Doing it for the Kids: Sugito Taikai, 17th October 2010

Peter Here:

After the massive events that were the Wado World Cup and the Wadokai National Championships, it was refreshing to return to more local tournaments. The Sugito Machi Taikai showed how 'grassroots' competition is as important to karate as the major events, not just in gaining useful experience for the developing athletes, but also in building relationships and friendships in the local area. The tournament was an open style, which meant we had Wado and Shotokan karate competing together. This would be my first time in seeing Shotokan in Japan, let alone competing with them, so I was excited by this.




Everyone worked together from the first second to make the day go smoothly, setting up chairs and arenas right through to the packing up. It really gives a good indication of what can be achieved in little time when you work hard for each other!

Although the tournament was mainly for the Kids, there was also an adult Male category for both Kumite and Kata. As I had successes with both of these in Japan I perhaps went in more confident than I ought. I knew my Kata was still not up to much in comparison with others, but maybe I thought it had improved more than it actually had; so I was very disappointed to go out in the first round. Kumite wasn't much better, as I was drawn against a Shotokan competitor who beat me soundly 3-1. A let down for myself.

The rest of the Shiramizu entrants did very well, with many of the golds going our way.



Easily the best part of the tournament was making new friends and playing with the kids. There were only 5 male competitors in the tournament and we trained and warmed up together, learning new things from each other, having a few good Japanese conversations along the way. Even in local tournaments in the UK there seems to be a 'privacy' mentality among the co-competitors which restricts conversation a little so this was a wonderful experience. Of course, many of the kids there knew me from the dojo and kindergartens so they were having fun with me too.

Despite the results for me it was a great day.

Sugito City Championships 2009

Erica here.

Last Sunday, October 18, Louise and I participated in the Sugito City Competition. It was a very small one, consisting of about 200 competitors for 4 different clubs. It took place at the Takanodai Elementary School.

l-r Louise & Erica with their medals & tournament result certificates.

Louise in kata action.

Interestingly, Louise and I were the only adult females in the competition. So for kata, we got put into the men’s division. I was in the adult coloured belt category which was made up of 5 people, myself included, while Louise competed in the adult black belt category which had 3 people. I made it through 2 rounds to get into the finals and there I won my first gold medal in Japan! Unfortunately, Louise had a very tough opponent in her category and did not advance to the finals for kata.

Then came the exciting bit: kumite! Because Louise and I were the only adult females competing, we went straight into the finals to have our match. We waited until the very end when all the different divisions had finished with their preliminary and semi-final rounds and we filed into the gym with all the other finalists in a big procession with music playing and everything. I must say, this was the first time I had such a grand entrance to a final round! With the entire gym watching, each pair went up and fought their hardest for first place and everyone cheered them on. When it came for our turn, I went up hoping to score at least one point during the 2 minute match. Louise won of course and our end score was 4 – 9. Yatta!! Personal victory for me =) It should be noted here that this is Louise's first gold medal in Japan too!

Misaki Yoshia from Shiramizu dojo - an up and coming kata champ who has won her junior high school division at the Wadokai Nationals plus had her kata profiled online by JKfan magazine.

The each age division's kumite finalists line up against each other for the final event, which is a show of each final round one after the other going from youngest to oldest.

l-r Erica vs Louise in kumite.

Kids from the dojo!

Smiles are a good way to end the day.

Because more than half the competitors were from Shiramizu, many of the matches had fighters going against a member of their club. I guess it further motivates them to do better since there is pre-existing competitiveness for some of them (especially with the junior high kids). There were smiles and there were tears and everyone put in the best efforts.

Everything ok? The Japanese sign for everything is 'ready to go' that someone far away

can see is to make a circle above one's head with one's hands.

Sugito Taikai

Carl here...

...for a huge report on the 33rd Sugito Taikai (Sugito Championships) which was held on Sunday 26th October at the Takano-dai shogakko (Takanodai Elementary School) in Sugito.


Team Gaijin! Lawrence, Carl, Amy...

There are only two karate dojo in Sugito, Shiramizu (Wadokai) and Zenshinkan (Shotokan), so a number of dojo from the surrounding towns were also invited to bulk out the entries. This was still going to be the smallest competition that I had entered so far in Japan, so I was eager to see how it would work out. Size wise it will be closer to the ‘inter club’ events that I’m planning for my dojo in England.

Set up
Lawrence, Amy and I walked to the school (only 15 minutes from our apartment) and arrived for 7:15am to help Arakawa Sensei and his team of volunteers to set up the competition. The set up was pretty straight forward, 4 taped areas in the middle of the hall, chairs for spectators around three sides and the officials table at the top of the hall opposite the entrance.

The tournament had 14 kata and 13 kumite divisions with 411 individual entrants. This number of entrants can be halved because most competitors entered both kata and kumite.

Group Warm up

Warm up... Shiramizu style!
As is customary at Japanese competitions, the dan grade cadets put everyone through a standard warm-up of drills and stretching. The Shiramizu competitors took up most of the hall and at a guess, I would say that they accounted for 80% of the entrants.

Opening Ceremony
Again, this was pretty standard. There were a few short speeches and Takuya Iwasaki gave a very good roman salute to Matsuda Sensei from the Zenshinkan dojo, on behalf of all the competitors.

Kata
I must admit that after the opening ceremony, I found somewhere quiet to go to sleep. If it wasn’t for Lawrence waking me up I would have probably missed my event! I did watch a few events, and I thought the standard was very good.

Men’s Kata
There were only five entries in this category, 3 of whom were from Shiramizu, myself, Lawrence and Tsubasa and the other two were friends of Lawrence. My only goal in kata was to perform without being nervous; my last two attempts at kata have been very shaky performances. I was first up with an offering of Chinto, with a guy from the Shotokan dojo with Kankudai. Lawrence was up next against the guy who beat me. Lawrence also performed Chinto, which I don’t think he’ll mind me saying, was not up to his usual standard. The Shotokan guy went through to the final to face the winner of the next match between Tsubasa and the other guy from the Shotokan dojo. Tsubasa performed very well, and got all 5 flags and thus went onto the finals. The final match was no contest, Tsubasa easily won with a great performance of Chatanyara Kushanku kata and got all 5 flags.

Cadet & Ladies Kata - Amy’s Kata Debut...

Misaki in action
I watched Amy’s category with interest as it was her debut performance in a kata competition. Her ladies kata division was merged with the cadet’s because Amy was the only senior entry. The cadets are all very good, in particular Misaki and Kana from Shiramizu.

Amy, mid-Chinto
Amy gave a good performance of Chinto, she didn’t get through the first round but she enjoyed the experience and will definitely be entering the next kata event.

Kana, event final, Suparinpei
I was particularly impressed with Kana’s Suparinpei in the final, the kata is overly long and she performed it exceptionally well, winning with 3 flags to 2.

After the kata events, we all stopped for a 1 hour lunch break. During the break, most of Shiramizu donned their mitts for some kumite drills. I took the opportunity to beat up some of the kids who kidnapped my iPod earlier in the day...

Kumite
I didn’t watch many events, I was too conscious of my need to medal. I’d come away from the last two competitions without a prize and was eager to put an end to the dry spell. To add to the pressure, there were only 3 people in my category (including Lawrence) and I’d been given a bye to the final. Also, this was only the second time that I’d used one of the Japanese head guards, my first outing with this didn’t go particularly well!

Amy’s kumite
Amy was again the only entry for the ladies kumite so her division was combined with the cadets. I had my fingers crossed that she wouldn’t get disqualified.

Misaki, Amy, Kana
Amy’s first fight was against Misaki, who is more of a kata perfectionist than a fighter. Despite this, it was a very close fight.

Amy vs Misaki
Both fighters traded very well, and the result could have gone either way. Amy however found her stride first and settled into delivering solid gyakuzuki’s as counter punches. Amy won the fight 6-4. Her next fight would be the final which would be held a little later on in a special ‘end of day’ event.

Men’s kumite
Lawrence was matched with the guy who beat us both in the kata.

Lawrence (blue) in action...
The fight was very good; Lawrence quickly took the fight to his opponent and found his stride.

Go Lawrence...
I was trying to coach from the sidelines but I’m not sure if he heard. Despite not being a fan of kumite, Lawrence is actually a very good counterpuncher. Whenever his opponent attacked, he was ready with a solid reverse punch to get the point. He easily outmatched his opponent to win the bout on the buzzer 7-1.

The Finals
After all the preliminary rounds had finished on the four areas, they were all dismantled and a central area was created for the 13 final matches. This was a really nice touch to the tournament as it let the crowd get closer to the action. The referee’s and the fighters were also introduced over the PA before each match which added to the excitement of each bout.

The final events ran in typical order, youngest to oldest. There were some very close matches but most of the juniors stuck with hand techniques to try and get the 4 points clear.

Yusuke (Arakawa Sensei’ oldest son) fought very well in his match, he was clinical and his opponent didn’t get close. An easy 4-0 win!

Yuki and Rikuto, Kumite final
Yuki and Rikuto (male cadets) from Shiramizu was a good match, with both guys throwing some great combinations including a few good sweeps and a well placed jodan-geri. Yuki won the match by a comfortable margin.


Amy and Kana, Kumite final
Amy and Kana’s fight was close, I thought Amy would have won easily but Kana, quickly found a weakness in Amy’s attack and used it to win the match.

Next up was the men’s kyu grade final between two Shiramizu fighters. I didn’t watch much of this bout as I was getting warmed up for my match. What I did see of the fight was a brawl, with a few warnings being handed out. I always find this category to be the same - heavy contact but lots of effort.

Carl Vs Lawrence
I’d just watched Lawrence fight the best I’ve ever seen him fight, with some great counter punching. So I was a little apprehensive when we were called up. I couldn’t let him get settled in the fight otherwise it would become a very close contest. I took the fight to him, measuring distance with my lead hand trying to throw him off, and launched with a tobikomizuki to get a point. Lawrence launched in with a jab, but I was faster with a gyakuzuki to get another point. I then set him up for a jodan-uramawashigeri (hook kick to the head) which the crowd liked. Next, Lawrence moved in with a gyakuzuki-chudan which landed and should have scored because I was a little slow to react, I side stepped with a jab to the head. The referee wanted to give Lawrence the point, but was overruled by the three flag officials who, blindsided only saw my technique land. The result was 6-0.

Closing ceremony and kumite awards
Once the area was cleared away, all the competitors lined up for the kumite presentations. After the awards were given out, there were a few final speeches including a funny ‘lost-property’ announcement by Arakawa Sensei. After the final ceremony everyone helped to clear up the tournament, which took a little more than ten minutes.

The Shiramizu entrants... (picture from Arakawa Sensei' blog)
Summary
The tournament was very well organised (I’ve put a few observations at the end of this post) and even finished early! It’s a shame that my kumite event was so small because it felt like an empty victory, despite being my first Japanese medal! Amy was quite pleased with her 2nd place medal too, which was also her first Japanese medal. Everyone had a great time and I think the way Arakawa Sensei arranged the kumite finals was fantastic and really added to the atmosphere.


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About the tournament

Officials and Volunteers
I think it’s a testament to the character of Arakawa Sensei and Uehara Sensei (chief referee) that they got so many officials to help at the event. Kata had 5 flag officials, then an adjudicator and maybe 5 more people running the table. Kumite had 3 flag officials, the referee, adjudicator and maybe 10 people running the table. At a rough count I would say that there were 50 volunteers/officials for 4 areas.

Run like clock-work!
As soon as a category has begun, volunteers were getting the competitors for the next category ready in a separate location, with all relevant equipment. All ‘red’ competitors were put in one line, and all ‘blue’ in another. As soon as the final match has finished on the area, the new competitors were marched into the main hall. The red competitors go to the ‘red’ side and blue to theirs. The event is ready to go by the time the referee’s have bowed out. This organisation ensured that the competition could finish early.

Tournaments in the UK often over run because of either a lack of officials and volunteers or because competitors are not where they are supposed to be, with the right equipment when called for.

Points system
Kata was run as WKF standard, red and blue flags, 5 flag officials with both aka and ao performing their kata simultaneously except in the finals.

Kumite for the juniors was to 4 points clear, cadets and seniors to 6 points, including the final. This ensured that the event ran so quickly. If I was to adopt this system I would probably have all events run to 6 points clear, because it’s too easy to get 4 points, one lucky kick and a punch and it’s all over! Also, for the finals (if time allowed) I would probably go for the WKF standard 8 points clear as it gives the fighters more chance to take risks and is therefore much more interesting to watch.

Awards
What I think is a good idea is that the number of awards is dependent upon the number of competitors in that category. So, in large categories there were 8 awards – medals and certificates for 1st, 2nd and joint 3rd and certificates for next best 4. Some of the smaller categories (like my kumite one) only had 1 medal. I think this system is rather good, not only does it cut down on the cost of a tournament, BUT and perhaps more importantly, competitors have to earn the prize rather than just being awarded it for being there!

Gifts
Along with the standard event program, all competitors were given a pen printed with the tournament name free of charge. A small and inexpensive way of having the event remembered!

Sugito City tournament.

It was a slightly chilly Oct 12st morning when dojos from Sugito and its surrounding cities of Miyashiro and Satte all met at the Sugito Takanodai Elementary School for the Sugito Taikai. The gym wasn't very big, but it still held four rings and seating for families and friends. The holding ring, though, had to be put in the hall and that's where most people stayed to warm up.

But with around 400 competitors, 4 rings were quite enough. The morning started off with kata, and in my division my Chinto faced off with Zenshinkan Dojo's Sawai-san's Kankudai. I was beaten and I sort of regret not watching his kata while I waited since the kata he did in his matches afterward were all rather good.

Owing to the smoothness of the matches, lunch time hit well before 12 and it was decided that we would reconvene anyway at 1, giving us nearly an hour and a half to eat, practice, and generally make friends.

The afternoon was all kumite where my adult division's original 5 entrants was down to 4 because one hadn't shown up. I felt a bit more nervousness this time around compared to the Tobu taikai and though I was aware of how I was moving, I really couldn't help myself. I didn't win that match either so more practice is it then.

But results aside, it really was a great tournament because of the fact that it's people from near where Shiramizu is. More families (as well as more Shiramizu competitors) meant more time to meet people. And this closeness means there are people I'm likely to run into during my time here. Indeed, I ran into Sawai-san again just two days ago in a bookstore. So fun all around, but it's back to the grind stone as I only have one week left until the Tokyo Kita-ku (North Area) Taikai on November 3rd.