Selection of National Team Members

Ok, so, I went for the nation team member selection on last Saturday, a tough day it was! In total, 65 male and 35 female candidates from all over the island took part in the selection. We were divided into 4 pools, meaning that each team has 16 people, and each of us had to fight 15 matches, whether you advance into the next stage or not.

The top from each pool will be selected as the team member, and the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th from each pool advance to the next round. In the end, 7 are selected as the first players and 3 are selected as the backup players.

The large number of participates meant that we had to fight for 7 hours. It was absolutely exhausting, both physically and mentally. I started out performing badly in my first 3 matches or so. My reaction and movement were slow. It's like I hadn't woken up yet. And it gradually got better.

Everyone fought differently, so I had to adjust my strategy for different opponents. I definitely lost far more matches than I should have, however, being able to perform wazas like kote-uchiotoshi-men a couple of times made me feel good.

My thoughts for the day are:

• Fighting spirit is very very important. I found the best way to get it out of me is to regard every opponent as a strong a respectable player. This way, my mind become sharp, as well as my movement. Because I found that my performance was much better against people whom I thought were stronger than me.

• My kote-men should be faster. This lies on my footwork. So I have to improve this during training.

• Sometimes I raise my kensen before striking men. DONT DO THIS.

• Relax my body more.

• Keep my foot close to each other.

• Be careful of my zanshin. Very often I let my men open after striking kote, and also not separating myself far enough from the opponent.

• Be careful when the opponent is at the close range, and also do not let go of chances to attack.

The below were two matches. I'll let the action speak for itself!
(I'm the white on in the first video, and red in the second.)

Happ New Year 2012

First of all, let me wish everyone a Happy and Successful New Year!!!

I had done so much in 2011 - making a lot of new friends, founding a rotary club, starting a new blog, finding a new direction in career, while maintaining regular kendo practices. Sure, I cannot say that I achieved a great deal in kendo last year, but overcoming obstacles and attending practices required a lot of self-motivation in my circumstances. I am glad that I was able to do it.

My kendo level has gone from kihon-only style to a style involving more wazas. Putting pressure and creating "false openings" to lure the opponent in striking. This requires very good timing and attention on the maai, as well as a full concentration.

However, I still need to make more effort on my practising kihon and suburi at home. My body condition has declined due to the long commuting everyday, hopefully I will be able to switch my job later this year to somewhere closer to home.

Ozawa Sensei visited in December as usual. I told him that I kept loosing in competitions in recent times, and I haven't been able to overcome this problem. And the thing is, sometimes I do not know what the problem is, that my performance in competitions is so much worse than in the normal practices.

He told me that, if only I give out 50% of my performance in practices, I would win. And the most important is to keep the fighting spirit high, and never give up.

He also said that the kendo in keiko, competition and examinations are the same. I should not do differently. I should always keep this in mind.

Below is a clip between Ozawa Sensei and Tokura Sensei (7th Dan, former national team coach of China)

Congratulations Suzuki Sensei on passing 7th Dan!

A big congratulation to Aki Suzuki san for passing her 7th Dan at age 39 only! And the pass rate was 11%! What a splendid young age to obtain such a high rank especially for a FEMALE kendoka. I practised with her several times in Europe and in Japan, and all I can say is, she is by far the best female kendoka I have fought with. And she certainly has the appropriate rank to go with it.

I met Suzuki san (right) for the first time in 2007. 

The below is a video clip showing Suzuki san (in blue) demonstrating the kakari-geiko with a femail Czech kendoka. Notice her swift footwork!

Debana techniques

Ho Sensei gave some useful tips for doing men-debana-men/kote.

• Debana-men: when doing seme and fighting for the center line with the opponent, try to put the shinai slightly on top of the opponent's shinai, so that it takes a shorter time to strike his men.
• Debana-kote: similar in the case of the debana-men, this time try to put the shinai slightly below. By doing so, one also lures the opponent to strike men.

2011 Taipei Chung-Cheng Cup

This is the 3rd time I participated in the Taipei Chung-Cheng Cup, since I came back to Taiwan 3 years ago. It was the toughest competition experience for me so far, as I fought about 8-9 matches with my teammates.

The competition was teams-only, no individual matches. I was the least experienced kendoka in the 7 men team representing the Taipei Kendokan. However, my sempais continued to encourage me to fight, even though at one point I really wanted to give up, and wanted to let the other team mates to take my place.

The pressure built up tremendously as I got more and more tired, and seeing my teammates scoring points, while I could only drew the match or sometimes loosing one point. In my mind, I felt like a failure being the one who pulls down our overall performance.

Su Senpai, our Taisho, looked at me and asked if I wanted to stay on and fight, I was really hesitating. Then he said, "I'm not sure what your problem is. But if you don't want to fight because all your teammates are winning, that is because we have at least 13 years of experience, much more than you have. If you are getting tired, we are getting tired, too and so are the opponents. Of course, if you are injured, then that's another story." Hearing his words, I felt there's now no reason for me to back down. So, I continued to fight on until he asked me to take a rest in the last match.

We obtain the 3rd place in the end.

There are so many other things I learned by fighting alongside my teammates.

• Strategy and controlling the mental pressure. Apart from fighting as the senpo in the first match, I fought as the jiho for all the other matches. What I did well (apart from a couple of times loosing) was to draw the match, or if loosing, try not to loose the second point. This maintains a neutral mental pressure for my teammates.
• I need a stronger will to win. Ozawa Sensei's saids once to me, "Never giver up." I now realise how difficult it is when you have to fight the whole day.
• When attacking, move the body first and then the hands. Otherwise, it is easy for the opponent to strike debana-kote.
• Move faster.