Charlie
11th February 2003, 12:14 AM
Well, as some of you know, the annual Detroit seminar/tournament was last weekend. The Miyazaki brothers were supposed to come, but due to their duties as policemen and heightened security at naval and air force bases due to terrorist concerns, they were not able to travel at this time.
But we had a good seminar, anyways, and Tagawa-sensei of Detroit explained that, as he joked, "I bought the tickets - and the tickets are good for a year!" So they will try to bring the brothers again within a year. Also, the Miyazakis sent a letter apologizing for not being able to come and wishing us the best in our kendo.
So the seminar was good anyway. Top senseis from all over the midwest were there. What they did was first we watched, as a group, volumes one and two of the kendo fundamentals videos. Then we split into three groups, mudansha, shodan-nidan and sandan and up. The beginners worked on footwork and suburi (Jerry? Help me out here) with Ebihara-sensei from New York and some others. I was in the shodan-nidan group; we worked with Ariga-sensei of e-bogu; he said that we would soon be assisting with teaching if we hadn't already, and so we went over some basics (more on this later) basically stressing that even if we had developed individual tics to our kamae, there was still a proper way of doing it, and we should work hard not to pass our bad habits on to beginners. So it was a lot of kamae and waza adjustment (with a lot of tsuki work, which was waaaay cool). Also there were some other great senseis. The sandans worked with Tagawa-sensei and some others whose names I didn't catch - they were being taught about teaching. If anyone was in that group, please post your thoughts. All I know is I heard a lot of action and "If you can't do it, you can't teach it!"
After the seminar we drank, et, and hobnobbed at a microbrew/restaurant down the street.
The tournament was good - it was huge, and it ran like clockwork! A big tournament like that can easily stretch into something that begins at 9:00 and ends at 9:00, but this one was scheduled to end at 6:00 and ended instead at 7:00 - my hat's off to everyone that helped make it happen! A tournament that size, if it runs an hour over time, hey, cool. I think there were 30-some clubs and over 200 participants. Good time. I personally had a good day, I won two matches and lost my third in a well-fought encho and got a lot of food for thought from some of my sensei/sempai/peers who watched my matches. (If a certain player from Rocky Mountain is reading this - dude, I'm gonna git you next time!) Teams, HA! Detroit A, which took third place, blew us out, which is cool, since Detroit A is all of our sensei and sempai!
M. Raymond from Ontario was there so we got to see nito again and, as usual, it was neato! Sugawara of Indiana was there, a great, great jodan player. Lots of other good players were there, too, so watching was just as instructive as playing, especially in the sandan-and-up division and teams.
A great weekend, I feel like my kendo is energized. If you were there, sound off, if not, I look forward to crossing swords with you some day.
But we had a good seminar, anyways, and Tagawa-sensei of Detroit explained that, as he joked, "I bought the tickets - and the tickets are good for a year!" So they will try to bring the brothers again within a year. Also, the Miyazakis sent a letter apologizing for not being able to come and wishing us the best in our kendo.
So the seminar was good anyway. Top senseis from all over the midwest were there. What they did was first we watched, as a group, volumes one and two of the kendo fundamentals videos. Then we split into three groups, mudansha, shodan-nidan and sandan and up. The beginners worked on footwork and suburi (Jerry? Help me out here) with Ebihara-sensei from New York and some others. I was in the shodan-nidan group; we worked with Ariga-sensei of e-bogu; he said that we would soon be assisting with teaching if we hadn't already, and so we went over some basics (more on this later) basically stressing that even if we had developed individual tics to our kamae, there was still a proper way of doing it, and we should work hard not to pass our bad habits on to beginners. So it was a lot of kamae and waza adjustment (with a lot of tsuki work, which was waaaay cool). Also there were some other great senseis. The sandans worked with Tagawa-sensei and some others whose names I didn't catch - they were being taught about teaching. If anyone was in that group, please post your thoughts. All I know is I heard a lot of action and "If you can't do it, you can't teach it!"
After the seminar we drank, et, and hobnobbed at a microbrew/restaurant down the street.
The tournament was good - it was huge, and it ran like clockwork! A big tournament like that can easily stretch into something that begins at 9:00 and ends at 9:00, but this one was scheduled to end at 6:00 and ended instead at 7:00 - my hat's off to everyone that helped make it happen! A tournament that size, if it runs an hour over time, hey, cool. I think there were 30-some clubs and over 200 participants. Good time. I personally had a good day, I won two matches and lost my third in a well-fought encho and got a lot of food for thought from some of my sensei/sempai/peers who watched my matches. (If a certain player from Rocky Mountain is reading this - dude, I'm gonna git you next time!) Teams, HA! Detroit A, which took third place, blew us out, which is cool, since Detroit A is all of our sensei and sempai!
M. Raymond from Ontario was there so we got to see nito again and, as usual, it was neato! Sugawara of Indiana was there, a great, great jodan player. Lots of other good players were there, too, so watching was just as instructive as playing, especially in the sandan-and-up division and teams.
A great weekend, I feel like my kendo is energized. If you were there, sound off, if not, I look forward to crossing swords with you some day.