Azuki Panda

Saturday, April 18

Day 2 of the [21st Cleveland Kendo Tournament]

I had to wake up nice and early at 6:45 to get ready for the tournament. The first thing was to get changed and do some warm ups. We then gathered for the opening ceremony and started getting organized for the courts that we were each assigned.

I was on Court C with Jeff Lin, Felix, Henry, and Zi. Our court ran pretty smoothly under the direction of Huhner sensei. We learned quite a bit from Huhner sensei by his commentary on the matches. Some comments included how one person’s zanshin was really bad, which was evident for Felix’s second opponent who jumped after the strikes.

I did not do very well, partially because I got called for my match in Court A right when my match was about to start. This was when I was still officiating at Court C and didn’t even have my men on. This led to me not being mentally ready since I was so rushed trying to get to the match. My opponent was E. Ahn from Purdue. The first strike was when I missed on kote and he hit my men. The second point was right off of the first point when he hit my men. I tried to block and he hit my men on the right side of the top, but it scored since I didn’t even really try to go for any strike.

I was pretty bummed about this match, especially with Felix, Andrew, and Lily all getting to their second match (although they all lost in the second match). Reijiro managed to win 3 matches and Jeff won 2. Eric Gildea was on Court D right next to us and I watched as he steadily advanced through the bracket and eventually made his way into the finals. His small kote is really fast and he managed to handle many opponents with ease due to his speed.

The team matches were much more fun and usually serve as an opportunity for me to redeem myself. Our team A consisted of Felix, Hiroko, me, Jeff, and Reijiro in that order. Andrew got bumped to team B with Lily, Henry, Harry, and Sam Rivier (he is no longer with Syracuse but is now practicing with Choyokan in Chicago).

Our first team match was against Shidogakuin New Jersey, which I found out had Paul McCarthy. He had gotten better since yesterday and felt like he could participate. Their team consisted of Paul (nidan) and two other nidan from NJ and two kyu level people. The first two matches pitted Felix against Paul and Hiroko against another nidan from NJ. Both Felix and Hiroko scored on two men. I went up against Keiffer from So Ohio and after some time managed to get two kote. We ended up getting two points for every single match.

Our next team match was not so fortunate as we had to face Pittsburgh. Felix went against Eric Gildea, Hiroko went against Jeong sensei, I went against Narumoto sensei, Jeff was against a high rank person who recently arrived from Japan, and Reijiro went against Titus sensei. Felix was able to tie Eric, Hiroko won on one point and just went into tsuba zerai for most of the time. I had no chance against Narumoto sensei, but was pleasantly surprised to find that I lasted more than two hits (two hits for two points). Jeff and Reijiro both lost by two points so that quickly concluded the match.

Narumoto sensei won the sandan and up division, Yumi got first in the Youth B (there were only two people in the division), and for team matches it was Battle Creek and Pittsburgh for third, Detroit B for second, and Shidogakuin NY for first.

The banquet was pretty good and there was a lot of food. This was the first year we held it at Adelbert Gym with catered food set out in buffet style and it worked out pretty well. Narumoto sensei asked us for sake and was disappointed to find the bottle empty, but we later got some more and brought it to him.

T-Shirt sales were kind of disappointing this year. As of tonight we only sold 46 shirts. I am not sure if it was the design or the color of the shirt or that there were fewer people this year (220 vs. 280). Mieon and Steven didn’t really try to engage people to buy the shirts and not that many people but shirts when they are just sitting there on a table. We managed to sell a few more when we actually had people walk around with the shirts asking people to buy them.