Your Japanese word of the week is...

"rensei" 練成 which means training. So it makes sense that Shiramizu's dojo-only tournament is aptly named the Shiramizu Shuyo-kai Karate-do Rensei Taikai (白水修養会空手道練成大会). This time around, however, it was more than just the annual tournament- it was Shiramizu's 10th Anniversary of the event.

Shiramizu's 450+ students get warmed up for the day.

Last year I got to take part both in the adult black belt kata demo and a "fun karate demo" with Richard. This year I was also in the adult kata demo but this time around I was also asked to be in the now-traditional "Karate Man" demo.

Karate Man is essentially a couple Shiramizu guys writing what amounts to a Power Rangers episode. It usually begins with a poor girl being threatened by the strange love-child of The Village People and a Nazi SS soldier. Then the Karate Man team (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Pink- of course) jump in to save the day. It all ends off with lots of acrobatic backflips and such...

No one kills my pet feather boa and gets away with it!!

This year, the foreigners (me, Carl, and Amy) were asked to play the part of the "Dark Karate Team", along with the "Dark General" who was a big guy in kendo gear with Jason's mask from Friday The 13th. Anyway, long story short, we get "tricked" into fighting against the Karate Man team only to be "untricked" and shown the truth at which point we gang up on the baddies.... hey, it's a lunch time show for little kids, so it's all good haha.....

That's me on the left... we were ALL supposed to have sunglasses, but Carl and Amy were given masks anyway... I wasn't jealous >.<

Aside from that, I didn't help judge this year unlike last year since there were enough refs. Instead I just helped out with the rings, mostly lining the kids up and tying their belts and stuff. To be honest, I had more fun doing that since I got to chat with the kids and whatnot.....

The morning was all competition and the afternoon was all demos.

Team Tiger (L) vs Team Dragon (R)

Some really great stuff included kata demos, some yakusoku kumite (pre-arranged examples of applications of techniques), a great team kumite bout, tamashiwari (board breaking), demos from all the Shiramizu instructors, and, finally, Arakawa Sensei's tamashiwari demo.

Arakawa Sensei's No-Inch Punch...

It was awesome to see it in person...

Arakawa Sensei tops it off by smashing 10 tiles...

The day capped off with yet another big party to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this great dojo's tournament.

Par-tay!

With such an active dojo membership, so many quality instructors and students, and many many great people, it's easy to see why this is a big part of the reason why I haven't left Japan yet haha =P.....

I should also say- I didn't have my camera with me so I poached these pictures from the Internship Blog and Arakawa Sensei's blog. Thanks!