Congratulations to Kajitani-sensei and the Little Rock Kendo Club for winning the inaugural Mid-South Taikai team championship which took place on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007!!!
And congratulations to Ken Tanaka (Memphis, pictured above) and David Biggins (Little Rock) for capturing Kanto-Sho (Fighting Spirit) awards!!
This was a great opportunity for Memphis Kendo to practice with the Little Rock group, especially since both groups do not regularly get to travel to larger tournaments in light of their geographical locations. I think it's safe to say that through this event, we have all made some great new friendships.
Little Rock is to be commended for actually putting this idea into action and I think I speak for everyone in our group that it was a really great time. This takai -- the first of hopefully many, many more to come -- was designed much different from a typical tournament. Indeed, the team competition for more formal tournaments calls for a maximum of 5 players per team. For the inaugual Mid-South Taikai, however, the formal rules were altered such that both clubs would field only one team comprising as many members as could travel for the event, with the total number of match wins determining the victor. Likewise, only the students would fight for the championship, leaving the instructors and asst instructors the tasks of timekeeping, scorekeeping, and refereeing. This was a great example of a "goodwill" tournament between the clubs.
For this event, Little Rock fielded a team of 8 players, while Memphis fielded a team of 11.
Even with shimpan duties falling to the three Memphis instructors, Little Rock was on fire, winning the first 5 matches, putting the Memphis team in a very precarious position from which it could not recover.
It is hoped that, over time, both clubs will continue to grow and its members will gain more kendo experience such that this tournament will develop into a more formal setting. There really is quite a bit of potential for this to become an excellent annual event for Memphis Kendo.
Congratulations to everyone who took part in the effort!
Despite having a team with 3 fewer members, Little Rock represented themselves quite well, and hopefully that will serve as a powerful motivator for our club to exact revenge next year!!
