Tuesday, February 8, 2011
13th Youth Kendo Tournament
By Maureen & Nasution
The 13th Youth Kendo Tournament was held on the 22nd and 23rd of January 2011. This year's YKT was hosted by our club, on homeground in NUS. We get Nasution and Maureen to share their experiences.
NASUTION:
Enter NUSKC!
The recent Youth Kendo Tournament was also my very first tournament after being on hiatus for around two years. Naturally, I was nervous before the tournament day. I had not trained as much as the others during the first semester as besides adapting to the severe change in lifestyle, I decided to pick up Muay Thai as well. For me, I do not consider myself to be strong as I have a lot of flaws in my kendo and I’m not consistent.
"What was your experience like fighting for NUS -- Individuals & Team?"
-- for the uninitiated, Nasution used to be from NYPKC.
It was a rather new experience, fighting for a new club with new comrades. For the individuals, you are fighting for no one but yourself so this is the part of the tournament where people are willing to take more risks, myself included. I managed to make it all the way to the quarter finals. For the team event, this is considered to be the more important part of the tournament. This is where you will not only be fighting for your team but your club/school as well. I was the
Senpo and most, if not all, of my matches ended in a draw. “That’s a good thing since you did not lost your matches!” is what a lot of people will say but that is not how I felt. First things first, winning my matches would have imposed less stress to the other 4
kendokas after me. All the points that the opponent got off me could have been prevented as well. I apologise to everyone for not doing a better job.
Best Fighting Spirit Award. I'm quite surprised there's one, seriously..
[But we're not. Nasution you did us proud (:]
NUS A vs SKC B
"How did it feel to meet people you knew from NYP and SKC at the tournament?"As friends? It was great since I have not seen most of them ever since I entered National Service. As opponents? Terrible! That was the initial feeling I had because I have a certain ‘phobia’ about fighting against them--to me, they were considered very strong. It did not help knowing that I had taken a two year hiatus and some of them were still training regularly.
My first match was against Meng Kiat, whom I had a lot of difficulty fighting against due to his height and long reach.
Another one was Wai Kay, who was from my batch and also the captain of the club during our term in NYP. We knew each other's fighting style quite well so after a long while, the match dragged on into enchou (sudden death). On a side note, I have never really gotten into an enchou before and this particular one with Wai Kay proved to be demanding both physically and mentally.
My third opponent was Billy, who was as rough as ever. The last person whom I knew from NYP/SKC that I fought was Kian Chew. He was my junior, but he has been training regularly and has gotten a lot faster, so it was a pretty violent match up.
"Do you have any insights following this tournament?"
I have learnt a lot from this tournament. One of them is my posture. Most of the time my posture would get ugly which makes it more difficult to move around. Oliver told me it took roughly six months to correct his posture so I will do just that for this semester.
As for the club, a lot of my club members have mentioned to me that NUS' kendo style emphasizes more on kihon (fundamentals) rather than competitive shiai and that is the reason why it may be harder for us to defeat an opponent from other clubs. In my opinion, the NUS style is good as without grooming proper basics, it will be more difficult to advance at the later stage of one's kendo growt.
Perhaps instead of thinking "why can't I beat my opponent with my current style?", we could change it to "how can I beat an opponent with my style?".
With that, I will end it with one of my favourite quotes, from Nanoha.
MAUREEN:
21st Jan 2011: Preparation for YKT 2011Preparation was done just one day before the Youth Kendo Tournament 2011.
With the help from everyone (juniors and seniors), we managed to finish the
preparation in no time! c:
Here is a rundown of the events set up for the first day of the tournament.
- Ladies Individuals
- Mens Individuals
- Ladies and Mens Final
- Prize Ceremony
Officials setting up
All of us came around noon to prepare for Day 1 of YKT 2011! *Excited~!
The moment the officials entered the hall, we moved to the table to make sure that
everything we needed was there.
All the medals on display
The intense atmosphere in the dojo was overwhelming. If you were there, you
would definitely feel that everyone was there to earn their place in the tournament.
The shimpans, officials and competitors are lined up to bow to the dojo.
This is a formality that every kendoka is familiar with.
Warming-up before matches is essential
Let the matches begin!
Everyone was focused on watching.
No one wants to miss seeing the points being scored
23rd Jan 2011Day 2 of the tournament involved the following:
- Ladies' Team Eliminations
- Mens' Team Eliminations
- Ladies and Mens' Team Finals
- Prize Ceremony
Day 2 started early, at around 7-8am--many of us were tired BUT the atmosphere for Day 2
was much more intense than Day 1! This time round the competitors were fighting for their
respective teams, which meant that there was much more to lose.
Our NUS Men's Team B is chilling by the side
In all, we would like to thank everyone that came for this year's Youth Kendo Tournament. Without everyone, YKT 2011 would not have been this successful.
AWESOME TOURNAMENT! C:
