18th All Japan Jukendo Championship

Published on 12th August 2010 03:02 PM Number of Views: 2279

11 Comments

By Baptiste Tavernier

The 18th All Japan Jukendo Championship was held on August 6th, 2010, at the Nippon Budokan in central Tokyo. This year, with the tournament being scheduled on Friday, the Budokan was nearly empty. Nevertheless, the 64 participants (6-dan and above) offered us very interesting and powerful performances in their shiai.

There were only two courts this year compared to the several courts of the past, so it was a little bit easier to follow the action. Most spectators were focusing their attention on the fights of Nakajima, the defending champion from Miyagi Prefecture, and Tajiri, the defending runner-up from Kumamoto Prefecture. Tajiri clearly showed that this year the trophy would be his: progressing through his matches with a display of power, speed, precision... he really had no equal. True to form, he fought his best fight of the day during the eighth-final-round, dodging in the final moments an incredible nodo-tsuki launched by Sato of Aichi Prefecture, then immediately counter-attacking and scoring kote, pinning Sato’s left hand against his chest in the process. Following the kote-point Tajiri continues with a strong offense; however, Sato executes a brilliant ōji-kaeshi shita-dō. Now Sato has evened the score to 1-1. Immediately following shimpan’s call for "Shōbu!" to resume the match for the final point, Tajiri, maintaining keen composure, strikes Sato with a thrust straight to the heart, taking an uwa-dō point, winning the vigorously contested match.
The surprise came in the quarter-finals when Tajiri succumbed to Yamada of Miyagi Prefecture, being defeated easily by a nodo strike and then an uwa-dō. Yamada would eventually make his way to the finals and win the coveted trophy. The highly anticipated final bout did not turn out to be the shiai of our expectations: both Yamada and Kimura of Saitama Prefecture fought evenly and cancelled each other’s attacks and counter-attacks. Yamada finally settled the day during the enchō, the over-time sudden-death extension, with a decisive uwa-dō.

Yamada, a renshi 6-dan, becomes All Japan champion in his second time in the tournament. Previous to this he has also won the National Sports Meet two times, been runner-up two times, and taken a third place one time..

Results:
1st – Yamada (Miyagi Prefecture)
2nd – Kimura (Saitama Prefecture)
3rd – Ito (Tokyo)
3rd – Sasaki (Hokkaido)

There was also a ishujiai demonstration of the juken vs. the detached bayonet (tanken).
Sato Toru sensei (8-dan hanshi, from Fukushima) fights with the juken, and Sasaki Masayohi (8-dan Kyōshi, from Osaka) handles the tanken. Sato sensei wins by 2 dō.

Categories:
Competitions,
Jukendo

Tags:

11 Comments

vyung - 15th August 2010, 10:34 PM

Thanks for the report, Baptiste! It's good to see what jukendo looks like at a high level. Nice report and videos.
- Reply

b8amack - 15th August 2010, 11:28 PM

Those tsuki look rough.
- Reply

Missingno. - 16th August 2010, 02:09 AM

So are thrusting attacks the only valid attacks in Jukendo? I don't really know anything about it, but that looks like it's what they're doing.
- Reply

snooz2k2 - 16th August 2010, 11:30 PM

Yes, Only tsuki is authorized
- Reply

birch - 17th August 2010, 08:47 PM

Hi all, very nice enbu juken vs. tanken. Does anybody know some literature, video or web page about tankendo kihon?
Thank you.
- Reply

snooz2k2 - 17th August 2010, 11:00 PM

Well, the tankendo's kata should normally be introduced (if we live long enough ) in the next Kendo-world issue (5.3).
In issue 5.1, we introduced the 8 juken vs juken kata, and in the the last 5.2 issue, we explained the 6 juken vs sword kata.
There are still 3 sets of kata to be introduced :
- 6 juken vs tanken
- 7 tanken vs tanken
- 6 tanken vs sword

We should then continue in issue 5.3 with juken vs tanken.

The all japan jukendo federation released a long time ago 2 VHS to promote jukendo (kihon, kata, shiai, refereeing), but they never did it for the tankendo...
The tanken is largely introduced in the book "100 years of history of jukendo", but it is in Japanese only. No translation.
- Reply

snooz2k2 - 17th August 2010, 11:16 PM

Also if you are interested in this juken vs tanken demo, I can try to give you some hints :
- the standard kamae in jukendo is chuudan, but in a case of an ishujiai against the detached bayonet (and also against kendo but for a different reason), the jukendo practitioner would likely go for gedan, so his weapon cannot be easily grabbed by the opponent.
- Therefore, it means that the strategy of the tanken is to make the juken thrust, so he can dodge the blade, grab the riffle and stab the guy at close quarter.
- It is basically what happens in this shiai. But you noticed that the tanken could not get a valid ippon... This is because of the rule that stipulates that when the tanken goes to irimi (close quarter) he must stab the opponent on the doh (whether doh-dai or mune) immediately after he grabs the opponent's arm or weapon. In the video, the stabbing action is late, so the shinpan stops the fight and does not validate the irimi as a point (I guess, that's why we ALSO call modern budo "sports")
- In tankendo, even if Men is regarded as a valid datotsu-bui, it is not consider as a proper tankendo technique; same for kote (a bayonet does not cut like a kodachi-type nihon-to, it is mainly designed for stabbing). So the main form of attack is indeed tsuki. However, tankendo practitioners do train to strike men and kote, and also perform kirikaeshi in the kendo fashion during their training. One stone, 2 birds; or I might say one shinai, 2 arts... detached bayonet, or Japanese kodachi.
- Reply