This year, as usual, the Osaka prefectural gym was the venue for the All Japan Prefectural Championships (mens). What was different from last year is that I am now in possession of a seven month old daughter, which meant I was only able to watch a couple of hours of the competition before heading back to nappy-changing duties! In that couple of hours I took a handful of snaps, some of which I will share with kenshi 24/7 readers today.
This shiai, basically the All Japan Championships for teams, has a unique format, which I have introduced here on kenshi 24/7 in the past. As that old post is now archived, I’ll reproduce the information here.
Competition format recap
The format was changed in 2009, before which it was a seven person competition, with each team consisting of one female and six males. The purpose of the change was two-fold: to include high school and university students in the mix, and to break the competition into male and female ones. One of the main female only competitions – the All Japan Housewives competition – has been subsumed into this new female competition.
Member Makeup (from 2009)
Here are details on the selection procedures for both competitions.
Todofuken Taikai (male, from the 57th taikai onwards)
Sempo: High school student*;
Jiho: University student*;
5-sho: 18-35 years old (no police personnel, teachers, high school or university students allowed);
Chuken: Teachers, no age restrictions;
3-sho: Police personnel, no age restrictions;
Fukusho: Over 35, same restrictions as 5-sho apply;
Taisho: Over 50 and must hold a minimum of kyoshi nanadan*.
Todofuken Taikai (female, from the 1st taikai onwards)
Sempo: High school student*;
Jiho: University student*;
Chuken: Between 18-35, no high school or university students;
Fukusho: Between 35-45;
Taisho: Over 45.
*generally selected by recommendation
Preliminaries
Each prefecture will hold a Yosen-kai (preliminary) competition before the main event to decide members. Some members – as highlighted above – will possibly be selected by recommendation rather than through competition.
Here are my snaps from this years competition. Enjoy!
(Last years pictures are here.)
I didn’t have time to take serious video today, but I did manage to put together a mini one. Check it out:
Edit: links to pics and vids from the All Japan Kendo Association can be found here.
