10th Asian Tournament

3rd Dan and below Finals - HKG vs Vietnam

It's time to shoot again!

Everybody gets quite excited after the President's Trophy tournament last Jan. My club's A Team won! Even my own B Team went up to the quarter finals... I joined merely for showing up, having NOT trained regular enough. Nobody expect me to fight seriously showing up at the dojo once a month.

It's the 10th Anniversary for the TOP kendo even in HK - and perhaps the TOP in Asia even, in an international point of view. The usual faces of Ajia Kendo Club... Chinese representatives from Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu to Beijing... literally from South to North).. Taiwan peeps.. Teams from the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and first time this year, Vietnam!

The HKG ladies A team went up to join-3rd, having added in the lovely Eliza with the veterans. The coach said that my team is also quite veteran.. - I had Fanny & Jane, and all 3 of us used to train with the Squad. We all fell out of the team and practice due to work, study and injuries... It's a shame which we can do little to change...

My team first went against the winning team from Chikushi Girls High - the well-known top ladies kendo high school team (so I recall from Kendo Jidai!). Their sempo was Shimomura, daughter of an ex-coach of the HK team. Fantastic.

We quickly lost and had 2nd match with Guangzhou. No challenge.

Did I mention I was sick? I am always sick when a Taikai comes. On top of that, I forgot to pack my contact lenses!! Double-du'h!! Never mind.. My spirit was already down haven't trained for 3 weeks, sick and blind. Haven't scored anything against the Chinese girl even.

So it was time to pick up the camera. I got a set of new lens and went shoot around for my HK teammates for the rest of the time. Good that I don't have to help out at the scoreboards (too many people signed up already).

At the party we found the association has officially sanctioned Ajia Kendo Club's "stripping kendo game" - it's now on the main stage so that everyone can see it!! Anyway I ended up chatting up some people from another Guangzhou kendo club. They had a purpose-built dojo which I may visit sometime later (can't find the time after work to go).

Then the coach dragged some of us for a chat at the nearby hotel pub until midnight. Now I learnt that it's not only me who wants to socialize more by coming to this event. I travelly 3+ hours the night before to get back to HK, and another 1.5hr to get to the venue at 6am... Make sure every second in this Taikai counts!

I should be off training now...