2009 Asian City Cup, Kaohsiung

Last weekend was full of excitement and fun. About 10 of us from Taipei Kendokan traveled south to Kaohsiung to participate in this year's Asian City Cup Kendo Taikai, held at the historical Butokuden built during the Japanese occupation period. Renovated in recent years, it is a beautiful architectual work with nice atmospheric surroundings. It's also interesting to note that, the manager of the Butokuden and the organiser of this competition, Kin Chin (陳信寰), is one of the three 11th generation Soke (Headmaster) of the Hyoho-Niten-Ichi-Ryu, which is the school created by the lengendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi.

After arriving in Kaohsiung and dropping off our luggage, we headed for some food and drink - Taiwanese style. The video explains it.




Fortunately, I got up in the morning without headache. There was keiko before the competition instead of after, which was a little strange I thought.

The competition started after an hour. The system is 3 against 3 with winning by Ippon-Shobu. My first match took place after a long wait. I fought as senpo, and was in a team with a 3rd Dan and a 5th Dan senpais. Our opponent was one from the local teams, who seemed relatively unexperienced. I was, nonetheless, still a little nervous and didn't take every opportunity to strike. A point should have given to me much earlier in the match, but instead I won the match with a men-strike, which shouldn't have counted. A rather funny situation.. Anyhow, after looking at the video afterwards I was please to see improvement in my posture during men-strikes, that my upper body was kept up-right. See the men-strike at 0:26 seconds in the video (which should have counted). I was the red.



We came out of the pool, but unfortunately lost to the Korean team B. They are extremely good at attacks in close range, and my kote was hit just after we separated from tsubazeriai.

Another team from our dojo beat the Korean Team B, and advanced to the final. Here is the semi-final match. We won with 2-1. (We were red.)

Senpo 



Chuken

Taisho (Gun-Hsien So Senpai who is in the national team and will be fighting in Brazil this year)

The tension was built-up so high after the first two matches, with a tie. In the Taisho match, So Senpai won with a blitzing kote strike. Look at how everyone cheered!!

The final against Korean Team A was another dramatic event. We lost the senpo, but won the chuken match. The taisho match was a draw, so it's down to the representative match. Unfortunately, they won it with a men-strike. Though we lost, we were not disappointed at all. Everyone tried their best and showed good kendo. 

Final - Representative match Taipei Kendokan (white) So senpai vs Korean Team B (red)

Here are some clips from other matches:

Leung senpai (梁文曲) (red) fighting. He has a very good form combined with agility and power.