Reiho Uchida ;

As probably all kendokas know, on Saturday the All Japan Kendo Championship had been held, so this entry is again - nearly all kendo. Some of the not(fully)kendo stuff is at the very end. For my kendo in Japan adventure started quite a short time ago, I will not dwell on the quality of fights, points, etc, but rather on the behaviour of people. First of all, the publicity. The hall was huge, therefore publicity was somewhat isolated, which is often impossible during the Kendo events held in Europe. Some people came with children, who were interested in their games, not the game. However, I have seen no people with infants or very little children. What does it mean? You could watch matches in peace. There was no problem with people eating during the fights, or talking, which is probably the result of the size of the tribunes.

Changes of the referees were smooth and elegant, although there was no military kind of drill applied - their marching in and out lacked simultaneity that is required in the army. It was just natural. The players were preparing themselves on mats placed (from my point of view) on the left side of shiaijos. They entered shiaijo mostly with 2-3 steps, then rei, sonkyo and hajime. After the point many players, during the walk-back to their positions, adjusted their nakayui, etc., without prior speaking with the referees. There was no hansoku for that - it seems that it is perfectly legal to touch your sword when the fight is not ongoing. The hajime before the next point was not always spoken when the players were perfectly still. I cannot say if the referees see if the players are ready even though one is still moving a little bit or is it just a fact, that the player has to be ready when the referee restarts the fight, which was not always the case. There is no one waiting close to the shiaijo with replacement shinai for the player, nor the player places his spare shinais on the mat or close to the shiaijo. If the shinai was broken, player always left the field and someone, probably his sensei, ran in with the shinai bag, and player prepared his new sword - put on the tsuba and the tsubadome. If one of the players had to wait for another, he did it most of the time in sonkyo, but there were also the cases with sitting in seiza. If there was a hansoku, in all cases that I have seen, a player bowed to the referee confirming that he understood the consequences. The players were leaving the shiaijo moving slow 5 steps backward, followed by a slow, simultaneous rei. Then another steps and possible reis were not as formal. Then they were moving to the mats placed on the right side of the field arranged, as the left ones, facing each other. So they were approaching the mats, bowing to each other, making seiza and removing their kote. If one made it faster then the other, he was waiting for his opponent and then they simultaneously were starting to take men off. Then gathering of the equipment, standing up, simultaneous formal rei and not as formal stepping from the mat and moving out. The waiting for the opponent before starting to remove the men looked really honourable.

The thing that was really cool and perhaps could be introduced in European countries was transformation of the shiaijo. Before quarter-finals, there were to neighbouring shiaijos. From the quarterfinals there was only one shiaijo, centered in respect to the previous fields. So they had to change the lines and it went really smooth. It turned out that those two fields borders were not made from a single tape line for each side. Instead, some of them were made from two. So they removed only parts of the old shiaijos' borders, and had just to connect the remaining lines with the tape. So there was no new measuring or deciding where to place the shiaijo, just simple "follow the points", except for the taping in the new centre of the field. So we had a new, centered shiajo in seconds and I imagine that I do not have to explain, that the visual appearance of following fights was much better this way than when you just leave all remaining shiaijos empty and make the finals on once, most of the time not centered, shiaijo, as was on all taikai that I have seen in Europe.

And now back to the Kendo that I can attend and to which I can aspire. This Sunday was my first weekend, normal keiko in the Kobukan dojo. It comes out, that on weekend, there is a well known drill. The keiko was 2-hours, extended with stretching. It started with a voiceless suburi to the mirror. Then group warm-up (no running, just movement of body parts without displacement) and suburi. Simply 30 jogeburi, shomenburi, sayumenburi and 50 hayasuburi. It is interesting that no one shouts the final men in hayasuburi. Then people gathered in groups of three and a few rounds of kirikaeshi followed. First sayumen, then sayudo. After the kirikaeshi straight men which was quickly improved by the sensei, which explained that all have to start with sonkyo, then moving to the distance were shinais barely start to touch each other, and then the seme with kiai begins. After a moment motodachi has to open and then the men is striked. However, I have noticed that it was not always sort of debana exercise, for if the seme was strong enough, the senseis just slowly removed the pressure from their shinai and your attack smoothly followed. The men was changed then to men and debana/oji waza vs. men. It all took about an hour, maybe a little less. The remaining 30 minutes were, as always, jigeiko.

I have to mention that this time there was also a beginner, an older man in a sports suite, who were involved in all the exercises except the jigeiko. And instead of oji waza he simply did men. Then stretching, seires and the keiko ended. Afterwards we went to grab some drink to a small pub-like place, but pubbish in a Japanese way. 20 people were crowded on perhaps 20 square meters and lots of that was occupied by a bar, grills and huge clay barrels or maybe jars with sake. People were standing by high tables, some of them placed on a drink boxes. The food was really good, perhaps because it was new to me. In general, the orders, except the first, were made by shouting all over the place to the barman/waiter. Who sometimes came, but most of the time moved up his/hers hand or shouted back.