Peter Here,
November 3rd was the Tobu Friendship Taikai. While still a 'local' tournament, this was a much bigger event than the Sugito Taikai last month. Held at the Satte City Gymnasium, the competition was open to more styles, including Yamaguchi-Ha Goju Ryu. It was great to see familiar faces as well as meet new ones!
The unfortunate part of the day was that I had been stuck down with cold, so I wasn't performing at my best at all (it's a good excuse, honest!). My group was only four people, and I had beaten the opponent I was drawn with in the Saitama Wadokai taikai in July, I should've done better than I did. However, my timing was off and I was kicking too high, meaning that I missed some vital 3 point shots and he pulled of a convincing win using little more than gyakuzuki. So, more basics training required for me. I also need to look at how I'm training on my own to see if there's any way of increasing speed and reflexes as I'm feeling slow.
The better part of the day came from watching the rest of the tournament. Shiramizu did well as always, Arakawa Sensei's son Masatoshi, Rikuto and Uchida-san being notable winners in their category. There were even a fair few all-Shiramizu finals!
The event was very well put together, with ample support as always from the families making a very enthusiastic atmosphere. At the end of the tournament there was a raffle draw for prizes using serial numbers on the back of the event programs (a very good idea I thought), with a few happy people leaving the event with a Ceramic heater, Adidas sports bag and a bicycle!
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