Training starts this week + Ballarat Taikai + All Japan winner Hoshiko!

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Training starts back officially this week! We will be training for the next six weeks. Our last Saturday training will be 11 December and last Wednesday 15 December.

Soon has put his hand up again to take the beginners course, which will also start this Saturday. Thanks Soon.

As usual beginners will start at 9am and finish at 10am. Main class will be 10 am to 12 noon.

Ballarat Taikai

Those gutsy folks from the Ballarat Kendo Club, one of Victoria's oldest clubs, will be going ahead with their annual taikai. If you are keen to take part, please see Mick at training or send him an email at competition.nanseikan at gmail. Schedule below.

Uchimura sensei's kote

I'm pretty sure this is the kote I mentioned at training last night but it's much lower resolution than I remember seeiing back in the day, so the broken tsuru is not visible.


This is a great compilation of all the other times Uchimura has scored kote in high level competition. You can get a sense of his style: usually at an angle, usually debana. Some of them are just flawless.




Hoshiko!

Congratulations to the young 4th dan from Kagoshima (!!) who is now All Japan champion: Hoshiko Keita. He won yesterday in convincing fashion with two fast men cuts, the final only lasting around 4 minutes. 


His story is an interesting one. Although he was one of the strongest at his old high school, the legendary Kyushu Gakuin in Kumamoto, and went on to graduate from Tsubuka Uni with a national team membership also under his belt, he failed the police recruitment exam. So he has been earning a meagre living teaching kendo to kids since then. The feeling is that many of the top names were out of shape this year, having had almost a year of no training. Still, competition at this level is always tough, and a win is a win, especially for an under-employed 23 year old! His fortunes will surely change now that he is holding the Emperor's Cup.



Comments

  1. Nanseikan9:32 pm

    Note that you must be fully vaccinated to take part in this taikai.

    ReplyDelete

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