Chris

I’m happy to report that I participated to the 17th annual Greater Northeastern United States Kendo Federation in Cleveland, Ohio last week-end. It was my first official participation in a federation tournament. I got sick during the week leading to it so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to make a good showing or even compete at some point. Fortunately, I got sufficiently over my cold to be in reasonable condition to compete. I was also supposed to test for ikkyu (1st kyu) on Sunday.

I participated in both individual and team competitions. The individual tournament was pretty interesting, though it took me quite a bit of time before seeing any action. I was in the mudansha division (see the wikipedia link above for more information, which I actually edited to include information on mudanshas ) which had the greatest number of participants. Moreover, I was at the bottom of my bracket so it took some time to get to my matches. The first matches were round-robin matches followed by direct elimination matches if you qualified as best or second-best of your round-robin. The format for the matches was pretty standard: 3-minute match, first competitor to reach 2 points wins, 2-minute encho (sudden death ippon shobu (1-point match)) in case of equality at the end of regular time, followed by hantei (decision) if the competitors are still tied.

I’m happy to report that I convincingly won my round-robin matches by a score of 2-0 each against an unranked opponent and a nikyu (as I was) opponent. It all went pretty fast compared to the rather longish wait preceding the matches, especially considering the fact that I didn’t get to rest between the matches. With these two victories, I qualified for the next part of the tournament and got to rest a little (while another match took place).

The next match was a lot more eventful than the previous one and took quite a long time. I was opposed to an ikkyu kendoka (hence higher ranked than I was and the highest rank you can be and still be a mudansha). Neither of us managed to score a point before the first (of many) interruption happened: I broke my shinai (which I tend to do more often than I’d like to: I had bought that shinai for the competition and had not used it before, though I bought it from my sensei who had used it a couple of times). When such an incident happens, the match is interrupted until the competitor can get another shinai. I got my other (and last) shinai and the match restarted… but not for long: my men (helmet) got ripped from my head due to rather vigorous contact with my opponent… The match was then interrupted again so that I could re-put my helmet correctly. I hastily put it back on and the match resumed. After a while, during which neither of us scored, my opponent broke his shinai as well. We got back on track and fought till we reached the end of regulation time, still tied at 0-0. We thus entered sudden-death time. I must have had put my helmet back on in too much of a hurry and not tied it well because I lost it again after some time in prolongation time. I was rather embarrassed that it happened especially since a table judge decided to come a tie it up for me so that it wouldn’t be removed again… The match resumed once again until my opponent’s helmet came off! He put it back on and we went on with the match. I guess the judge didn’t do a good job of tying my helmet since I lost it once more, and another judge came and tied it for me. At this point, my helmet was so tightly tied that it was quite painful, but I wasn’t about to complain, embarrassed enough by the multiple interruptions.

It turned out to be the last interruption: not long after the match resumed, my opponent scored a point. In kendo, the way points are attributed is rather subjective since it takes several different parameters into account, parameters which are difficult to judge accurately such as timing, distance, spirit and “vigilance” (zanshin). Moreover, everything happens really fast. For these reasons, three judges watch the match and decide how/when points are attributed. For a point to be effectively scored, two out of the three judges must agree that a point was scored by one of the competitors. My opponent and I had been pretty evenly matched, and we were again on that last point since we launched a simultaneous, last attack which resulted in two judges giving him a point while the last one gave me the point. It’s always disappointing to lose a match when you had a chance to win but the only I regret was the number of interruptions which made it quite difficult to keep a high-level of intensity and rhythm. All in all, I’m pretty happy with my performance: I won matches and lost only one point (though obviously it was a very decisive one).

As for the team tournament, the results were quite different. Our team was composed of low-ranking kendokas: apart from our taisho (captain) who was sandan (3rd dan), I was the highest ranked. The luck of the draw decided that we would go against the team one of our sister dojo from New York, which comprised kendokas who were all at least yondan (4th dan) if I am not mistaken, some of them being even former members of the US kendo team. It, then, was not really a surprise that we ended up being utterly defeated. Surprisingly, though, this strong team didn’t win the tournament: they were defeated by in finals by a Canadian team which really impressed a lot of people by their skills and the way they rather easily defeated the Shidogakuin NY team.

Finally, to conclude this already long post, I’m happy to report that I successfully passed the rank of ikkyu. I noticed once again that the quality of examinees’ katas was disappointing: it really seems like most people only work on their kendo at the expense of katas that are only practiced a couple of times before promotion tests…

All in all, a very, albeit tiring, experience, one that left me feeling a bit more confident about my kendo but also very much aware of the fact that I am still at the beginning of the path and that much is still to be learned.