Okay, I’m back by the keyboard, reporting from the “Okinawa Traditional Karatedo Kobudo World Tournament 2009″ – Day 2! I’m going to keep this post short (since I have to get up early tomorrow morning).
If you haven’t read about day one, please do!
So, today was demonstrations!
Let’s see if I can remember anything…
I arrived at the sunny Budokan this morning around 10:00 to get the best seats. Well, the best seats were reserved for special guests, so I took one behind those seats. Good enough!
Since I came early (one of the first in the audience) I got to see some rehearsals. Music, dancing, light effects and other stuff… it was quite good actually! I watched closely, since I knew I was going to miss it anyway (my demonstration team was almost first, so I didn’t see the opening ceremony at all)!
Here’s a picture:
As you can see, it’s a nice place!
Anyway, as people were starting to gather, it was time for me to sneak up to the third floor, to prepare for the ceremony and demonstrations. The plan for the demonstration was to do the Bo-kata Ufugushiku no Kon and the Nunchaku-kata Maezato no Nunchaku (along with some other members from my Kobudo dojo).
My name even appeared in the big catalogue they handed out yesterday (under the “demonstration participants” section). Apparently they thought it was enough with my first name, and in capitals!
See for yourself:
I got a good laugh out of that!
To make a long story short… the demonstration went smoothly, so I ran back up (to the audience) to film the rest of the demos and eat a sandwich. Tuna/egg if you really want to know.
In total, the whole thing lasted about 5-6 hours! It was crazy. When I tried to stand up from my seat, I could barely feel my legs. I’m glad all of my camera batteries made it to the end though!
But since I don’t have that much time right now, I’ll upload the videos in a few days. Ok?
For now, I hope you’re satisfied with a few random pictures.
Let’s see…
Here’s a “high-ranked people” demonstration of Naihanchin Shodan (Shorin-ryu).
Of course you need the mandatory nigiri-game (“gripping jar”).
Then we had some Kobudo too… Here’s some Matayoshi-kobudo to the right, and Ryukyu Kobudo Tesshinkan to the left (if my memory serves me correctly).
They did other weapons too, later.
Uechi-ryu was well represented today. Here we have some hardcore body pounding.
I don’t know how many Passai/Bassai I saw today, but it was many! Too many! Here we have one.
When I think about it, they did waaaay too many Fukyu-kata, Seipai, Kihon-kata, Seisan and Passai too… Zzzz… Why?
Probably because the organizers had originally said that “every performance have to have at least 100 participants”. So therefore, dojo-leaders chose easy kata that many people knew, so they could get at least 100 people for their teams.
The result was, quite honestly, that most demonstrations were repetitive and boring.
Sad but true. But don’t worry, I only filmed the good ones.
By the way, there must have been at least twenty different camera crews all over the place! Insane!
Some Goju-ryu again. In their usual outfit…
So… time to finish this post. I saved the best for last.
The “masters demo”.
Featuring the old guys on the chairs above: Isamu Arakaki (hanshi), Yoshitsune Senaga (hanshi), Isao Shima (hanshi) and Yoshio Hichiya (hanshi).
Together they have 40 dan (do the math)!
They did one kata each.
But until I upload that, here’s a fanpic of every master. See if you can guess what kata they did, from the pictures below (answer at the bottom of the post):
Isamu Arakaki:
Yoshitsune Senaga:
Isao Shima:
Yoshio Hichiya:
If you know your kata, it shouldn’t be that hard…
Okay, the last two are maybe hard!
Answer: Sochin, Sanseiryu, Wankan and Tensho!
So… with those words, day two of the “Okinawa Traditional Karatedo Kobudo World Tournament 2009″ has officially now been reported to you!
Keep your eyes open for videos…
See you tomorrow!
The tournament!
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