Mistakes

Second time using the choken. Sorry to say but all of you still make fatal mistakes.
One very important one though is your stance! I believe most of still do not have the correct footing. All of you are suppose to have at least good balance after training with the kodachi for so long. I am not saying that your stance have to be really perfect but at least maintain your balance. Some of you still have one foot behind the other. That is definitely wrong! One of you alomost fall but injured your knee when regaining balance. Knowing that you were about to fall shows that your balance is not good which means your footing is wrong! It is probably right at the start but as you continue sparring your footing becomes wrong. Always remember your footing. I am not asking you to look at your feet all the time but try to remember to have the correct stance while sparring. This is the most basic so please work on this.

Second thing you need to improve on for some of you is your grip. Some of you have very weird way of holding your sword. Some of you are using stick grip for your master hand. This is all very wrong and I believe the seniors have told you about it during your training. I believe some of you realise that your range is very short because of your grip. So please please work on your grip also. It is kind of different from the kodachi as you have to work on both hands instead of one.

And do not forget your ki-ai also. Very important.

Issues

As you all know we had problems during the last training. I will not say what it is. And our master gave us a good and meaningful lecture. I believe you people learn a lot from it. We should also learn from that. As how our seniors, the alumni, have done before we should do the same. They struggled hard as you all were told and fought for the club, not physically fight though. As you all experienced, the problem we had was quite a major problem. We were giving in to them but I believe that is not going to happen anymore. The next time an issue rises, we fight for it. Just like our seniors, we do what we must. Not without thinking though. We do it with the intelligence that is gifted to us. Let me remind you a few things about what our master said. Once we give in to a person's demand, the person will keep trying again. In other words, if you are weak they will take advantage of you. It is like someone trying to step on a puddle of water that belongs to you. They will try slowly with one feet. If they succeed, they will put in the other feet. But if you were to speak up and say to the person when he was trying to put in his feet, he will walk away. And I said "say to the person", meaning saying firmly but try not to be rude. In other words, in an intelligent way. Not shout or hit the person with anything that is in your hands. Sorry if my example does not explain much but I believe you get the idea.

In a fight, do not get pushed back by your opponent. We teach you this in sparring.
Let's hope we can do better next time. ^^

A few words about the competition

Can you see the face? Yes, the serious faces. This shows how serious the participant is during the match. I believe all of us were as serious or even more during the competition. I believe some of us trained very hard for this competition. We all came in with the mindset to win. As we enter the area of play, we feel nervous as we are afraid that we might lose.
After the match starts, we fight seriously with all our might trying to get a hit on the opponent. Some of us got it, some of us did not. It might be an unfortunate thing to some of you. Especially those that got disqualified. It is kind of sad when you realise you will not be able to fight with other people. I got disqualified too so I know how it feels. I felt terrible at first but I got better soon as I realise I clashed with someone who is pretty skilled in the art and so it was not so bad. As for those who lost, do not think it as you are not good in the art. Honestly, I do not think there is one person that is way better than the other in the same level(same belt). I believe it is just that you let your guard down for a split second, and that is when your opponent was able to hit you. I saw that happened during the competition. It is usually in that split second window when someone got hit.
Anyway, relating back to the picture. I know how it feels to lose even though you know you put in a lot of effort but do not feel so bad about it. Even in life experiences, I believe we all had times when we fall even though we tried so hard to accomplish something. We feel so frustrated when that happens but after that we learn to handle it and accept it. I am not saying that you can lose everytime and just accept it. Instead, take this loss as a learning point. Think back and try to remember what was the mistake you did that made you let your guard down. From there, learn and try to improve it! And if you feel that you did not get the chance to spar with a lot of people, You can always do it during normal training! This time, put on the serious mood like you did on competition. This will force your opponent to be serious too. This way you will definitely improve and of course try again next year! So do not feel bad about not winning okay?

Here are some more pictures!








Too close? Definitely.





Remember, distance!











And here are photos of the groups!

























See you all on grading! ^^

Details of the competition

You have known the winners of the competition, now I am going to tell you how it is possible with the help of our members and the people around us. Without them, there will be no competition.
Also, I am going to tell you other details about the competition.

Let us start with the banner! This banner was made by the design team of SP Kenjutsu club. They consist of three people who are Brad, Hiok Ann and Yih Yang (Sorry if I missed out anyone). Let me show you the banner which they break so much sweat and cracking their brains thinking up of the cool and awesome design. Producing it is not easy either, a lot of hardwork is needed.

If you realise, it has the Halloween theme. This is because the competition wsa held very close to Halloween so our design team came up with this banner, having the element of Samurai and Halloween. Cool eh?

Other than the design team, there are of course other people working behind-the-scenes making this competition a success. Even on the day itself, the bunch of people are still doing their job to maintain the competition and make sure it is organised and goes on smoothly. Thanks to these people, we are able to enjoy the day and had lots of fun. Let us all tell them how much we appreciate their hard work and made it a great day! ^^










These are some pictures of the people working behind the desks during the competition. They ensure that the competition is well organised.


We also have a chart which to me is pretty well made, it is used to see who will fight who in the match. The selection is random, on of our organisers used an iPhone app I believe to randomise the positions the participants are placed at.

Here is a picture of our medal and trophies.










I forgot to mention that the medals are also design by our design team! The same people that created the banner. As for the trophies, they come from NihontoDo. You can see their logo on it.

Now let us see some pictures of the matches we had.











Before the match, we bow to show our respects. First to the area of play and then to the opponent. Can you see who is going to hit who in the second picture?




Check out the next two photos.

















See how the Choken bend even before it hits the opponent. This shows how fast the arm moves and I actually find the picture pretty cool. Don't you think so? In the first picture, you can see how straight the Choken is and it is pretty firm. Seeing this reminds me, remember to take good care of your equipment. Especially those who are getting a new one.

I forgot to mention, we had a war game after the competition. It has been so long since we had one. Need to have more games like this.
Free-form fighting is still the best, you can use anything in any style you want. Of course it is not possible with the real sword. Too heavy. >< Can you spot me?

That is it for this post. Train hard for the upcoming grading! Good luck to everyone! Cheers!