Saitama Wado-Kai Technical Seminar

Louise here,

On Sunday the 5^th of July, Erica, Lawrence and I attended the Saitama Prefecture Wado-Kai technical seminar and skill exchange meeting. It was held at the Asukaru Satte City Cultural Hall from 9.00am to 3.00pm. This was organised by the Shiramizu Shuyoukai dojo and Takamasa Arakawa Sensei, and instructors and students from Wado clubs all over Saitama Prefecture attended. After a mass warm-up and basic kihon training, the adults went into a separate hall for in-depth training with Takagi Sensei and Sonoda Sensei. We practiced more kihon then seisan, chinto, niseishi and kihon kumite.

Takagi Sensei expounding

Unfortunately, I didn't understand most of what Sonoda Sensei and Takagi Sensei explained in Japanese. By concentrating hard and watching their demonstrations closely I tried to get the gist of what they were teaching, but I know I missed a lot. It was very helpful when Takagi Sensei came round and gave us suggestions individually, because then he used English and if we still didn't understand then he hit us in ways that made us understand.

The universal language of demonstration

Wadokai Kanto Taikai

Carl here,

I’ve been looking forward to this competition for a while now; the last few competitions were only local events with relatively small categories, this one would be a real challenge. Also, this would be mine and Amy’s last competition during our internship in Japan. Naturally my ego wanted me to win my kumite division.

(editor's note: The Wadokai Kanto area Taikai has about 1600 Wadokai member only competitors from the 7 prefectures around and including Tokyo so it is one of the biggest tournaments of any style in the region.)




We all had an early start from Tobudobutsu-koen station to get to....



....The Komazawa Olympic Park sports arena near Shibuya for 8:30.

The venue had 13 area mats set up and most categories were big. My kumite category (none university student adult men only) had 54 people in but I was feeling confident. My category was one of the first to start, Arakawa Sensei came over to help me warm up and I was ready to go.



Kumite

I won my first fight 6-0 with three punches and a head kick. It was a straight forward fight.

I had a long wait for my next fight, but just as I was about to go on the mat, one of the officials came over to tell me that I was wearing the wrong colour so I had to change. After changing colour, I walked to the edge of the mat and the same guy came back over and said he’d made a mistake and I now had the wrong colour on. So, after changing my belt and gloves again, I walked to the edge of the mat.

The fight was terrible, I fumbled my way through to a 1-0 win but I wasn’t comfortable in the fight at all. I had obviously let the fussing about at the start throw my focus. What made it worse was that the area was directly in front of were Takagi Sensei and various other important Wadokai Sensei were sat, so they had a great view of my terrible performance.

My third and last fight was even worse than the last one. I was up against a big guy who came in immediately with an unanswered body kick to my back to get 2 points. He then proceeded to pound my face a couple of times to get another 2 points and a contact warning. I didn’t really answer any of it, I kept chasing but my reverse punches were nonexistent and my lead hand was moving in a very obvious circular movement rather than a straight line to the target. Without my hand techniques to open up the opponent, my leg techniques were all but useless. To add to this, my distancing was way off! All in all, probably one of the worse performances I’ve ever had in kumite. I lost the fight 4-0 finishing I believe in the ‘best 16’.

I walked away from the area to cool off and watch my fight which Amy had recorded. Once I’d watched it a few times, I was ready for human contact and I found Arakawa Sensei to apologise for fighting so badly. He laughed and we had a talk about the way I fought and what I did wrong, we both concluded that my ‘head’ just wasn’t in the fight!

I didn’t get to see Amy fight in her kumite division because I was called for kata, she didn’t make it through her first round which she wasn’t particularly happy about.

Team Guseikai



Arakawa Sensei taking a break from his warm up

Arakawa Sensei was fighting as part of Takagi Sensei’ Guseikai Kumite Team. I’ve never seen Sensei perform in a competition so naturally I stuck around to watch, with almost everyone else in the venue including the free officials!

Guseikai did well in their first round, winning easily. Arakawa Sensei in particular was in total control of his fight. The next round wasn’t so great, they changed the fight order around and the first two guys lost and the next one after won. Arakawa Sensei was up next and despite fighting well, he ended up running out of time being one point down. The next Guseikai guy also lost, though barely.

Lunch Break


Kids in action
Photo from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

During the scheduled lunch break, all the kids were lined up and put through some basics and kata by Shiramizu’ Arakawa Sensei.


Chihiro from Shiramizu giving out presents

Then all the Shiramizu adults helped the other officials give a small present (Wadokai branded Chopsticks!) to every child competitor. Whilst this was happening there was a number of demonstrations held for the crowd.

Kata
Amy’s kata category was called up whilst I was fighting but I did see her first kata performance from across the hall. She did really well, getting all 5 flags in her first round. I didn’t get to see any of her other kata performances though. Amy ended up finishing in the top 8 of the category. This is a great result for her, especially considering her set back over the Dan grading! Also, the trophy she got is great, it’s probably one of the most stylish trophies either of us has ever won, and it was for an 8th place!

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have any hope in kata! I was fairly sure that I wasn’t going to get past the first round but I still had my objectives. The first time I competed in kata was 9 months ago and I was very nervous, my only objective for this competition was to perform with no tension and not be nervous. My Pinan Godan wasn’t perfect, but it was ok, I slipped slightly in the last move which I believe lost me the round (5 flags to 0!). I was still happy though because I wasn’t nervous during the performance and there was very little tension. Mission accomplished.

Lawrence gave a good performance of Pinan Godan but the decision went to the other guy. For the life of me I couldn’t see the difference between the two kata!


The Shiramizu squad!
Photo from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

Summary
This wasn’t the best result that Team Gaijin has achieved at a competition, but I’m really pleased for Amy and her kata placing. I don’t suppose ‘best 16’ in kumite is too bad, but it’s 15 places from where I wanted to be!

Shiramizu did well with the medal haul, I don’t have exact numbers but a large number of Shiramizu people were in the finals.

A special mention should go out to all the Shiramizu instructors, they were either helping at the competition as officials or they were competing. Iwasaki Sensei got 2nd Place in the over 40’s Kata, he smiled when he said he got zero flags for his Kushanku kata in the final. Also Yoshihara Sensei, who just so happens to be one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever meet, got two silver medals, one in Kumite and the other in Kata. I think Yamazaki Sensei would have placed in her Kata category but she was struggling with a back injury so her kata was pretty tense.

Even though I came away from the competition empty handed, I’ve still learned loads. Also, I got some great feedback from Hideo Takagi Sensei about my fighting which I very much appreciate! Also, it was great fun to hang out with friends who all love karate as much as me, make new friends, flirt with all the cute girls – the usual!

By my calculations, I have 22 weeks to train for the JKF-Wadokai Nationals in August which I’m planning to fly back to Japan for.

Chiba Dan test

Photo taken from www.flickr.com

Carl here,

Let me start with an apology to the readers, we don't have any cool pictures of the Dan grading because although we took the camera with us, we somehow forgot to take the camera battery!

A few weeks ago I made the somewhat innocent mistake of asking Arakawa Sensei what a new poster on the dojo wall said. He told me that it was an upcoming Dan Test in Chiba, as I was walking away he asked ’Carl, you trying?’ As I’m sure I’ve explained before, that translates into English as ‘Carl you are trying?’. So, that’s how I found myself lining up with maybe 20 other Dan grade candidates at the Shiramizu dojo, ready to take part in a ‘Pre-Dan Test’ for my Nidan (2nd Dan).

Shiramizu Pre-Dan Test
This pre-Dan test is a quality control for maintaining the very high standard of the Shiramizu black belts. Arakawa Sensei only lets the very best try for the next belt!

All candidates had to perform two Kata and then some free-fighting. I wasn’t concerned about the kumite, I know I can hold my own with most fighters; the Kata though, was a different matter!

I performed Chinto & Wanshu. I say ‘performed’; it was really an attempt at fumbling through the various movements. If I had performed them on my own, they would have probably been passable; however I had to follow all Shiramizu high school kids who are all great at kata. Anyway, the Shiramizu instructors were feeling particularly charitable and so Okayed me to try for Nidan.

Amy was also allowed to try for Nidan, despite only being a Shodan for 8 or 9 months. However, it was decided that her kata wasn’t strong enough yet by Shiramizu standards.

Chiba Dan Test
The Dan test was being held on Sunday 15th March near Disney Land Tokyo in Chiba, this is only maybe a 90 minute car ride from Sugito so we had a late start (10am-ish!) to get to the venue for the 12 o’clock start time. There were 13 students from Shiramizu attempting the next belt. Those of us who were travelling from the dojo lined up as we would at the start of class and bowed in, Uehara* Sensei wished us all luck, and asked us to try our best.

*Arakawa Sensei was teaching at a Wadokai Training Camp that he’d helped organise in Satte City during the same weekend as this Dan Test. So he couldn't be at the Dan Grading.


Photo taken from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

We had a few minutes to get changed, stretch off and register, and then everyone lined up. The hall was far too small for the 150+ people training. We were packed wall to wall. One of the instructors put us through a few basics. Then we were given 10 minutes to practise our Kihon Kumite drills and kata. We lined up once more for a standing bow and then the test began. 128 people were taking various tests from 1st Dan through to 5th Dan.


Photo taken from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

I was a little concerned that we would be tested 5 people at a time, in front of a grading panel of 10 high ranking Japanese Sensei! I was also aware that this test was going to take hours!

All grades went through the same program, with a few differences or additions as you go up the grades, everyone performed the same Ido-Kihon followed by two kata and then sat down. Once everyone had performed part 1 the day was getting late, the examiners decided to split the test in two 5 examiners for Shodan candidates and 5 for everyone else.


Photo taken from the blog of Arakawa Sensei

We were then marshalled into pairs to perform our chosen Kihon Kumite followed by free fighting. I was paired up with Lawrence, who was trying for Sandan. We’d only managed to train together a few times with Lawrence training at Shiramizu on Saturdays and I went to his high school (Seiritsu) in Akabane to train on a couple of mornings before I went to work in Nerima. Despite this, we had Kihon Kumite number 4 & 5 looking good.

Despite fumbling the take down on ‘number 5’ a little and planting a solid round house kick on Lawrence’ face during the free fighting, we got through the test unscathed.

We had a short wait to find out if we passed or failed, all but two people from Shiramizu passed including myself and Lawrence. I was a little disappointed with my performance, especially my kata, I actually wanted to give up my Dan grade and start again as a beginner! I’ve worked hard to ‘fix’ my kata over the last 9 months in Japan, but it’s still not where it needs to be. There’s nothing to be done but get back to training…

Oh, I can also honestly say that the test made me feel the most nervous I’ve ever felt in my life!


During the next Shiramizu adult class, the instructors were shaking my hand congratulating me and Uehara Sensei, who speaks great English, said that I’d done well. I denied it and said I’d performed terribly, he laughed and said ‘yes, but other people were more terrible!’. It made me laugh so I thought I’d share it with the blog readers!

10th Shiramizu Annual Tournament

Carl here...

Sunday 22nd February was the 10th anniversary of Shiramizu's annual club-only competition. The official name of the event is:

第１０回記念白水修養会練成大会
'Dai ju-kai Shiramizu Shuyo Kai Karate-do Rensei Taikai'
(# 10 event Shiramizu Cultivation Association Karate-do Training Tournament). Shiramizu Shuyo Kai is the full name for the dojo.

As per usual with Shiramizu events, Amy and I helped set up the competition on the Saturday before at the Asukaru Sports Centre in Satte City. This was also the first time that we could walk through our parts in the'Karate-man' demo.

We had an early start, especially since I had to put aside my trademark jeans and T-shirt and wear a suit. Today I would be an official! Arakawa Sensei kindly gave us a ride to the venue, and we were introduced to his father (a Buddhist monk) and older brother (also a Buddhist monk) en-route.

The doors were to be opened at 8:30am so that gave everyone a little time for those last minute things, including the raising of the flag...

Mikya (Kikuchi Sensei son) had to do a spiderman impression to achieve the all-important standard raising.

This effort was well appreciated by the dedicated few...


Suzuki Sensei and his oldest son, Kaiji giving the salute!

As usual, the older kids put the younger through the warm up.


Part of the group warm up...



Opening Ceremony
The Shiramizu banner led the way into the hall for the rest of the competitors, who then made the line up.


March of honour...

Line up...

Let the competition begin...
All of the categories started with kata eliminations, and most changed to kumite for the semi-final and final rounds. This is a very efficient way of running the competition, meaning that the organisers can get through 400+ competitors in a few short hours. This also means that successful competitors have to be proficient in kata and kumite rather than trying to specialise in one or the other.

Two kids from the Sugito Shirayuri kindergarten in action

Kobaton
The competition had a celebrity present, none other than 'Kobaton' the mascot of the Saitama prefecture.

The competition part of the day finished at lunch time, then the demonstrations started. The first one was the 'Karate-man' demo, which Team Gaijin had been hoodwinked into helping with.
The story has as many twists as a good 'bond' movie but it's roughly like this:

Misaki (the damsel) is performing a kata demonstration, but then, 'Karate Man' (Okano-san) decides to pick a fight with her...

They trade a few punches...

Then some super heroes turn up to save her...

...they fight and 'Karate Man' is losing, BUT THEN!

'Karate man' calls in some reinforcements - 'The General' flanked by Team Gaijin!!

Team gaijin had lines (in English & Japanese),
My name is Lawrence... I come from Canada...
My name is Carl... I come from England...
My name is Amy... I come from the Moon... (no really!)


We all fight, and us 'bad guys' are winning.

BUT THEN...!

Green and Pink superhero turn up, we fight some more and this time the fight is more balanced. I fight the green hero and even use the famous 'kamehameha' move!

Pink then stops everyone fighting and says something in English... Team Gaijin announce (in Japanese) that we've been duped by 'The General', and decide to switch sides. We all then thoroughly beat up the 'Karate-man' & 'The General'.

We hug, the end...

...well, almost... the superhero's passed the 'free time' doing various acrobatics and Amy did some fancy flag waving... and Lawrence and I... did our own rendition of Night Fever / Pulp Fiction-type dancing!.

I think the demo was probably too long, with some of the referee's wanting it to end BUT the kids loved every minute of it. They were more than happy to show their appreciation by beating up the 'superhero's after the demonstration.

Next came various other demonstrations including one from the dance group that rents out the Shiramizu dojo space...

board & tile breaking...
All the competitors performed all the Pinan Kata en mass in age and belt color groups, (youngest kids did Pinan Nidan, slightly older kids did Pinan Shodan, etc) and the adult dan grades performed Seishan kata en mass.

Next came a great kindergarten demo to the beat of a Japanese drum.

Beautiful and deadly!
High school students Chihiro, Yuki and Erika' team kata demo...

Utsunomiya Bunsei Girls High School
Kata demo...

Sensei Fujimoto and his brother Sensei Fujimoto... knife demo

Tsubasa, Yuki and Rie performed individual kata demo's followed by a sword demo.

Then came a 7 vs 7 kumite exhibition, Team Tiger vs Team Dragon. Amy was in the Tiger team, and I the Dragon team. Everyone fought great, but I'm pleased to say that my Dragon Team won comfortably with 4 wins & 1 draw (my fight was the draw!) vs Team Tigers 2 wins & 1 draw

Dragon Team (right), Tiger Team (left)

The five high school kids then did there demo (two girls beat up three guys), followed by great demo's from all the Shiramizu instructors...

Arakawa Sensei, showing the 'Zero' inch punch, to break two boards.

...and Arakawa Sensei himself!

After that, all that was remaining was the awards ceremony and closing speaches from various important people including Arakawa Sensei's father.


Uehara Sensei

Arakawa Sensei also announced that Uehara Sensei was to be officially given the title of 'Vice Chief Instructor' for the Shiramizu dojo, a great honour!

After the clean up, all that was remaining was a party... with plenty of great food and drink...



...and everyone had a great time!

Kita-Kasushika Area Karate Championships

Carl here...


The English intern tag-team!

Yesterday was the Kita-Kasushika Area Karate Championships held at the Asukaru Centre in Satte City. I thought this was going to be a small local competition, I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find out that there was over 500 entrants and a reasonable number of competitors in my own divisions.

Anyway, back to the story...

The competition was organised by Arakawa Sensei and Masuda Sensei from the local Shotokan dojo. Shiramizu therefore helped setup the competition on the Saturday night. Team Gaijin was taken away from 'set-up duties' by Okano-san, to talk us through our Karate acting debut in what would be part of the Shiramizu Taikai at the end of the month. I'm still not sure of the details but to give you a glimpse, here's a picture of some of those involved (from the blog of Arakawa Sensei).


Thankfully, Team Gaijin don't have to dress up in any Lycra costumes, we can get away with our karate gi and sunglasses!

After the setup was complete, Arakawa Sensei took Team Gaijin, that being Carl, Amy and Lawrence to a local chinese restaraunt, accompanied by Kikuchi Sensei and a few other Shiramizu students. The food was delicious and Lawrence enjoyed laughing at my fumbling with the chopsticks.

The Competition
I managed to miss the 'team warm up' because I took too long taping my competitor numbers on my back, but I got there in time for opening ceremony. In typical fashion, there was a number of speeches and the Roman salute (one student says a short formal speech to the main organizer of the tournament that all the athletes will do their best in a sportsperson like manner) and then the competition started across 8 mats. Shiramizu entered approximately 150 competitors into the competition, but only three seniors - those being Amy, Lawrence and myself aka - Team Gaijin, so there was plenty of expectation resting on our shoulders, and I'm pleased to say that we didn't disappoint!

Kata
In typical fashion, after my own brief warm up to loosen up my body, I found a corner to fall asleep in, iPod playing, oblivious to the world...

...until I was woken up by a kick to the shins of either Amy or Lawrence to tell me that our Kata division had been called.

Our kata category had 17 people in. I've been working on 'fixing' my Chinto kata since I came to Japan, and it was that kata which I chose to perform. Despite this I personally didn't think I'd get past the first round. My competition kata isn't particularly great and with it being an open competition, I thought a Shotokan or Goju exponent would get the better of me.

Anyway, by some random fluke of luck I got through the first round with a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' performance of Chinto, with no less than 5 flags! The next round I was not surprised to lose by 5 flags to the other guy. Lawrence was disappointed with not getting past the first round, but he lost to the guy who went onto the finals (finishing in 2nd) so we both ended up with a certificate for finishing in the 'best 8'.

Amy lost to a lady who went onto the finals of her division too, but there were only 8 people in her category so she didn't get a certificate for her placing.

Whilst we were waiting for our kumite divisions, I tried to steal myself away again and sleep but some of the little Shiramizu girls had different ideas. They thought it would be a good idea to use me as a warm up instrument, at one point I had a dozen trying to beat me up! I eventually managed to convince them to fight Lawrence and Amy instead so I could escape!

Kumite
Amy was up first from Team Gaijin...


...and she fought very well.


Amy 'high fiving' her opponent during a match!
Making her way comfortably to the finals to win her first ever individual Gold Medal, in Japan of all places!!!


Amy with her FIRST EVER individual Gold Medal!
Not wanting to be out done, Lawrence and I made our way to the area. There were 21 competitors in the division and both Lawrence and I had been seeded into the 2nd round. Our referee was the coach from Saitama Sakai high school, where I sometimes train on Sundays, so I was conscious not to mess up.


Lawrence in action...!
Lawrence was up against someone much taller, but he held his own for most of the fight scoring with some solid counter punching. His opponent managed to keep his lead until the end, winning 4-3.

For my first fight I was matched against a gentleman who at first glance appeared to be of 'aging years'. Any false notions I had that this would be an easy fight were wiped away with two lightening fast lunge punches that I barely saw coming and could do nothing about. As I walked back to the line the second time, I remember smiling at Lawrence and getting a knowing smile back, something like 'well, we didn't expect that!'.


Winning punch
After that, I found my stride but the match went onto sudden death were I took the win with a head punch.

The next round was a little easier, I settled straight into the fight, measured and scored with a head punch straight off my line. After a little bit of trading, scoring another point, I launched in with a solid hook kick to the head to get 3 points.


Carl mid-flight, a moment before the right leg connects to his opponents head
I felt comfortable going into the finals, my opponent shook my hand before hand and we lined up. We traded well, scoring a point, then losing a point. He wouldn't let my bring my legs fully into the game, I scored with a solid body kick that nearly split him in two...


...and a reverse punch that put him on the floor.


However, in the last few seconds, being one point down, I couldn't get through his guard to get the point, I landed a few techniques, but none good enough to get the score. My opponent took the win, 4 points to 3. I would have to settle for 2nd place!

After I'd bowed out of the match, I realised that our fight had been the last of the day. Most of the other areas had already been cleared away and everyone had been stood watching the fight. I was disappointed with the 2nd place, but it could well be the extra motivation I need get ready for the Wadokai Kanto Taikai in March!

Summary
The competition was very well organised, ran smoothly all day and finished on time. The volunteers were all great, and the whole day was fun! Though I don't yet have any exact figures, Shiramizu did very well with a lot of competitors taking gold. This competition has proved to be a great warm up for the Shiramizu club competition in two weeks time.

Team Gaijin brought home 4 awards from 3 competitors, so it was a good result for the foreigners!

For me, it's showed what areas I need to get to work on in time for my next competition. Meanwhile, I must get back to my junzuki...

Thanks...
I'd like to thank Chris Heinmiller, the lastest addition to 'Team Gaijin' for taking most of the photos during the competition, leaving us free to concentrate on our karate. Keep an eye on this blog for an exclusive interview with Chris coming soon, as he is a 2nd Dan Taekwondo student from Canada now training at Shiramizu.

Additional photo's from Lawrence...!