all its money, barely cares about the kendo club and wouldn't even know that it existed if we didn't beg them for grants every semester. So any small blunder on our part becomes that much more magnified. At least that's my theory.
It would help though if we participated in other tournaments (Cornell, West Point, Yale) and actually socialized with the other teams. I noticed that the East Coast teams, like Cornell and Yale, are actually pretty friendly with each other, presumably from having seen each other at the same tournaments before.
That's enough of my ranting. Otherwise, the tournament ran pretty smoothly, much to my relief, and I enjoyed myself. I was fukusho for Harvard A, and we played against Soka (in California, apparently associated with a Japanese uni), Virginia Tech B, Yale, SUNY C, UCLA A and UChicago, in that order. (You know, it just figures that the one year UChicago does send a team, Jacob would be off studying abroad.
cletus12, if you're reading this post--which you probably aren't--all I can say is, you have horrible timing. The UChicago taisho kept addressing me as "Jacob's friend", by the way, which was a novel experience of sorts. -_-) We won against Virginia Tech B and UChicago, but I don't know if we managed to tie any of the other teams. I suspect not, although I didn't really keep track. It was a pretty tough bracket actually. I didn't score once during the tournament, and I lost every match except for two, where I tied (against SUNY C and UChicago). That disappointed me initially--you see, it's my next-to-last Shoryuhai, and I would like to say I've won one match before graduating--but now looking back on it, I'm pretty happy with the way I played after all. Don't remember much about the Soka match, except that it was against a girl my height, and she scored two points on me. I do remember the Virginia Tech match because we'd both hit and miss center, I'd run through, and then turn around to find him at the other end of the court. In these situations, one should take advantage of the opportunity to chase the opponent down and hit him as he's turning around...I had a really hard time judging the distance, so I only pulled it off once. At the beginning of the match, I kept running through too far myself (at that point, I was trying to work on my own zanshin), and then later I kept turning around too quickly and meeting him in tsuba-zeriai instead. Then he managed to hit a men on me while I was completely open, before time ran out. ::sighs:: Not exactly the best match I could have played. Then the Yale match was against Kozuki, against whom I held out for a while before she scored two points on me. Was not too smart in that match either. ::sighs again:: I also wish we had won against Yale, but it wasn't very likely in retrospect. Not that I have anything against Yale--actually Kozuki is one of the female players I like to watch because she plays very intelligently and stands up to stronger opponents really well--but they did beat us pretty badly at Cornell.I did better against SUNY C. Actually, I was completely unnerved throughout that entire match because my opponent would just stand in kamae and not move. Still as a stone. Then one of us would attack (usually me, out of sheer nerves) and then it would be a flurry of exchanges, often involving me chasing after him in weird circles around the shiaijo, before returning to the whole standstill situation again. I had more kiai and energy for that match though, and I managed to tie it, although I did get a hansoku...I forget whether it was for stepping out of bounds or for losing my shinai. (I had two hansoku that day, and the other one was in the Virginia Tech match.) The match after that was with UCLA A, and the opponent was one of those tall, bulldozer types that I hate going up against. I remember he knocked some of his opponents over in previous matches. I guess I should be pretty proud that I didn't get knocked over and didn't get eliminated too quickly. The final match was with UChicago, and since they were a four-person team and both Ong and Brian had won their matches, I didn't really try to score and just made sure the match ended in a tie. It wouldn't have been feasible against a more experienced opponent, but luckily their fukusho was a beginner. He was pretty huge though, so I did have to be careful not to get pushed around.
As for the rest of the team, Ong did pretty well and won at least two matches. He was sempo, which often meant facing the most aggressive players on all the other teams, but he definitely played his best throughout the day. Joe was on a roll and won or tied all of his matches--I don't think he lost a single one all day. It's definitely boosted his confidence in his kendo, and I'm glad he had that experience. He'll definitely be a killer at the next Shoryuhai. Brian had a bit of a tough start because the Soka chuken defeated him extremely quickly (I was barely finished putting on my men, which warned me to start preparing earlier), and then the Virginia Tech chuken, who had actually played with us at Cornell, accidentally struck him in the balls...yes, literally. >_< I got the sense that it took him a while to get his momentum after that, but he definitely won his last two or three matches with flair. Jenny had the hardest time of it all as taisho, playing against the best players of the other teams, but she acquitted herself well and managed to tie several matches. All in all, I think we did rather well, given the level and experience of our opponents. Alex and Jesse were sitting on our court, and they came to give us advice after every match--so awesome! It's really encouraging and supportive, especially when you're feeling kind of lousy after a loss, to have people matter-of-factly explain to you what you did well and what you did wrong and what you should focus on for the next match. They are definitely on the list of my favorite alumni.
UCLA A and Stony Brook C won our bracket. Actually, three Stony Brook teams (A, B and C) made it to quarterfinals, which only goes to show how strong Stony Brook is. They didn't make it into semifinals though, which I think is a first since they began competing at the Shoryuhai. Both UCSD A and B made it to semifinals, as well as UCLA A and UW, making it a West Coast showdown. Actually, at first I didn't think UCLA A was going to win because they hadn't seemed so overwhelmingly strong as they did in previous years. (By which I mean, they didn't just defeat everyone in ten seconds.) But when I started watching the semifinals, I realized they had been holding back during the round robin; now they were ready to compete. Both semifinals matches were exciting, but UCLA definitely wanted to win more than any other team. The final round was between UCLA A and UCSD A (a faceoff that had occurred my freshman year as well) and after two wins by UCLA, two wins by UCSD, it was down to the taisho match. Oh, the tension! I think we were holding our breaths the entire time. No one dared to cheer, it was so intense. The match ran into overtime, at which point Hsueh, the UCLA taisho, finally scored the final point that won the Shoryuhai.
I must say that I really do think UCLA deserved that trophy because they played as if their life was on the line. That's the kind of mentality that wins you tournaments. Skill matters of course, but your desire to win does too. Both the UC schools are my favorites; the people on them are really nice in addition to being great at kendo. I felt bad we couldn't let Makino play this year (he graduated early so he's not officially affiliated with a uni at the moment, which disqualifies him from our tournament), but he didn't seem the least bit resentful about it.
Individuals on Sunday...well, my match was with the chuken of the Soka team, so my goals going into the match were to keep up my kiai and last as long as I can, both of which I achieved (I think) so I was satisfied despite the loss. You know, every match I lose has the same format: no point scored for a while, then opponent scores point on me, after which he or she scores second point on me really quickly again. The same thing happened at Gasshuku, and I remember Chit and Kofi saying that I should take my time returning to the line so I could settle my mind. I kept that in mind during the tournament although it didn't make much difference. Oh well. Howard taped all the individual matches and put them up online, so I got to watch a video of myself in shiai and also properly hear my own kiai. I've been videotaped before, but the sound quality was bad so I never really heard my kiai in a match, and now I know what
tryogeru means when she says I sound like an evil baby from a Japanese horror movie. -_- My footwork has improved by some miracle, and I look more relaxed, although there's some weirdness to my shoulder (a problem with posture or too much tension?), and of course, my strike is too slow or off-center or both.Among the undergrads, Ong and Kacey made it past their first round but were eliminated after that. Not surprising because as Zach pointed out, by the second round, the matches were already quite intense and high-level. Which just goes to show how many high-ranked players there were at the tournament, including a member of the U.S. team for the World Kendo Championship, Chinen, who judged during Saturday's team tournament. He's 4-dan and a jodan player to boot...needless to say, it was a slaughter. I didn't get to watch him play until the semifinals though because he was on court A. Eva and I were on court B, helping keep track of matches, and the star of our court would have to be Tamura, the UCSD A fukusho, who is also a member of the U.S. team and plays the most gorgeous kendo ever. Seriously, each point she scores is like a work of art. She had to play several really long matches consecutively--they all went into overtime--but she made it to the final round. So awesome! Apparently, she's only a sophomore?! She was also on the winning team last year, and I remember being really impressed by her then too, but after watching her play for twenty minutes, only then to play another ten minute match and win that too...downright incredible. Chinen lost to the Soka taisho, who then went on to win the tournament.
What else? Oh yes,
tryogeru and ayatsujik visited on Saturday. ^_^ At one point, while I was waiting for my next match, we were standing on the sidelines when Tahara-sensei came up to me and started speaking in Japanese, despite my utter lack of knowledge of the language. Heh. Tahara-sensei is...what's a good way to describe him? Living incarnation of Kuwabara from Hikaru no Go, except without a malicious streak, I suppose. He would keep talking to all of us in Japanese, regardless of whether we understood him or not, leaving us totally mystified while he went off smiling and laughing. He came to our practice on Friday and had us sit in seiretsu for some incredibly painful length of time while he went on a lecture about how kendo begins even in seiza. I don't think he realized how unused we are to kneeling, but we were all in pain after the first minute. Also, he would speak on and on, while Jeff helplessly waited for a chance to translate, and would cut in before Jeff finished translating as well. One of those grandfathers who really like to talk. That being said, he was quite genial and much friendlier than any of the other shimpancho who came before. He sent this hilarious email in broken English that said what a great time he had at "Harbart". ^_^ I had a chance to go up against him in jigeiko at the Friday practice...it's so true what the senpai say about playing hachidan sensei: all they do is twitch and barely move, but they still slaughter you. It's like...fighting against water; it just flows around you, and there's no way you can win against it. Pretty cool.I've realized that the mental dimension of my kendo is still very basic--I don't really know how to take center, only to strike when it's given to me. The physical dimension needs work too, but I think my coordination really has improved by some strange miracle this past year. I need stamina and speed, but at least my fumikomi doesn't land a full second before my strike does...well, it still happens in practice but much less often. I think this summer Gasshuku should come at exactly the right time for improving my kendo...that is, if I survive it. >_<
I've done no homework all weekend. This is probably not a good sign. Have been writing drabbles to procrastinate...some of them are quite terrible though and will need rewriting.
Yours &c.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 03:52 pm (UTC)hehe, yes, jesse and alex are vastly helpful, and both excellent teachers. and both the people who taught me how to hold a shinai. :D <3<3
also, y'all did so gooood! <3
i heard fantastic things...next year will be even better. i cannot wait for you guys to go to a gasshuku. you're tryina go, right? gonna be SO SO good for you :D
and god, some of those final round matches were SO good. nothing better than awesome kendo matches right in front of you. and also, tahara sensei is the coolest insane guy i know. seriously, off his rocker but awesome.
WOOOO! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 11:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 07:01 pm (UTC)If it makes you feel better, I didn't do much over the weekend either, except realize the depth of my Star Trek obsession. >_>
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 11:09 pm (UTC)Ah procrastination, how it gets the better of us every time. I don't regret watching Kizuna though. Nor do I regret watching all those Daily Show clips yesterday night either.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-01 11:22 pm (UTC)Did you watch the video when Stephen Colbert was doing that white house dinner thing? Oh man, I was dying with laughter. Couldn't believe it was real, but it was!!