First tournament
Apr. 19th, 2004 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
I was originally going to save tournament talk until after I finished my draft, but currently I'm miles behind in work and haven't even started the essay yet, so I decided I might as well take a break and update you all (whether you want to hear it or not) on the tournament this past weekend.
So yes, the Shoryuhai (means "rising dragon", Tryo-chan, if that helps you remember how to spell it) went amazingly well. We had twenty-one teams from fifteen schools, including two incredibly good teams from UCLA and UCSD, who took first and second place respectively in the team competition. It was their first time at our tournament, and they pretty much swept it: their team members also took second and third place in the individuals. I hosted the two girls on the UCSD team, and apparently they've all been playing kendo since they were in elementary or middle school. Of course, even if they didn't tell me that, I would have guessed it anyway because I watched them play and they were excellent. Really fast and great form, although there were some weird quirks--probably just because I'm ignorant and haven't seen that many shiai before.
And, of course, a huge gaggle of Koreans, including a bunch of "kendo groupies" from Montclair State, SUNY Stony Brook, Virginia Tech and to a lesser extent Cornell, who all seemed to know each other to varying degrees (they were cheering each other on by name, even when they were from different schools) and kept sniping on about the Harvard A team during the quarterfinal match. In Korean. When I was sitting next to them, listening to every word they were saying and writhing in anger. Tryo-chan can attest to this. Never before have I understood so well why certain Korean-Americans like to say that they hate Koreans--at that moment I could have said the same. Ugh, stupid orange-haired, 1.5-generation, "Flushing"-type, fresh-off-the-boat idiots (I know I'm stereotyping, but they fit the stereotypes), who are most likely bitter about not getting into a good college (I mean, who's ever heard of Montclair?). I guess I wouldn't have been so bitter if they hadn't been so dismissive of the A team. They were indignant whenever Harvard scored a point, and when we lost that quarterfinal match, they were so smug about it (even though they obviously hadn't made it to the quarterfinals themselves), saying "그렇지, 그렇지, 버지냐 택이 이길 수 밖에..." Grrr. Plus, they said the shushin looked like a monkey, complained that Eugenia (one of our sandan shimpan who is a freshman at BU) didn't look qualified because she was a girl and seemed too young, got mad when Kofi had to change his splintered bamboo shinai for a carbon (I think the general undertone was that we were spoiled brats who had expensive equipment and not much else), and were annoyed because our club was cheering especially loudly for our team (even though they of course threw a huge fuss whenever one of the keomdo teams scored). Urgh. I wanted to choke them or at least tell them to shut up themselves, incompetent little hypocrites.
C team, i.e. "the newbie freshmen" team, did not score a point throughout the entire team competition. We were also all eliminated in the first preliminary round of the individuals competition. Sad, I suppose, but we did learn a lot and were improving towards the end...we just ended up going against the top teams at that point and had no hope anyway. I fell three times. >_> But it was pretty fun, in its own way, and shiai isn't half as exhausting as practice is, so I wasn't as tired as I thought I'd be. (Although I still fell immediately asleep once I got back to my room that night.) The senpaitachi and Satoshi-san (the yondan shimpan with whom Tryogeru is now apparently infatuated, for some odd, indiscernible reason) all dropped by occasionally to watch and gave us good advice on shiai strategy. I need to focus more on movement and be more forceful, which seemed to be the general gist of what everyone was telling me. I hope I'll have a chance to run regularly over the summer and build up some stamina and speed because honestly that's the only advantage I'll have, being short and lightweight.
During the individuals, I got eliminated quickly, so I spent most of the day running around and putting tags on people. I really should learn hanja or kanji--I missed some people simply because they didn't have English names on their zekken. The individuals were really aggressive and exciting, and the later matches kept going into overtime because the opponents were so closely matched. There came a point where it really did look like action-movie swordwork. Very cool. We were really nervous during registration because we expected a lot of people to drop out, but they didn't. Still, we managed somehow to avoid the administrative nightmare and figure it all out, thanks to the bracketing program. We also made some money from selling zekken, which makes me feel smug and satisfied.
Oh, and I nearly forgot: Tryo-chan, you missed the oh-so-cool kata demonstration between Kawasaki and Tamai-sensei. They used real katana and kodachi, which made it all the more exciting. I held my breath throughout the entire demonstration. I wish someone took a photo of that--it would be awesome to put it up on the site.
All right, enough kendo talk. Back to work. I've decided not to post further in LJ until my next chemistry midterm, so you won't be seeing me on your friends page for a while. On the other hand, I will be reading your entries and commenting, so I won't have completely disappeared. ^_~
...Tari
I was originally going to save tournament talk until after I finished my draft, but currently I'm miles behind in work and haven't even started the essay yet, so I decided I might as well take a break and update you all (whether you want to hear it or not) on the tournament this past weekend.
So yes, the Shoryuhai (means "rising dragon", Tryo-chan, if that helps you remember how to spell it) went amazingly well. We had twenty-one teams from fifteen schools, including two incredibly good teams from UCLA and UCSD, who took first and second place respectively in the team competition. It was their first time at our tournament, and they pretty much swept it: their team members also took second and third place in the individuals. I hosted the two girls on the UCSD team, and apparently they've all been playing kendo since they were in elementary or middle school. Of course, even if they didn't tell me that, I would have guessed it anyway because I watched them play and they were excellent. Really fast and great form, although there were some weird quirks--probably just because I'm ignorant and haven't seen that many shiai before.
And, of course, a huge gaggle of Koreans, including a bunch of "kendo groupies" from Montclair State, SUNY Stony Brook, Virginia Tech and to a lesser extent Cornell, who all seemed to know each other to varying degrees (they were cheering each other on by name, even when they were from different schools) and kept sniping on about the Harvard A team during the quarterfinal match. In Korean. When I was sitting next to them, listening to every word they were saying and writhing in anger. Tryo-chan can attest to this. Never before have I understood so well why certain Korean-Americans like to say that they hate Koreans--at that moment I could have said the same. Ugh, stupid orange-haired, 1.5-generation, "Flushing"-type, fresh-off-the-boat idiots (I know I'm stereotyping, but they fit the stereotypes), who are most likely bitter about not getting into a good college (I mean, who's ever heard of Montclair?). I guess I wouldn't have been so bitter if they hadn't been so dismissive of the A team. They were indignant whenever Harvard scored a point, and when we lost that quarterfinal match, they were so smug about it (even though they obviously hadn't made it to the quarterfinals themselves), saying "그렇지, 그렇지, 버지냐 택이 이길 수 밖에..." Grrr. Plus, they said the shushin looked like a monkey, complained that Eugenia (one of our sandan shimpan who is a freshman at BU) didn't look qualified because she was a girl and seemed too young, got mad when Kofi had to change his splintered bamboo shinai for a carbon (I think the general undertone was that we were spoiled brats who had expensive equipment and not much else), and were annoyed because our club was cheering especially loudly for our team (even though they of course threw a huge fuss whenever one of the keomdo teams scored). Urgh. I wanted to choke them or at least tell them to shut up themselves, incompetent little hypocrites.
C team, i.e. "the newbie freshmen" team, did not score a point throughout the entire team competition. We were also all eliminated in the first preliminary round of the individuals competition. Sad, I suppose, but we did learn a lot and were improving towards the end...we just ended up going against the top teams at that point and had no hope anyway. I fell three times. >_> But it was pretty fun, in its own way, and shiai isn't half as exhausting as practice is, so I wasn't as tired as I thought I'd be. (Although I still fell immediately asleep once I got back to my room that night.) The senpaitachi and Satoshi-san (the yondan shimpan with whom Tryogeru is now apparently infatuated, for some odd, indiscernible reason) all dropped by occasionally to watch and gave us good advice on shiai strategy. I need to focus more on movement and be more forceful, which seemed to be the general gist of what everyone was telling me. I hope I'll have a chance to run regularly over the summer and build up some stamina and speed because honestly that's the only advantage I'll have, being short and lightweight.
During the individuals, I got eliminated quickly, so I spent most of the day running around and putting tags on people. I really should learn hanja or kanji--I missed some people simply because they didn't have English names on their zekken. The individuals were really aggressive and exciting, and the later matches kept going into overtime because the opponents were so closely matched. There came a point where it really did look like action-movie swordwork. Very cool. We were really nervous during registration because we expected a lot of people to drop out, but they didn't. Still, we managed somehow to avoid the administrative nightmare and figure it all out, thanks to the bracketing program. We also made some money from selling zekken, which makes me feel smug and satisfied.
Oh, and I nearly forgot: Tryo-chan, you missed the oh-so-cool kata demonstration between Kawasaki and Tamai-sensei. They used real katana and kodachi, which made it all the more exciting. I held my breath throughout the entire demonstration. I wish someone took a photo of that--it would be awesome to put it up on the site.
All right, enough kendo talk. Back to work. I've decided not to post further in LJ until my next chemistry midterm, so you won't be seeing me on your friends page for a while. On the other hand, I will be reading your entries and commenting, so I won't have completely disappeared. ^_~
...Tari
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-20 06:28 am (UTC)Good luck on your mid-terms - and give a sign of life now and then, OK? *hugs*
C'ya! (^_^)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-20 09:24 pm (UTC)Hm...a better way to put it...they're exactly like the kids at my church who disliked me because I got into a good high school (and later a good college), while they didn't.
Oh, and that wasn't, er, "cussing". The sentence I wrote in hangeul just translates to, "Of course Virginia Tech would win..." but it sounded a lot more self-satisfied in the original Korean. Sorry to disappoint. ^_^;;
And yeah, I had a great time. ^_______^ And don't worry, I'll still be leaving comments here and there on LJ, just not writing any posts, that's all.
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-20 03:34 pm (UTC)What do you mean "for some odd, indiscernible reason"? Mr. CuteManPerson is Mr. CuteManPerson. He's adoreable and reminds me of an anime character. What more reasons do you want?
Aww, I missed him talk about stuff I probably won't understand...::sniff:: T_T
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-20 08:45 pm (UTC)Plus, the adjective "adorable" is so not appropriate after you've seen him in bogu. I mean, he's an awfully nice guy and all, but definitely not "adorable".
Of course, I'm not one to speak. Meh, I'll just sit over here with my crush on semifictional dead people who've been rotting in the ground for several hundred years...^_^
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-21 12:52 pm (UTC)Are you kidding? Old? Ian McKellen is old. Zhu GeLiang is old(XP). Someone like Mr.CuteManPerson isn't old. He isn't even forty, is he? Still young!
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-21 02:30 pm (UTC)Well, admittedly the moment when I really fell in love was when he was doing some mystical Taoist thing and they described him as standing with his long hair loose and his eyebrows like the sweep of a crane's wing and calling on the winds (oy, my parallelism has gone down the drain)...And he probably was like thirty-something by that time. ;_; But he didn't LOOK thirty in my mind! >_<
Anyway. You know I get kinda squicked by large age differences--and my idea of a large age difference is anything 2+ years.
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-20 06:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-20 09:26 pm (UTC)Just wait until you start keiko--getting hit repeatedly brings out the aggressive side in you. ^_~ ::would like to hear oneechan kiai::
We haven't done any kata yet; just not our club's style, apparently. But I hope one day we'll get to learn some forms because it looked really awesome.
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-21 12:23 pm (UTC)I like livejournals. Should keep one myself, ne? ^_^
See ya!
-WW
(1st floor..)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-21 02:26 pm (UTC)...Tari