UCL Lost Boys

What do you reckon?

The translation under the english title also reads King of Mango. Apparently the actual thing should have been Mayor of Mango, because it wasn’t that great.

When you talk about kendo in Japan compared to most of the rest of the world, everyone is fairly unanimous in their opinion that the grass is most definately greener here. And for the most part it is. But referees here still suck as much ass as they do elsehwhere.

Two weeks ago I had the Nakano ward individuals. I got through the first round against a good opponent with one of my trademarks (men-nuki-hiki kote if you must know. Work that one out!) and felt pretty good. Second round, and I lost kaeshi dou (fair enough) and immediately took back tobikomi men, literally immediately. All good. In to enchou, and I lost my second jogai hansoku. I haven’t lost jogai hansoku ippon before this year for something like years, and then this year I’ve lost two. Except this time, for the second ippon-inducing hansoku, I didn’t step out. (The first one, by the way, was after a men uchi that I was 100% certain was in. I was honestly surprised to see the flags at thigh level instead of head height when I turned around…but I digress…)

That’s right. I didn’t leave the shiaijo and I still lost hansoku, thereby sending me out. When I left the shiaijo, someone I’ve never met came up to me and told me. Even my opponent came up to me and said “you didn’t leave the shiaijo, did you?” I was less than pleased. Imagine my pleasure then, when sticking around to see the end of the comp and seeing the ref that signalled my hansoku reffing a semi final WHILE WATCHING THE OTHER SHIAIJO. He wasn’t even watching the two guys in front of him, not even concentrating on what he was there to do. When he was, his body language indicated that he really couldn’t be bothered. Thank you very much, “sensei”.

Fast forward two weeks, to the Tokyo Dojo Taiko Taikai, and the team event. As I wrote before, the match in the second round (our first after a bye) came to taisho, aka me, after senpo and jiho draw, chuken loses 2-0 and fukusho wins 1-0. I needed ippon gachi for the team to go through. Anything else is us out. After about a minute I lost degote to my fist. 2 flags (NOT 3). This one happens a lot in shiai, but that doesn’t make it better. This now leaves me needing 2 points for the team. After about 15 seconds (ego mode on) I score possibly the single best menuchi I think I’m ever likely to. If I can ever repeat it anywhere you will see a big smile on my face. That left me with about a minute and a half to pull another one out. I felt great, the team was shouting me on, my opponent was visbily worried. And then it happned. I went for men, and he hit my tare. At least 3 inches below my dou. No crack, no sound like a gun shot. Just a “thwump”. One flag, unbelievably goes up. I spin and quickly follow, because I know it’s not ippon. But it is.

The head ref had rather lazily raised a flag, and sealed it. That was our team out. I was dumfounded, shocked and not a little bit angry. The most important ippon of the match had been given from my tare. And that was it. That was us out. The score card will never record anything other than KD-M, and it looks like we were beaten. But we only lost to the referees. Even people from the upstairs seating, and people watching from 4 shiaijo away said they knew it wasn’t ippon. The sensei who visits koubukan once a week said “that was never dou. Not ever”. So what was it that made the 2 sinpan raise their flags?

Timing.

This is the biggest excuse that you will hear in any situation to excuse a truly shit call from the shinpan. “Well, it was good timing”. That I will not debate. After all, much of the fight in kendo is timing. However, timing is not and never will be the main or over riding criteria for ippon, of which there are several, one of which is the datotsubui, or striking area. Any nanadan worth his salt, in fact any shodan worth his salt, knows that the tare is nothing to do with ippon. So what happens in these situations?

One thing I noticed is that shinpan at this level do appear to be expecting certain things. They will expect the big fella to go for men, as they will expect the little one to do kote or dou in return. So when something happens along their expectations the flag has the potential to go up faster and easier, in some cases regardless of the quality of the point. I watched at least two other examples, one of which was the koubukan b team fukushou, where ridiculous flags were raised for dou uchi that had blatantly missed.

But that doesn’t explain how even in other situations and circumstance referees can miss something being on the datotsubui or not.

So what does this really mean in general? Well, in my own mind, this has 2 implications, one is something of a take it or leave it, but one is more relevant to kendo in its wider sense.

The first, is that people will display apathy when they are not taken seriously enough by the referees. Why should they practise harder if they are going to lose ippon from their tare, kobushi or shoulder? People who might otherwise be really interested in shiai will lose interest in it. This might not matter for some people, but for others like myself who enjoy the challenge of shiai and practise to get stronger I find it totally demoralising that the shiai that I fight is not only dependant on me and my opponent, but also weather or not the shinpan are even capable or not.

Second, and far more serious, is that this kind of thing is exactly the argument that would strengthen calls for electric bougu. Don’t get me wrong, I never ever want to see that. Kendo is just fine without it, but if this sort of thing were to get worse, you can see some sectors, especially the Koreans that are developing this kind of thing, having their arguments strengthened without needing to do anything. In my nightmares I can see flashing lights every time a datotsubui is hit and shinpan then making their call according to the ice hockey siren. I shudder to think that this could directly effect the likelihood of electronic scoring in kendo.

Part of the shogo system is undertaking refereeing, but how seriously is this taken? Having never seen a shogo related class or seminar I couldn’t really tell you, but given the number of silly calls and rubbish shinpan that I’ve seen in Japan, maybe it’s still not taken seriously enough. But then given that it’s difficult to question things like this because of the nature of kendo, are we likely to ever see that change? I doubt it. It was also very interesting for me to note that the best referees on the day were notably the younger ones. Perhaps this is a reflection of recent change in the shogo system, with the recent graduates having a better shape and thought to their shinpan-ing than the older ones who slept through their renshi and kyoshi.  

At the shinpan seminar in Brussels in feb 2007, Fukumoto sensei berated the collected shinpan who were attending on their attitude, saying that if they wern’t prepared to give top quality refereeing to the people who are fighting, then they are making a mockery of the effort that the compeititors put in, not only in shiai but in their keiko running up to it as well. He went on to say that the referees should not appraoch being shinpan as them doing something for the competitiors, but should view it as an opportunity to improve themselves, and should be gratfeul for that opportunity. Somehow, I think that the idea is not getting through, both in Europe and a great deal of Japan, and until it changes and arrogant shinpan approach refereeing more seriously, and with more respect for the competitors and their efforts, nothing will really change, with the possible exception of bougu by being made by Hitachi or Fujitsu.

Over the weekend I had 2 competitions in one day, both in the Tokyo Dojo Taiko, the indies and the teams.

Indies first, and I pleasently surprised myself by getting to the last 16. Given that this competition often involves prison guards and a smattering of jitsugyoudan hard boys (NTT apparently, who are pretty good), I’m fairly pleased with myself. Tokyo is a big place, and although it’s not exactly the highest level taikai, there are still plenty of handy guys here.

The guy that beat me went on to win (so I can claim one there too! Snoogins!) and was a fella doing jodan from Fuji Xerox, so not too bad. I was fairly confident going in to the match because I normally do pretty well against jodan, but I just couldn’t get on with his style. Plus I used the wrong shinai for this match too. Against jodan I like katate kote as a surprise attack, but used a heavier shinai which prevented this so couldn’t use my favourite attacks, which left me a little stuck for options (this in itself is also not a good thing!) Having said that, he scored a pretty good kote which caught me off guard, and then I was up against it with about a minute left and swiftly running out of options before losing a kote-something-men. I was a little unsure about that one, but hey ho, it still got me.

So best 16 on my first shot. Fairly happy with the way it all panned out. I’m still not quite using my full range of techniques that I do in jigeiko, for instance no tsuki, 2 handed or otherwise still, and no suriage waza, men or kote, which is like the mainstay of my oji waza in jigeiko at the moment. That having been said, apart from the last match I reckon I held my guys back fairly convincingly, and even when I lost as far as I recall they were pretty much the only times when they got close.

Things to work on? Weeeeeeeell, more seme and more pressure. I still need to create more convincing openings and be able to recognise when I do, so this is the theme (still!) for the next year or so, I guess. And I still want to up grade my shikake waza to include the harai waza I wrote about last time too. But still, overall pretty happy with the performance in the indies.

In the team competition, I was taisho again, and it came down to me in the 2nd round. We lost, but believe me when I say that I no longer trust referees of any sort, and even with a pinch of salt and not taking what I write at too much value or what ever, my tare is STILL NOT where my dou is. This, however, is a seperate rant, which I will write after lunch. I am not a happy bunny with that.

Or patient aggression, pick your favourite. This is something I’m (still?) trying to get my head round at the moment.

A few weeks ago, I had some beers and strong tasting korean food with a guy who is obscenely good from Osaka, those of you that know me well enough know who I’m talking about (and know that it’s NOT George…) and will agree, everyone else can just nod their head sagely, because I’m not going to name drop.

Anyway, over said beers (which came in awesome tall metal cups that were chilled) and roasted pig and pickled cabbage, we’re talking about the world championships, and what to do against the Japanese and Koreans (ok, ok, he’s telling me and I’m doing the mental equivalent of writing down as much as humanly possible while trying to sit up straight and peel off the juicy slice of meat that is stuck to the yakiniku grill). One thing he mentions is that you don’t need to move against them, as they are often waiting for us to go because that’s when the opportunity comes. AKA Debana waza? He said if you don’t go when they are expecting and when they have set you up to, it will make them a hell of a lot more cautious and give you room. I took this with a huge pinch of level-difference brand salt, because this guy is infinately better than I am in even my wildest of dreams, but it’s a good point he makes that can generally be applied to normal keiko too.

And that’s what I’ve been trying to do, but I think I’ve gotten too far towards the patient side and lost a little button of my aggression. Basically, I’m on the verge of simply “waiting” as opposed to making the chance and being patient enough for it to mature. Not quite waiting, but almost, and I’m not really happy with it. I finally figured this out for myself on friday last week when in I got tonked on the head by a dude I normally fillet and sell with chips. As well as that, last week on Wednesday one of the teachers at the Bingo Hall told me that I didn’t have my previous spark (I only do jigeiko with him infrequently so he’s more likely to notice)

So what do I need to do? Weeeeeeeeeeell, reading back, I wrote a lot about making people move with my seme. I think I need to get back to that whilst keeping in mind the patience to only go when I know the opportunity is a certain one, or if it’s not certain then when I know that my opponent is not in a position to hit me back. On the flip side of this coin is a comprehensive beating by going when I’m only 50% sure and having the thing thrown back in my face. Which happened on friday before I finally worked out why it was going wrong. Bloody hard old game, this kendo lark.

On the up side though, this whole episode, plus a keiko and beer soaked chat with aforementioned hard-fella over the weekend have come together to give me a stronger picture of what I want my kendo to look like, and also how to do it, what to add, and what to trim down or do less of. Now I just need to see if I can actually bring that idea in to keiko. That’s the hard part….

In a nutshell….more debana waza (especially degote, which I don’t nearly do enough of. Which is just stupid) and more kaeshi waza (because there are plenty of times when I realise that what’s coming is going to beat me to the punch and I don’t have an immediate answer), more harai waza (because apparently -according to hard-fella- I’m good at messing with my opponents shinai to unsettle them and should add harai-gote and harai-men to supplement this) and less waiting, less space between my feet (and ears?), and less needless attacking. I’m already fairly pleased with my shikake waza, I just need to widen the scope of what I’m doing a little more so that my kendo is more flexible and can cope with more, as opposed to being too aggressive (do you see the full circle there?) and being too single minded.

That’s the plan. It’s a good plan. Just need to stick to it! Forward ho!

Given that Ant has decided to fill the blog with Doom and Gloom ™ recently, I thought I would post some good news that I have finally been given “permission” to tell the world.

If you have the soundtrack to something like Godzilla, or The Omen, now would be a good time to turn it on.

Gibbo is going to be a dad.

Yes, you read that right, my wife is pregnant! Weeeeeeee! I’ll finally have someone to play with! I’m going to be “annoying-father-to-be” and irritate you all with pictures:

 Little Baby Blob at something like 5 weeks

And then a few weeks later

Finally starting to look baby-esque, but still insanely tiny. This picture is Blob-chan at something liek 2 cm.

And then WOAH! it starts looking like a proper human! This pic was taken at 10 weeks and a couple of days. Where it says AGE 12w, apparently that’s actually it’s size. It’s a biggy….

This one’s a little fuzzy. I think I was pissed when I took it but the pic itself was a bit rubbish too. You can however just about make out the makings of a face (ie a nose and a brow) in there too, which means it’s not going to be a faceless demon ninja. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

We’ll find out if it’s a boy or a girl next month (Girl = Gibbo spends too much money on Hello Kitty, Boy = Gibbo spends yet more money on Kendo…), but to be honest, I don’t care. Either is all good. I’m just pleased as a pig in shit that I’m going to have a baby!  Now all I’ve got to do is wait until March next year.

I saw this ace picture of a superb katate-men from Jodan and had to re-produce it here. Just look at the form!