Random #51: 2009 NSW State Championships

Well, it's been a week since I actually competed at the 2009 NSW State Championships.  I didn't post earlier as circumstance kind of got in the way, but I will plink out a few details here.

The event was held at the Campus Sports Centre at the Lidcome Campus of Sydney University, otherwise known officially as Cumberland Campus.  The same location as the Friendship Cup was held, and will be held also in 2010.  The event was meant to start at 8:30am for registration and shinai weigh-in, but when people turned up, the building was still locked and no-one had any way of opening it or contacting someone to opening it.  In the end after some considerable delay, they managed to convince security services to unlock it for us I think.

The rather large crowd piled on in.  For me, I was already changed into my gi and hakama from home since the venue is very close to home for me and driving when dressed has never been an issue for me.  The registration and weigh-in went without a hitch, my favourite shinai at the moment clocked in at 529g, clearing the 510g minimum with no problems at all.

They needed some volunteers, so I helped out being a table head for the juniors matches, were my court hosted the U12 and U16 events.  Some rather flimsy kendo from juniors, but I guess it's to be expected considering how young they are.  And how small some of them are too...  Though, some of them displayed great tenacity and I predict we will have some future champions soon who have started at the tender young age.

With the juniors over, my match was in the 2nd pool of the Kyu event on Court 2, so I quickly got myself ready by putting on my Men and Kote.  In the first pool, there was only 1 match since the 3rd person of the pool was absent.  Unfortunately, the person who lost was from out club.

For my pool, I had one person I have never seen before, and another that I had heard of.  I was a bit daunted, but I was told to use debana kote on both of them for the win.  Well, since I was in the top of the pool order, I would have the first match, have a rest, then play the last match.  First match, Hajime, straight off I noticed my opponents kote was wide open, so I came in with a small kote cut, and scored the ippon.  Nicely done.  Came back to the middle, niponme, hey, his kote is open exactly the same.... hmm, lets do that again, pop!  Owari!  Two kote cuts, well under a minute, I'd estimate perhaps a ten second match.  My neck was really stiff from being tense and nervous beforehand, so when I stepped off the court (after finishing properly etc), I reflexively tilted my head and neck to the left and right and hear a vertabrae pop, but it felt much better.  My juniors in our club then laughed, and I why, which they said, it looked like that I had done the match so easily and then stretched my neck as it was nothing, just warming up... It seemed a very "cool" and collected action as if I didn't even have a match.

My second match was a bit harder, but it went in a blur also.  I *think* my first point was a kote, but I can't be sure, I went for something and the flags went up.  We did rotate around a lot, and there were cuts exchanged, and my strongish center was working effectively against him as he mune-tsuki'd onto my shinai once which stopped him short very firmly, before I finished the match with a solid men cut.

I had a little bit of a wait since the other pools had to go ahead before the elimination matches.  I unfortunately lost in the elimination round.  The shiai was actually pretty intense, but I was playing it cool and slowly, keeping mainly in the center of the court when I could, forcing my opponent to move around me, and he was getting really puffed at pushing against me.  We had a draw at the end-time, but because it was unlimited encho, we continued on.  It was a pretty long match with the encho, and in the end, he scored what was a hiki-dou on me.  Afterwards, one of our club coaches told me it was a rubbish cut, and he believed that the shimpans were bored with the match and just gave it to him.  Personally, I also did feel a little jilted as the cut didn't have any power behind it, and there really wasn't any timing involved either.  He had made the cut, I stood my ground and didn't acknowledge any cut since I didn't think it'd actually be a cut, but the flags went up.  Oh well, thats just how things are.

My opponent who won, lost in the next round to someone in our club in another marathon encho, with the total match lasting 11 minutes apparently.  They had different shimpans, and none of his cuts were ippon obviously.  Interestingly, both of them were given a warning, but not a hansoku, for using their shoulders to push, tsk tsk, taiatari is with your stomachs, and tsubazeriai is with your kote and tsuba, no shoulders in there boys...

In any case, I was pretty happy with the results,  It did give me some sense of satisfaction how I had done considering how little training I have had recently.

In the final results, we got a 2nd place Kyu, then two equal thirds in Dan, third in Womens and the Fighting Spirit Award.  Not a bad haul for our club.

The next goal will be Grading at Picton in 2010, January 30th and 31st.  My fear is I may still fail it due to lack of training since I no longer have weekday trainings.  I must take the time to learn my Kata somehow from the other seniors after trainings and learn it well.  I can do it!