So despite my less than perfect understanding of Japanese, from Friday's
Pep Rally I managed to discern that the first of the summer's Judo tournaments was actually being held on Saturday at my Jr High School. Given my general enthusiasm for all things martial arts related and the fact that some of the kids on the Judo team are just some of the most super-best kids and English students [note my supergood use of English here] my enthusiasm for attending grew exponentially.
Of course, the only obstacle to my attending was the
enkai from the previous night and the resulting, umm... lethargy... brought about by consumption of alcohol. [Okay, I was hungover. Shut up.]
Anyways, I got there about an hour after it started, but I still got to watch the kids for about 4 hours. And I got to watch both the boy's and girl's teams take top honors for the tourney. It was brilliant, honestly.
The boys team...
[Sandy, this is Tominaga-sensei's nephew on the left...]
I liked this picture...
Prepping the throw...
...and one second later. Ippon! [It was pretty.]
The girls team preps for competition...
I noticed during the day that Tsuyazaki's team was particularly effective with their pinning techniques. Sign of some good old school Judo, right there.
The young lady on the right is easily one of my favorite kids. Judo team captain - and really quite good - superb English student, and just one of the nicest girls imaginable.
Here she is demolishing one of her opponents in something like 5 seconds [I was a second or two late with the camera...]
One of my Katsuura kids...
The boys and girls team captains being awarded the tourney championship certificate. [My kids are awesome.]
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