Your Japanese word of the week is...

"manzoku", meaning "satisfaction". And what was satisfying, you might ask?? Well, this past Monday was the 5th Annual Tobu Taikai, which involved quite a few dojos from around the eastern part of Saitama. Although, if I'm honest, some parts were satisfying while others weren't.

Like every other tournament in Japan, I entered kata and kumite. And like (almost) every other tournament in Japan, kata was in the morning and kumite was in the afternoon.

Kata was a bit unsatisfying because there were only three people entered and one of them didn't show up. So it was just a dual between me and Carl..... a sort of International Shiramizu Intern Showdown, if you will...... doubly unsatisfying was that I didn't perform my kata very well. It was mostly fine except for a move or two, but I expect better of myself. However, they still awarded me the win and I got a gold medal for it, despite what I think.......... so, yay!

Kumite was a bit of the same. With only 6 people entered (1 of them being the aforementioned no-show), I was immediately seeded to the semi-final round. There I faced off with Ueno-san, also from Shiramizu. He's also very tall (6'2" or so), which meant his arms were much longer than mine. Despite that, I only lost by one point (2-1) so that wasn't too bad.

And after that was a party with all the Shiramizu people not only to celebrate a good tournament, but various other things. So, all in all, a good weekend out =-)......

And in case you're wondering, this is indeed all of us doing the famous "Kamehameha" from Dragon Ball haha........ yeah, good times heh......