11th Shiramizu Taikai

Louise here,

On the day Erica had her shodan test in Chiba, I went to the Shiramizu club tournament. All the members of Shiramizu younger than senior high school were entered, which, including a few members from other closely related clubs, totaled 366 competitors.

Lining up half an hour before the hall opened

In the first rounds in each age group, the kids had to do kata and then the final rounds were kumite (the kindergarten kids did kihon then kata). I thought this was an interesting way to organize it, so they had to be good at both to win a medal.

(Editor's note # 1; Kata was judged using a ballroom dance judging style. The young athletes in groups of 6-8 did the same kata as many times as possible within 3 minutes while the judges walked around scoring them best to worst. At the end of 3 minutes, the judges would meet to determine the best 2-4 to go onto the next round. It was a great way for judges to see the true abilities of the athletes, and it allowed the athletes to perform much more than if they had just one round of one kata to do, especially athletes who didn't go past the first round.

Note #2: The gym used was a performance auditorium which held hundreds of tiered, cushioned seats and the floor stage was big enough for 3 rings. This allowed families to see the tournament quite well while also being somewhat more comfortable during the whole day compared to a normal arena or gym space.)

At lunchtime and in the early afternoon there were demonstrations by the adults and senior high school students, along with the traditional 'Karate man' demonstration. From what I gather, this happens along the same lines every year, including the intern for that year. What a pity Erica wasn't there to be embarrassed with me. Choreographed by Okano san, the story this year was that three bad guys try to take over the tournament, I fight them off, get shot with an evil medicine bullet and become bad, five karate man heroes appear wearing hero suits, we all fight, I become good again, the good guys win and live happily ever after.

Victory pose

At the end of the tournament after the finals had been held, the adult class demonstrated board-breaking. That was the first time I'd done it, and it was very very fun.

Breaking those boards

Shodan shinsa - black belt test!

Erica receiving her black belt from Arakawa Sensei in the Shiramizu dojo several days after the shodan test. (check out the pink Japanese tabi socks...!)

Also, click here Erica's short bilingual video message on the first night of wearing her new black belt! (From Sensei's blog!)

Erica here.

Last Monday, the 22nd of March, about 15 Shiramizu members and myself attended the shodan test (Wadokai Kanto Area Dan Examination, or in Japanese, Wadokai Kanto-chiku Shodan Shinsa, 和道会 関東地区 昇段審査) in Chiba. Because the Shiramizu tournament was on the same day, we participated in the opening ceremony that morning first before rushing off to the exam.

Kikuchi Sensei accompanied us that day and we arrived just in time for the pre-test seminar. There were about 90 people in total I would guess. About 70 were there to try for their shodan (1st degree) and most of them were kids and teens along with a few university students. I think I may have been the oldest person in the shodan category =_=' The other 20 were candidates for nidan and sandan (2nd and 3rd degree) and most of them were adults.

We were all seated on the gym floor and called up 5 at a time to do standing kihon and ido kihon. After a short break we were called up again to do 1 kata (for the shodan candidates) or 2 (for the nidan and sandan candidates). After another break, we were asked to do kihon kumite and free kumite right after that. Now all this may not sound very difficult and in essence it shouldn't be because we should have trained so much that it comes to us naturally when we are up there. The thing that got me the most that day were my nerves. I couldn't even think about what I was doing because I just blanked out. Fortunately, my muscle memory kicked in and carried me through.

It took about 4 hours to get through everyone and in reality we only spent about 5 or 6 minutes in total up there in front of the examiners and everyone else. At the very end, results were announced. Most shodan candidates passed, but only a few of the nidan and sandan candidates passed. Of course, all the Shiramizu members received a pass! It was a happy day for all, except for the fact that we had to miss the Shiramizu tournament to be at the exam =(

Sorry, I was too distracted to take pictures..so there are none for this post. Gomenasai!

(Editor's note: We're of course very happy Erica passed her shodan in Japan! This is exactly what we're hoping for from all the interns each year, to try hard continuously to the point they have developed to the next level in their Karate, and then they can formally realize that improvement by passing a milestone event here like achieving their next dan rank! Just aiming to pass the next dan test only is not the goal, but more a recognition that the efforts they put into their daily training are paying off.)

Highlight video of Shiramizu's 10th Annual Club Taikai

This is from the 10th Annual Shiramizu Karate Club Championships.
It was held on Feb 22, 2009 at the Asukaru Community Center, Satte City, Saitama Prefecture. It was a fun, inter-club event for the home dojo and branch locations. Out of the 450 members, probably about 250+ took part as competitors, while many more took part in the demonstrations.

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!

9th Shiramizu Taikai! - Take two...

I suppose it's now for the "Lawrence-take" on things.......

In the background you can see Takagi Sensei and Arakawa Sensei laughing at our demo...

The post prior pretty much sums up how the tournament went so I'll just throw in my two cents about what I saw and learned.

The one aspect about the tournament I particularly liked was that it almost felt like a showcase of everyone's abilities, as opposed to a competition of who was better. Obviously some of the older kids were really motivated to win (in a healthy way), and those who excelled should be acknowledged, but as Richard Sensei mentioned, everyone got a certificate for participating because that's equally important. And because the competition portion was only half the day, the later demo's meant that every single member got a chance to do more than just compete.

I can't recall a single kid being upset at a loss in a match because, soon after, they had another chance to show their wares in the demo with all their friends.

I also did like that, being a dojo tournament, the format was kumite for the finals (and semi-finals if there were lots of kids in one category), with kata for the matches prior. It really requires that those who want to do well make sure they're doing well in both areas.

But I do feel that grouping the kids by age only does make it difficult for the lower belts when they're pitched against black belts, but I'll be the first to concede that it was inevitable as doing it any other way would result in lots and lots of 3-person categories to run through. I will say, however, that there were some upsets in terms of lower belts winning over higher ranking belts, so it does offer a new twist to things. Regardless, the first point about the competitive spirit never overpowering the spirit of friendship still holds true.

With the tournament portion running extremely smoothly and without injury, we moved to the demos, which was the highlight for me.

Everything from individual kata demos to acrobatic "save the damsel in distress" skits to self defense demos to group kata demos, was just great fun. Every single person from the youngest to the oldest had a chance to be on the floor to take part, and everyone had a big smile on their face.

I'm also quite glad to say the demo I did with Richard Sensei went over quite well. To make a long story short, it starts like this.......

and ends like this......
..... 6 times. Even harder than being thrown around was keeping the grin off my face, as I was supposed to be angry......... oh well =)......

But such was the variety of the demos, the good mix of seriousness and fun, that really made the tournament fun no matter how one was involved.

Which I think brings me to my last point, that though this particular tournament had 450-odd participants, there's no doubt in my mind that something half, quarter, or even a fifth of the size wouldn't be just as fun. So long as the right atmosphere and dedication, from students and volunteering parents alike, is present, the rest of the aspects will follow.

All I can say is I'm very glad to be around for the 10th anniversary of the Shiramizu Taikai. Til then......

Richard here! Below are pictures of 'Lawrence The Intern' in action mixing it up!

9th Shiramizu Taikai!

Richard here!



The 9th Annual Shiramizu Karate Club Championships took place today at the Kuki City Comprehensive P.E. Gymnasium (Kuki-machi Sogo Taikukan). This was a dojo-only event for the 450 members, of which pretty much everyone from kindergarten to junior high school competed - there were no high school or adults divisions this year because Sensei wanted these two groups to help the kids out since there are so many of them!


Tournament time plan:
-8am gym opened
-9am official's meeting and volunteer's meeting
-10am walk-in opening ceremony (athletes lined up just off to the side and walked past the main table in groups based on their school year, like elementary 2nd grade, etc, with one person holding a placard for each group with their grade name on it)
-Some speeches
a) Suzuki Sensei (in charge of the tournament) announced the opening of the tournament
b) Arakawa Sensei spoke about it being the 9th year
c) Kikuchi Sensei (chief official) spoke about the rules
d) one junior high school student who made it onto the all-styles Saitama team gave the Sensei address, when they do a Roman salute and shout out before the front table how everyone will do their best with honour
-10:15am start
-1pm finish
-'karate man demo'
-1hr lunch
-ending speeches, including a politician, a kindergarten principal, the Saitama Karate Association president, Arakawa Sensei and Takagi Sensei
-many demos (60mins)
-award ceremony (40mins)
-done by 4pm!!!


Competition was by school grade only, with the elementary grades being co-ed, and the junior high school kids being male-only and female-only.


Everyone did one round of kata, with the winners of that round going on to finish the division with only kumite right to the final match. For kata, red and blue went at the same time, and 3 officials judged who was better. This format made the tournament go lightening fast. Of course those who like to fight knew they had to do kata well enough to get through the first round, since it was single round elimination.


For the kindergarten kids, separated in their 3 groups by age (3 year olds, 4 year olds and 5 year olds), 2 kids would go onto the mat at the same time being red and blue, then an instructor would call out basic ido kihon commands. 5 times forward jun zuki, turn with a block, 5 times back jun zuki, turn with a block, then finish. The officials would wave their flags who was better and then the next two would come up. I thought this was a great way to run kindergarten kids through the kata portion without them having to worry about remembering even a few moves.


All kumite saw the kids wearing a face helmet (meiho), kumite mitts (ken-sapo, short for fist-supporter) and a torso protector. The alloted time was 1:30min and the first person with a 4 point lead won. While some matches were over in 10 seconds, a few went up to 12-10 in pts in the junior high divisions.

Intern Lawrence preparing to ref for the first time.

Here I am successfully staying awake as a corner ref. I say this because the last time I officiated my daughter was born only days before, so I was quite sleep deprived while helping out at the Tobu City Tournament, during which I nodded off once!

There were 5 rings, with the center ring using the dojo mats. With more rings and only 3-4 officials per ring, the tournament went quickly.

This group I think is the elementary 2nd graders in the holding area just off to the side of the gym.
Some very happy kids! Several are in our intern's English conversation classes.

Kindergarten kids going through a warm-up on the side in the holding area. They did some light jumping around, then stretching, then they all practiced their ido kihon as a group so they'd be all rehearsed for their division. They have a different badge on their dogi jacket, I think it is a cute little bear kicking with Shiramizu Kid's Karate in English written on it, or something like that.

Myself, Takagi Sensei and Arakawa Sensei at the head table. Takagi Sensei's smart looking grey beard, being slightly pointy at the end, had everyone saying that he had aged. But he was still cracking jokes. and he watched everything with his steely-eyed gaze right until the very end.

During the second round of speeches when the competition was over just before lunch, Arakawa Sensei was kind enough to talk about the internship, how I had set it up, how Lawrence was the 3rd person and how soon there will be a British Wadokai couple (Carl and Amy) coming this summer. He also introduced my mom Bonita who is visiting from Canada right now, plus he pointed out my wife Rie and my daughter Ema, who he said is the new club mascot!

Takagi Sensei then went up and spoke about Arakawa Sensei being appointed to the Nippon Budokan's Budo-gakeun academy as an official karate instructor. Since this organization is at the center of the budo world here, it is quite an honour, and now Arakawa Sensei will assist Takagi Sensei every Thursday night from 5:30pm at the Budokan's dojo, which is located just to the side of the main hall.

Arakawa Sensei has asked me to come along as well as an unofficial instructor, which pleasantly surprised me.

The banner in Japanese for the 9th Annual Tournament.

Dai Kyu-kai Shiramizu Shuyo Kai Karate-do Rensei Taikai

(# 9 event Shiramizu Cultivation Association Karate-do Training Tournament)

Shiramizu Shuyo Kai is the full name for the dojo.

My daughter Ema at her first karate tournament! At 6-/12 months, she made lots of new friends and she didn't cry... until we said good-bye to Takagi Sensei at the end of the day - must have been the beard.

The medals! Now having run tournaments in Canada in the past, we would buy $4-5 medals and go through well over 100, so there is a large cost to them in a tournament budget. But these were easily 3x the weight of the medals I would buy in Canada. and engraved on the back with the tournament name, division, and 1st, 2nd, or 3rd!

Also, the top 4 of every division got a large certificate as per Japanese custom, but also every single participating member got a certificate of participation too! This is why the awards ceremony took so long as everyone came up one at a time, in a long-line, to get one.

Certificates here are printed in a huge batches with generic printing of the tournament event, and then one or two people trained in Japanese calligraphy spend the whole tournament day in a room off to the side filling out the year, the division, the person's name, their result and the current name of the current association president for that event. Actually, every tournament for all sports in Japan do this.

Just before lunch was the 'karateman' demo - which are 3 high school boys in what looks like Ultraman full-body stretch suits of different colors - red, yellow & orange. One high school girl was dressed as a manga character of some sort and at one point, one of the adults (Okano-san, the fish market salesman) dressed like a thug in sun glasses and an overcoat came out to only get beaten up by these super heros.

Here is 'blue karateman' in midst multi back flip. All the kids from 6th grade elementary learn acrobatics in the dojo and do them in all sorts of traditional and non-traditional demos.

After lunch, everyone got on the floor for a 20min tachi kihon and ido kihon workout, which was a good chance for the parents to see their kids again in action, plus for everyone to see how much the club membership has grown! Wow!

Arakawa Sensei leading the workout.

This was followed by many demos;

-kindergarten moving basics and simple acrobatics to music

-elementary school 6th grade Team Kata 'Chinto' demo, plus bunkai to music - very interesting routine created by Arakawa Sensei which this group will perform at the Wadokai World Champs this Aug in Vancouver.

-high school girls Team Kata 'Kushanku' demo - no bunkai

-all black belts Team Kata 'Seishan' demo - no bunkai

-double baseball bat break by Iwasaki Sensei - first with a dropping hammer strike, and the second as a shin break.

- there were a few other kata demos I think, like an elementary school group of 1-2-3kyu brown belts doing I think kushanku

Guseikai Honbu Dojo traditional defense demo done by the Fujimoto brothers.

'Fun karate demo' done by Lawrence and myself - this was a sport kumite-esque demo where Lawrence continues to lose which gets him more and more frustrated, much to the amusement of the kids who cheer him on not to give up. At one point I glanced at the head table to see Takagi Sensei looking stoic, but Arakawa Sensei was in the middle of a full belly laugh.
(Pictures from people there show both sensei actually laughing through the whole demo, which is just a bonus for us!)

Lawrence starts pounding his fists in frustration on the mat at this point, which was really funny.
He was hamming it up so well I was laughing too.

Even Masatoshi, Arakawa Sensei's youngest, was employed to run over with the cold spray!

During the finale with an Ogami Leap over Lawrence's head, I successfully don't wipe out in mid-air.

Awarding a top for group of winners!

This was absolutely a great dojo-only event, a real moral booster and an all round fun event both for traditional and sport budo.

Afterwards, there was an official's dinner at 5pm, followed by a dojo volunteers/staff dinner at 7pm. The official's dinner is covered by the dojo and the dojo dinner is normally a set fee of all you can eat and drink for between 3000-5000yen ($30-$50US depending on the exchange rate).

As I told Lawrence, it is important one watches how everything is run so in the future one can hold a similar event in one's own vision. And this event is so well run with a very positive vibe that there is lots to learn and pick-up. Arakawa Sensei and the other instructors really set a great tone of practical seriousness with clean fun.

I like the idea of those who only win one round of kata get to do kumite, keeping everyone motivated to improve their traditional technique, but I would modify this so everyone has to win one round of each to move on, so that everyone gets a chance at both. I'm not trying to knock this event, not at all, just saying that's how I would modify it.

Next year is the 10th, so Arakawa Sensei is planning a huge event for all ages, plus special demos and even a special commemorative training book/dvd set!

Foreign Wadokai members will be allowed to compete in this event so if anyone is planning to come to Japan next year, aim for the 3rd week of March.