Your Japanese word of the week is...

"tenshon". Or, at least, that's what it turns out to be if you translate "tension" into katakana and back again. Although, if I'm honest, I think tension is the wrong word for it. You see, while tension has a slight negative connotation to it in English usage, the Japanese view small amounts of tension to be a good thing. It's been explained to me that being way too relaxed means you'll probably miss out or can't react quickly enough (oops heh). I suppose it's like a wire where keeping it taut nets the best performance; too slack and it's useless but too tight and it snaps.

Over the weekend, the context it was used in was the tournament over the weekend. The kids were wraught with tension but I think a better word for it would be...... umm....... anxiety?? Well, not anxiety since that implies hesitant as well. Zealous perhaps. Either way, the kids were rarin' to go.

The tournament was the Wing Cup, this year held in Shin-Kiba at the BumB (pronounced boombu, not bum as I'm sure some of you will read it as haha......) Sports Facility. It's a pretty nice place although that would be expected from a quasi-private country club type place. It had, amongst other things, the gym the tournament used, a kendo hall, a judo hall, an archery range, tennis courts, a futsal field, cafeteria, and even music rooms and living quarters upstairs.

The Wing Cup, on the other hand, is rather interesting in that it's not like most karate tournaments. Usually, tournaments hold both kata and kumite divisions but the Wing Cup does away with all of that and holds only team kumite matches. What's more, it's done in a round-robin fashion so every team is guaranteed as many fights as their division allows with every fighter getting a chance to fight, with the top teams duking it out for the trophies at the end.

This makes for some seriously tired competitors but also for some very interesting matches as teams constantly juggle their fighting order and fighting style against their opponent. And also some very teary-eyed kids as team fights mean there are times when the score is tied and it's up to the last fighter to make or break the deal.

Shiramizu fielded 4 teams- 1st-2nd year elementary, 3rd-4th year elementary, 5th-6th year elementary, and a junior high school team. But the competition was fierce though two of the teams managed to come away with hard fought awards (a 3rd place and a 4th place). More than one person I talked to commented on how a lot of the kids looked like they've only every trained kumite which is not out of the question. Competition, especially in high school and university, often focuses on kumite so there are lots of people who are fighters only, through and through.

The best part of the day was simply the sheer amount of kumite to watch.

Kumite is always difficult to train because of the unpredictability- strong basics need to be combined with a good sense of timing and adaptability and of those 3 things, two can only be learned in real matches. So to be able to spend an entire day watching what works and what doesn't is really useful, especially considering other tournaments offer considerably less kumite time.

Although, I should be honest when I say that another best part of the day was watching a video Garson sent me of the aftermath of someone crashing into the showroom of Richmond Lexus. I should note that it's not the first time someone's crashed into it nor is it even the first time I've heard of someone mixing the throttle and brake. Trust me when I say I've seen some seriously weird stuff at work haha.......

If you're curious, the YouTube link is posted in the comments section of the post just before this. Or you can click here. Even better is that I recognize both the person in the green jacket at the beginning and the voices of the people. Or should I not be admitting that...... hmm haha......