Someone asked me how this year’s JCCC tournament was. Here are a few observations.
Shinpan-cho Bryan Asa noted at the end of the tournament that the referees needed to do a better job controlling the matches to prevent roughness from creating safety issues and to stop things when the match stopped looking like kendo. Some matches were quite rough and the referees – me included – could have stepped in earlier. Tsumura Sensei said to me today that the judges needed to learn how to say “yame”. I replied that we know how – but we’re not so good with when. An example he brought up was the case of two competitors pushing each other near the edge of the court. Yame should be called at that point because that’s not kendo.
Some players spent a lot of time in tsubazeriai. Some also spent a lot of time getting out of tsubazeriai. The dynamism of some matches was really low as a result. There were a few penalties given to one or both players as a result.
In one match a player scored an ippon to tie. As he followed through his kiai seemed to be celebratory in nature. A couple of judges (who weren’t on court) discussed whether the point should have been reversed due to that overly-zealous kiai. Agreement seemed to be that yes, it probably should have been, but it would have taken some serious cojones to do so as doing so would have been rather controversial.
One referee was experiencing what it was like to be a shinpan for the entire tournament for the first time. Verdict: it’s really tiring.
Conversation overheard: Canadian kendo has its own style, as does Japanese, Korean and European kendo. It’s possible the style of Canadian kendo is being surpassed by other styles and that for Canada to have international success our style of kendo needs to evolve.
Judges (including myself) made mistakes both ways (too conservative or too liberal) when calling ippon. Getting it right every time is the shinpan’s job. It’s tough.
The habit of some jodan and ni-to players of resting their shinai or daito on their heads was not talked about favourably. As a former ni-to player, I suggest that anyone playing ni-to in this fashion may want to work on developing more upper body strength if they want to be successful in tournament. Just because you don’t get hit doesn’t mean your ni-to is good. If you want to get the judges on your side, start by developing the strength you need to do ni-to with better form.
As with any tournament, there was some really nice kendo on display. There was also some really ugly kendo on display. It is my hope that in future me and my fellow shinpan will be able to guide players toward making better decisions and that players will review their matches on video to see how they can improve. I’m looking forward to the IKF shinpan seminar coming up in January 2016 to help me further develop my abilities as a referee.