21st European Kendo Championship Day 2 - Ladies Individual and Mens Team Tournaments
Yesterday the German ladies set the tone for the day by handling nearly all of their opponents with ease and capturing the title. Their success seemed to carry over to the German men early on as they manhandled the Austrians and overcame an early deficit to the Hungarians in order to advance to the semi-final round. Unlike their long haired teammates they advanced no further due to the equally confident French team. To be sure it was a frenetic semi-final that required all five matches to determine the winner with players on the ground at various times. France eventually won through and went on to face Spain at the end of the day.
Germany Wins Ladies Team Division at the 21st European Kendo Championship in Lisbon, Portugal
The German Ladies Team (Safiya Fadai, Sabrian Kumpf, Susanne Aoki, Dance Yokoo, and Kei Udagawa) soundly defeated the Polish Ladies Team to capture the 1st European Ladies Team Championship this afternoon. As they did with all of their opponents, except the French, the German's dominated Poland nearly from start to finish. Even Sweden, which had managed to defeat Great Britain in three rounds, was only able to score a single kote (Komaki/Kumpf) and men (Gustavesson/Yooko) against the Germans. The French, however, caused the Germans a little bit of consternation and forced a stalemate in two of their matches (Kumf/Brunel and Yooko/Garcia). In the end the German Ladies Team remained poised and dominant advancing quickly past all their opponents to capture the day.
19th Annual Budo Seminar at the International Budo University
This past weekend I spent four days at the International Budo University in Katsura for the 19th annual budo seminar. For just a little more than 5,000 yen I got to try out three new budo; sat in on budo lectures; was fed nine meals; had four nights of deep sleep; and best of all met nearly a hundred foreigner residents of Japan that practice a budo.
Hip Deep in Powder, Again
Orimo blasting through powder under the roapway.
Just moved house yesterday and I don't really have Internet access plus I'm leaving for Thailand tomorrow morning, so pictures of my recent trip to Asahidake will have to do. Look for vidoes and a few cellphone pictures of penguins later. For now enjoy:
個人戦 USA (Yoo) versus Japan (Hojo)
Photos from the individual match between Yoo (USA) and Hojo (Japan) are here: http://www.simulacre.org/..81/