Postby Chris Ouellet » Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:49 pm
Too many of these threads go by and we never see or hear the results so while not trying to toot my own horn...
The competition this past weekend was a lot of fun. It was less people than I anticipated but we still had 2 guys with ARMA experience come out (I think one was named Lance?).
My two students and I definitely had the edge as we won almost every event. The prizes were great, collectively we won 2 real swords, ($600-400 range century and martialartswords), 50 tatami, 2 action flex, new gi, T-shirts, CDs ... a total we estimate at ~$1500.
It was the high point of my time training my small crew from Hamilton as I move onwards towards Long Island.
The only downside was I busted my knee, or more specifically my student busted my knee in a failed charge using his knee. Uncertain how bad, but I can walk mostly without pain so likely it's just a bad sprain, but it's definitely the ACL.
The people who ran it, Dana Abbott and Tom Urso, were both intense and competent swordsmen, and most importantly very open minded to other styles. The bulk of the sparing was done with action-flex, a less flexible variety than the norm which was reasonable given the varied backgrounds. We did get to do some good fukuro shinai combat on the second day as well as some kendo.
The only criticism I have is that the tournament was poorly organized, but that's no fault of the good people who ran the events.
