Monthly Newsletter

July-August 2005

All Photos by D. Christman unless otherwise noted  (copyright 2005)

AUSKF Championships 7/2-3/05:  

Terry, Matsuura sensei and I traveled to Ann Arbor Friday night to scout out the Ann Arbor scene. We wanted to see and drive between our Hotel ( Hampton Inn) and the tournament sight. The tournament was held in a large gymnasium at the Central Campus Recreational Building, henceforth called the CCRB. We were a bit stymied by the difficulty and the amount of stoplights between the two. I was concerned because I wanted to volunteer my 7 passenger van as a shuttle, and I wanted to find the quickest and easiest route between hotels and the CCRB. It turns out I worked all weekend as a scorekeeper in Court A, and they had rented 3 large buses to do the shuttle for the participants and the sensei. So my van wasn't really needed. It turned out the tournament management wanted workers to score keep, time keep, tag, and write in the winners on the huge sheets of paper behind each of six rings.

Thanks go to Terry and our new member Tonya. Terry worked hard at tagging participants for two days. He had to find the fighters, figure out if they were red or white, then send them into the ring at the right time. That is very hard at the normal tournament, because there is so many people without experience. But Terry and I noticed the fighters here were at a much higher level, (of course). They are top people in there respective federations, at the US championships. They knew where and when they should be reporting to their court to fight. Tonya was a recorder all day Saturday, she had to stay alert to every decision by the referees, and post them by felt pen on a huge piece of paper taped to the wall. This is not easy, as every player comes to that wall to see where the competition is, and who is next to fight, etc. I want to thank Dave Shaneman also, who helped in our ring. He is a member of the Bloomington, Indiana Dojo. Our fearless ring-leader was Yuji Onitsuka, a NCKF member he had all the answers, and all the experience to quell our fears, when we were worried about missing any details. We were issued these cool 2-way headset radio things, but we didn't use them exclusively, we still used hand signals and sign language to communicate.

Our dojo was proudly represented by Bob Mack, who entered the senior division and by Matsuura sensei who earned a slot on the men's team. Only one in the MWKF eventually medalled, that was Mr. Hotta, but our men's team ( in my opinion ) bettered the SCKF team but the referees missed a couple of points scored by the taisho Hajime Sugawara in his match. That would have resulted in a great upset. As it was we forced a tiebreaker match. Our taisho and their taisho came out again, and the result was Chris Yang scored a kote eventually to knock the MWKF out of the running. They eventually defeated everyone ( some would disagree ). This is only my opinion, and the way I saw it. I will always defer to the referees decision. After all, some times you win when you know you lost..........

MSU Visits 7/5/05:

Ron Fox popped in on our Tuesday practice and brought some of the members of the MSU Club. Wendy, Kazuko, and Billy. From our club we had Bob, Terry, Karl (new) and myself. We spent some time on kendo kata, and then went into basic  ichi-kome, followed by a rousing 3-minute mawashi jiyu geiko taking one turn with each other. Then we all decided to go out to the Moonraker. This pub is fast becoming a Sunday night favorite. The kitchen is cooking till 10:00 p.m. and the food is cheap and plentiful. 

Welcome to new members Welcome to some new people lately, Tonya Chase, Karl Belert, Stephen Chaffin, and Russ Shartzer. Their pictures will be going up soon, as full fledged members.

For more info and pictures click here.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

One day a samurai approached a famous sword master and asked to learn the true way of the sword. Actually he already quite good, and had studied with other masters. At first the master made his disciple chop wood and carry water. This went on for 3 years, but the samurai hardened his body this way. Finally, he asked to learn more about the sword, so the teacher let him go to the dojo and move around and around the outer edge in okuri-ashi steps. This went on for 1 year. Again he confronted the master and said, " I am samurai, and I have trained under many masters and have long experience with the sword, and I have no other master who has taught me as you are doing, now please, teach me the true way of the sword."  "Very well, follow me" he answered. They walked for hours high into the mountains on a steep path until they came upon a tree trunk laying across a deep ravine. "There, walk across" said the master. The samurai glancing into the ravine, choked and couldn't do it. All of a sudden down the path came a blind man walking forward tapping his cane, paid no attention to them walked right down the log and to the other side and continued on his way. At once the disciple understood the true way of the sword.

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