Hizen Summer Taikai 7th August 2011

A familiar format greeted us this year with a nidan and under mixed team competition and a sandan individual’s cup. However, there was some new swag up for grabs, newly made medals in the shape of the Hizen mon as an antique tsuba.

Slowed slightly by the building works that have been taking place at the hall eventually 6 teams of 3 were selected randomly, the san-dans (and Ini) were ready to shinpan, the new scoreboard was setup and it was time to get the competition under way.

This was the first shiai experience for quite a lot of people in the junior competition, yet the kendo was very positive, spirited and attacking, showing that even without lots of shiai experience doing basic cuts positively is very effective.

So with the dust settled the results were as follows:

1^st place - Tatos Shahbazian, Narendra Arjan and Scott Yeoh
2^nd place - Chi Leung Fung, Andy O’Connor and Armando Alemdar
3^rd place - David Jordan, Antoine Bisch and May
Shikake Waza - Chi Leung Fung
Oji Waza - Ndu Wodu
Fighting Spirit - Doug Punch

This year 8 san-dans took part in the Senior Cup. As usual the format was a round-robin, ippon shobu competition, where the person with most points overall wins (no points for a draw or a loss and no 2^nd or 3^rd place). As was the case at the Winter Taikai the competition was very close, with no one person seeming to dominate.

For the avid pub-kendoka a few trademark techniques were available to see, namely Paul’s harai-men, Frank’s kaeshi-do and even a little cameo from Jeff’s gyaku jodan.

But in the end there can only be one, and this year the result was:

Senior Cup - Fai “Frank” Fung

So with the fighting finished that left the AGM and then it was off down to the watering hole to discuss the day’s events.