World Kendo Championship

[sminki]

Which country do you think will win the team competition of this year's World Championships?

[KhawMengLee]

MALAYSIA!!!

why? Cuz Malaysia Boleh!!!!!:D

[Phlebas]

CANADA! Go T.A.!

[AlexM]

Ummmmmm.............. Japan (not exactly an original choice)

Maybe Korea (they came close last time). I'll be cheering for France (sentimental favorite) and Korea (for no other reason than I'd really like to see Japan un-seated). Oh, and I'll also be cheering for whoever the biggest underdog is. Are British bookmakers laying odds on this or what?

I'm actually not sure if Canada will do well this year. We'll see.

[bronxjragon]

I think Senegal will win.

[don_lubo]

Japan will win the first and the second place in the team competition. The right question is "Who will win the third place?"

[Sinta]

.....a far away wish but... maybe Switzerland?

*ducks the tomatos*

....Go Oskar Kimura!!!!!! *hides*

[stevemcgee99]

Good 'ol USA. Hey, we gotta win something this year! Seriously, though.

[KhawMengLee]

Well, Mr McGee, I don't support the war but what I do support is good spirit, courage and sportsmanship:D So USA good luck! And good luck to all competing, especially the underdawgs;)!!!

KI KEN TAI ICHI!!!

[titus]

Four people on Team Canada this year are from my current club, hope they do well.

[Inouye02]

Team California, U.S.A

[Tako-kun]

Titus, are you with the VKC?

[supernils]

As allways Sweden will have the moral victory.

[KATSUJIN]

hmmm...difficult to say actually....alot of countries of improved quite alot....
and the koreans r serious competitors for the japanese....but i still think the japanese will win again....

[JSchmidt]

"Are British bookmakers laying odds on this or what?"

British bookmakers will give you odds for anything.

Jakob

[sminki]

haha. team california...

[Chusan]

Here`s my plan:
I`ll bring some bottles of Schnaps and Brandy with me to Glasgow and make anyone complelety drunk who looks somewhat Japanese. So there will be kinda chance for other teams ... :dead:

[KhawMengLee]

no no no...we Malaysians will give our team Durians and Petai to eat before the match so their kiai will be acompanied by a faul burp which will KO the opponent...heh

note: if you don't know what a durian is ask Hyaku or any other South East Asian...heehee secret weapon

[titus]

Why does evreyone think durians are so bad? I think they smell strong, but not that "bad" really.

How about "stinky tofu" instead?

[sminki]

remember that the japanese and koreans have their respective weapons... natto and kimchi... both of which i love, by the way.

[aru-ma]

Too bad there's no Indonesian Kendo team in the WKC or else it'd be Durian, petai and jengkol all together, I cant even stand the smell of one:D
Personaly I dont like Durian mainly because of the taste and smell but it seems the majority of Indonesian actually likes it.

[Phlebas]

I spent two years in Kuala Lumpur and I liked Durian, once I got past the smell. I got used to it, I guess! Rambutan (sp?) was my favourite though... unless you count starfruit! Ah memories... my mother used to put Durian in the trunk of my father's car in the morning, so by the time he drove home in the afternoon the smell would be overpowering. Good thing he had a great sense of humour! : )

[KhawMengLee]

Why does evreyone think durians are so bad? I think they smell strong, but not that "bad" really.

Ho!ho!ho! Titus mate, durians are great...its just being on the recieving end of a durian burp or petai burp(or fart) which will kill ya;) :D


I spent two years in Kuala Lumpur and I liked Durian, once I got past the smell. I got used to it, I guess! Rambutan (sp?) was my favourite though... unless you count starfruit! Ah memories... my mother used to put Durian in the trunk of my father's car in the morning, so by the time he drove home in the afternoon the smell would be overpowering. Good thing he had a great sense of humour! : )

mmmm...rambutan....buddy, did ya try Mangosteen, you know the round purple fruit with the white flesh inside....mmmm

there was this incident recently where this guy wrapped up some durians in his bag and flew to Australia. The plane was grounded when Authorities noticed a funny smell...heh, they kinda panicked.


Personaly I dont like Durian mainly because of the taste and smell but it seems the majority of Indonesian actually likes it.

yeah, but once you get used to it, it's all goooood:D Its a blessing if you are lost in the jungle and find a durian tree....then again its torture if you dont have a knife to open it.;) :p

[Phlebas]

"...did ya try Mangosteen, you know the round purple fruit with the white flesh inside....mmmm" -KhawMengLee

Now I'm gonna ask you to send me one! I never tried that fruit! That'll teach you to tease fruit lovers who live in fruit-challenged countries! We need greenhouses to grow anything more exotic than apples in Canada for chrissakes. : (

[KhawMengLee]

it looks like this:

http://www.proscitech.com.au/trop/display/mangoste.htm

I'd send 'em over but I think your customs officers would have a field day with them in quarantine...or probably eat them....

heh, one of my friends invited some of his uni mates from sydney over to malaysia. We took a trip to penang and went out for some durians...2 of them refused but one was adventurous and tried them...unfortunately we neglected to tell him of the seed and he took a rather large hearty bite followed by a lot of spitting...

[sminki]

don lubo,

for your information, one team enters from one country. either that or japan has never won first and second place in team competition. on the individual side, they certainly have won both first and second place.

[Tenken]

More likely JAPAN will win. because this is their job. not like other countries, we just do kendo as a hobby. For any of the other countries to win, they must practice all day for 7 days a week.

[misterkurukuru]

I only know of two guys on the us team that can do any damage Chinen and Itokazu. The other people just are not that good. HEy where the heck is Hawaii??? they are pretty darn good!! I like korea though, becasue Japan is not bringing out any of thier big guns for the tournament and korea is always tuff.

[Stan]

Team Canada all the way! I think we have a strong team provided they all are healthy...I think a few were injured in the Banff training Camp. Team Canada gave Japan a scare the last time in the semi-finals, so why not beat them this time. BTW, I have watched the final match between TA and the Japanese Taisho 1000 times (in both slow and quick times)and I still beleive that Taro got that kaishi-DO. We will prevail this year...GO TEAM CANADA!

[alexpollijr]

About Taro Ariga's Kaeshi Do, I was thinking the same thing. From all I could see, it was a very good blow, I don't know why Eiga's one-handed do's were all valid and that one from Canada was not.


But much will depend on who faces who and at which stage. Korea had a very, very strong team and they're probably even better now, since differently from Brazil and Canada, Japan and Korea have professionals on their teams.

[Stan]

Yeah Korea and Japan have guys who's job is kendo but even pros make mistakes. If the Canada and/or Brazil are in the Gods' favour on that day we might be able to take advantage of their mistakes. Also, Murao Sensei (Team Canada Coach) is very clever at planning a Team order...He is a scheemer! Apparently in the "Worlds" you need to only present a list of the Team members not the order so one can alter the order to suit one's needs. That is Murao Sensei's forte.

[mingshi]

Originally posted by Stan
Apparently in the "Worlds" you need to only present a list of the Team members not the order so one can alter the order to suit one's needs.

Right... don't tell me your trick is to use your worst people against your opponents' strongest, and save your best to win the rest???

:D

[Stan]

Originally posted by mingshi


Right... don't tell me your trick is to use your worst people against your opponents' strongest, and save your best to win the rest???

:D
That is a little basic and we are talking of the "World Championships" so to use the word "worst", I do not think it applies here. Actually, one might try to match the skills of various players to their opponent. Remember a Team can win with one point. So if you can tie up all the other players and get only one point you win.

[sminki]

kukuru,

you must really like itokazu and chinen. can't seem to stop talking about them. i'd like to have a chance to visit cali and see for myself one of these days.

btw, who's on the U.S. team this year? do you know?

[Neil Gendzwill]

Murao-sensei knows a lot about competition and especially team strategy. He's been around the world championships as competitor and coach since 1973 I think.

[moocow65]

Team USA
hosokawa
minami
matsuda
yoshimura bros
yang bros
chinen
itokazu

women
takada
farmer
mikuni
marsten
sakae
kikunaga
takasaki
abe (but she tore her achilles)
i think that's all of them

[sminki]

Has there been a westerner on the U.S. team other than Mark Grivas sensei? Does anyone know?

[AlexM]

I think Canada COULD make the finals.... but only if they're not in Korea's pool.

My hunch is that the Canadians would get beaten very badly by the Korean team (much worse than if they faced the Japanese, against whom they have a chance at least). Unless of course the Korean team got worse since the last time (we're talking about a team that beat Brazil 10-0, beat the US too but I don't know how badly).

If Canada is in Japan's pool then they have a better chance of making it to the finals (not much of a chance but at least it's not nothing).... where they would probably be crushed by the Koreans.

But then again.... Murao-sensei is a sneaky one and maybe he's planned for this eventuality.

But then again again.... it's been 3 years since the last world's, things change.

[sminki]

I personally think that this year's Korean team is better than the one which competed in California. They have put a lot of training and effort into preparing for Glascow. Having said that, I guess you just can't tell about the outcome of these things...

[dorkusxmaximus]

There are a lot of strong people on the US team this year, so I think they have a really good chance to win.

[dorkusxmaximus]

of winning*

[Inouye02]

isn't Rika Uto Sensei still on the womens team ?

[misterkurukuru]

If you get a chance to practice with all the us team members, or face them in shiai (like i do) then you would see who the strongest people are. I practiced with grivas before, he was okay, stronger then most people, but it was just when he won us championships in Cleveland( thats where the tournament was...yes the US championships were HELD in ohio...idiot) i dunno he was okay... if that was his strongets (which i dont think it was)..hmm...he was good i guess..nothing much else to say..oh wait he did chuck is men infront of the judges!

[sminki]

what are you saying that he did? your sentences are not making sense to me.

and not that I live in Ohio, but what's wrong with having the U.S. championships in Ohio?

[moocow65]

i talked to murakami sensei the other day. i asked him who was gonna replace abe. he said takasaki. they discussed it at the auskf meeting this past saturday. oh yeah, in kyoto, the coach or managaer or SOMEONE hand-picked these two guys to be on the US men's team. one was joshua carroll, and the other one was, i think some person who helped make this site. anyways, those were the two western people other than grivas to be on the team. who knows, maybe they had some japanese or something in them.

[moocow65]

oh yeah, i don't think mr.kurukuru has anything against cleveland. i had a great time in cleveland during the nationals. hahah. it's just that there's someone in this forum that pissed him off about tournaments and other stuff and cleveland was brought up and yea whateva!
personally, i think if japan and korea wound up in the same bracket, the US team might have a chance to win something, but that will never happen. the US lost to Korea 3-0, but that was without their big guns except for yang, jin-seouk. meh, i think japan's better than korea. all japan has to do is send out the miyazaki bros, ishida, takahashi, and........ hmmm.... maybe eiga or iwasa and korea is toast. but most of those guys don't compete in the world's anymore.

[sminki]

I am 90% sure that Miyazaki bros., the Ishida bros. will not be competing at the WKC. They're becoming a bit senior for things like that. A few months ago, some prospective candidates of the Japanese national team visited a Korean tourney to check out their competition. The prospective candidates included Sato Mitsunobu (of Miyagi), Sato Hiromitsu (of Osaka), Eiga Naoki and Tachibana. I don't think it'll be as easy as "toast" that Japanese will beat the Koreans although, of course, Japan is a heavy favorite to take the title.

[misterkurukuru]

I loved celveland! We had the best bento there!!!!! the cleveland thing was for someone that was laughing at me because i won second place at a tournament in cleveland, and they did bother to read that the city hosted the US championships. We had our tournament a cleveland state and our hotel was down the street from the rock n roll hall of fame! ceveland rocked!

[Iviro]

I am going to the tournament there April 12th, is anyone else going??

[John W]

I think New Zealand have a good chance of taking the top spot. GO NZ!!!

By the way.... what is the prize?? We have the soccer World Cup, the NHL Stanley cup, the America's cup ( NZ used to have that one by the way)..... Of course there are medals but is there some sort of trophy or something?? Like a men made out of gold :confused:

Also any inside info on where the next World Kendo Champs are going to be held after Glasgow 2003??

[Phlebas]

John W - "Also any inside info on where the next World Kendo Champs are going to be held after Glasgow 2003??"

I too would like to know who the contenders are for the next WKC -- I am going to miss this one for sure. I don't intend to miss the next one but I don't know how early the Federation makes its list of possible venues... if anyone knows please post!

[Iviro]

Manager of Team Canada told me Taiwan.

[JSchmidt]

I believe the rotation order is Asia, US, Europe, so Taiwan sounds about right.

Jakob

[hammock]

i dont know how long this link will work for...

but here is a *very* recent clip(March 22-23, 2003) of two guys on the Korean National Team competing at the WKC this summer.

Sang Sup Park vs. Man Suk Choi (http://www.skykumdo.com/kum/popup_20030305/11sbs_park.html)

Sang Sup Park won the big SBS national Kumdo championship a couple months ago, the one where the Japanese team would have most likely have been.

[MaxPayneWayne]

maxpaynewayne has intercepted the zen nippon kendo renmei and knows who will be on team japan.
now, maxpaynewayne says that there may be a chance that some other country besides japan may win the team competition, although with the last 3 all japan champs on the team, it does not seem very likely. AND i believe their coach is the ultimate, awesome, undisputed best hachidan in the entire universe takahashi-occhan-kyukoku coach-sensei from kyoto fukei. yeah, i'm pretty sure it's him. i don't know of any other hachidan takahashi from kyoto. but even with all this, there's probably a .0001% chance that the japan team might lose.
now on to the women. FAT CHANCE. there is no way any team can beat the japan women's team. i don't think any men's team could beat them. hahah. first of all, they have this college girl on the team, the only college person on the team by the way. i practiced with her like 5 years ago at her highschool on the little island of okinawa, and saw her again at the college national championships. she's good, and tall, pretty much like the rest of the team. then they have the college national champ who graduated, she was the all japan champ too. they also have asahina, horiguchi, arima, and others. AND they also have this one person, i forgot her name, but i think she's mr.kurukuru's long lost cousin or something. she's really strong too. i don't think any women's team could touch this team, but maxpaynewayne could be wrong. i also said all this to curse the japan team to make them think they will win 100% and become over-confident. let's hope it works.

[M.K. Kawai]

I just gotta say that I support the U.S. Team all the way.

BTW, I heard through the grapevine that there is some controversy on the women's team. Anyone know what's up with that? It seems people are being tight lipped about it.

MKK

[Kenshi]

Thats funny, I heard Taiwan was the next place at the same time I heard Glasgow was the next (current) one.... that was in 1999!

[titus]

with team selections, in terms of who is allowed to join? I'm curious whether you have to practice in that country to join the team. For example, in Canada, could someone be a Canadian citizen, but never go to practice in Canada (say they're abroad at school or work at practice at dojos there) and then just come to the nationals and get first place and be on Team Canada?

I would think so, because this would assure having the best possible people on the team. Or are they looking for commitment to Canadian dojos as well?

Just curious.

[AlexM]

Titus,

All you have to be is a citizen I think. Not a permanent resident. Taro Ariga is on Team Canada but works (and I'm assuming lives) in Los Angeles. I think he's actually travelled a lot. He competes as a Canadian despite living abroad.

Hammock,

Do you have any tips for getting that movie to work well. I typically get fluid sound but the screen actually shows "still shots" of the action (this is a major problem with kumdovj too).

[hammock]

sorry.. that video wont work for most of you because of the distance from Korea. it streams well here, but my friends from north america and europe are having trouble seeing it as well.

[Neil Gendzwill]

The only requirement is citizenship as far as the IKF is concerned I think. As has already been pointed out, Ariga-sensei lives in LA but plays for Canada. For the 2000 worlds, Shigemitsu Kamata was going to school in Japan. Not sure if he's still mostly there or mostly here now.

I know there has been some grumbling about this sort of thing but I think it's ill-founded. If we are to take this tournament seriously, we need to put forward the best team possible. You don't see people grousing about hockey players who are in the US or soccer players who are in Europe returning to play for Canada. Kendo should take the same approach.

Canada has a fairly well-defined protocol for choosing the men's team members. If you have citizenship and at least nidan, and place best 2 at nationals or best 4 at the round-robin try-outs, you're in. Then there are 3 coach's choice places, and there Murao-sensei takes into account ability, team future, what sort of gaps the team needs filled, that sort of thing.

[KENSHIN]

Well, I got my money on Turkey to win the championships, they seemed to do well against Brazil in the world cup, whats to stop them from winning this championship? hmmm...

[Kenshi]

............. maybe lack of a team?

[Confound]

I envy those of you who will be in Glasgow. Hopefully some thoughtful person will put a few videos online. Incidentally, what are the exact dates of the tournament? (perhaps it was mentionned earlier in the thread, but I don't recall.)

c

[Inouye02]

the korean team ? the japan team ? maybe team USA

[kiriyama_13]

wheres the 13th WKC gonna be held? Isnt it in 2006?
thanks

[heri0n]

supposed to be taiwan

[kiriyama_13]

ok sweet, thanks