A few weeks ago my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym held a small scrimmage. My coach invited a few other clubs based in Hokkaido and we all got together in a local University's dojo for some friendly match-making. Since the BJJ membership in Hokkaido is pretty small, competitions are few and far between. So, this was a great chance for everyone to get more fight experience.
Normally, the brackets are comprised of different weight-classes and experience levels (grouped by belt color). But because of the low numbers, the tournament was divided up into three divisions sans weight-classes.
1. Beginner-Intermediate Gi: This was a combination of white belt, blue belt, and purple belt fighters. Jane and I both competed in this division (Jane is a white belt and I'm a blue belt). There was only one other girl (blue belt), who is actually also from our club, so Jane and her really didn't experience anything new. But it still provided a good opportunity to work through competition jitters. Since Jane's opponent was of a higher skill level, the results were pretty much expected, but Jane did her best. You can also hear my terrible coaching here. :)
I managed to defeat my first two opponents (a white belt and a fellow blue belt) via triangle choke.
During my third match I was paired up with a purple belt. It turned out to be a very close fight. But I ended up losing due to an advantage point (used to break ties).
The former High School Judo champion of Hokkaido ended up defeating my adversary in the next match and took the tournament.
2. Advanced Gi: The brown and black belts were put together for the advanced portion of the scrimmage. A guy from our club actually won this portion of the day.
3. No-Gi Grappling: I can probably count the number of times I've fought without wearing a Gi on my two hands. But I was given the opportunity to obtain more experience so I decided to throw my hat in the ring. I was pretty out of my element and lost my only match pretty badly. I did manage to score a few points though. Unfortunately, our camera ran out of room so we weren't able to catch a good clip.
In related news, we've got another Naginata tournament to prepare for in a weeks! Gotta get back to training!
-Ryan
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
54th Hokkaido Naginata Competition
Sorry for that long intermission! It's amazing how busy one can get!
The last few months have truly been a whirlwind of events. And not to prolong this post any further, here's one of them!
Back in June we had the All Hokkaido Naginata Championship.
The competition was divided into three parts.
1. Engi - This is basically a Kata competition. What's a Kata? Well, it's essentially a demonstration of the main ideas and techniques found in the art done solo or with other practitioners. Naginata features two types with many sets contained within each. One is done with the basic Naginata made with the bamboo blade. The other is done with a full wood Naginata replica. The latter is generally reserved for high ranked players however. The former is practiced in every class and contains 8 movements in total. During competition, two sets of competitors perform three of the eight (they are pre-determined many weeks before the competition date to give everyone ample time to prepare) and the judges decide which pair has performed them closer to perfection.
Jane and I were paired up for the competition. Somehow we managed to win our first match!
Unfortunately, though expectantly, we lost our remaining matches to some very seasoned veterans.
2. Test - Well, this is pretty self-explanatory. After the Engi portion of the competition. Myself, Jane, and many of the High School competitors took an exam to receive rank in Naginata. The initial part consisted of demonstrating the first five of the basic Kata. After that, we took a paper test (of course in Japanese!). I've got video of our written exam but I'll spare you that!
3. Shiai - OK, here's the real meat of it. Shiai is when we strap on our Bogu (armor) and go at it full force with each other. This was definitely the most nerve-wracking portion of the day. Being the most inexperienced, both of us had no illusions that we would have any chance of standing on the podium at the end of the day. But somehow I did! I took 3rd place!...out of five.
-Ryan
The last few months have truly been a whirlwind of events. And not to prolong this post any further, here's one of them!
Back in June we had the All Hokkaido Naginata Championship.
The competition was divided into three parts.
1. Engi - This is basically a Kata competition. What's a Kata? Well, it's essentially a demonstration of the main ideas and techniques found in the art done solo or with other practitioners. Naginata features two types with many sets contained within each. One is done with the basic Naginata made with the bamboo blade. The other is done with a full wood Naginata replica. The latter is generally reserved for high ranked players however. The former is practiced in every class and contains 8 movements in total. During competition, two sets of competitors perform three of the eight (they are pre-determined many weeks before the competition date to give everyone ample time to prepare) and the judges decide which pair has performed them closer to perfection.
Jane and I were paired up for the competition. Somehow we managed to win our first match!
Unfortunately, though expectantly, we lost our remaining matches to some very seasoned veterans.
2. Test - Well, this is pretty self-explanatory. After the Engi portion of the competition. Myself, Jane, and many of the High School competitors took an exam to receive rank in Naginata. The initial part consisted of demonstrating the first five of the basic Kata. After that, we took a paper test (of course in Japanese!). I've got video of our written exam but I'll spare you that!
3. Shiai - OK, here's the real meat of it. Shiai is when we strap on our Bogu (armor) and go at it full force with each other. This was definitely the most nerve-wracking portion of the day. Being the most inexperienced, both of us had no illusions that we would have any chance of standing on the podium at the end of the day. But somehow I did! I took 3rd place!...out of five.
-Ryan
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Some Thoughts about the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Plant Emergency
I feel a little strange about moving on with the blog until something is said about the continuing struggle that Japan is enduring.
As you all know, on March 11, Japan was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake subsequently resulting in a major tsunami and setting off a detrimental chain of events at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant 1 and 2. The government has named the disaster the "Great Eastern Japan Earthquake" (東日本大震災 Higashi Nihon Daishinsai). I don't think I have to list all the numbers and statistics.
Fortunately for us, we were and still are completely out of harm's way. It feels surreal to read and watch the news. Life is just the same as it was before. There's no shortage of food, no power outages, no panic. Perhaps the only inconvenience we've noticed is the lack of batteries. I know that there are ongoing problems with the nuclear plant but please don't worry too much about us. We are safe where we are. When our neighbors begin to panic, then we'll reassess our situation.
Though we are not physically affected by the disaster, I am heartbroken by the devastation in Tohoku. I wish I could do more to help. I have given what I can to the relief efforts and am joining a walkathon to raise more. In case you want to donate as well here's a good link.
The Japanese spirit says that we should all accept what has happened and work together now to move beyond it. There is no pity party, no dwelling on things lost. They are stoic and courageous in this disaster and I think we can learn quite a few things from their reaction.
As you all know, on March 11, Japan was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake subsequently resulting in a major tsunami and setting off a detrimental chain of events at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant 1 and 2. The government has named the disaster the "Great Eastern Japan Earthquake" (東日本大震災 Higashi Nihon Daishinsai). I don't think I have to list all the numbers and statistics.
Fortunately for us, we were and still are completely out of harm's way. It feels surreal to read and watch the news. Life is just the same as it was before. There's no shortage of food, no power outages, no panic. Perhaps the only inconvenience we've noticed is the lack of batteries. I know that there are ongoing problems with the nuclear plant but please don't worry too much about us. We are safe where we are. When our neighbors begin to panic, then we'll reassess our situation.
Though we are not physically affected by the disaster, I am heartbroken by the devastation in Tohoku. I wish I could do more to help. I have given what I can to the relief efforts and am joining a walkathon to raise more. In case you want to donate as well here's a good link.
The Japanese spirit says that we should all accept what has happened and work together now to move beyond it. There is no pity party, no dwelling on things lost. They are stoic and courageous in this disaster and I think we can learn quite a few things from their reaction.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Earthquake and Tsunami
Just thought I'd put a note on the blog letting our readers we are OK! (Though most of our readers probably already know.) It was business as usual here today except for a little shaking. We even went to BJJ class and discussed how the building we were in probably wasn't earthquake safe.
We are pretty horrified by all the destruction going on elsewhere and are thankful that we are safe in Sapporo. Don't worry about us!
We are pretty horrified by all the destruction going on elsewhere and are thankful that we are safe in Sapporo. Don't worry about us!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Rusutsu Revisited
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| From Rusutsu Revisited |
Last weekend we went back to Rusutsu and it is still awesome! Just looking at the pictures now, I'm blown away. Again the forecast was for light snow and this time it was true. We had a pretty nice "greybird day" (not quite bluebird but close). It wasn't the powder wonderland/nightmare we had first experienced but it was quite nice especially considering the warm weather we had been experiencing.
(On a side note, it has been snowing like crazy in Sapporo recently which bodes well for skiing this weekend, I think. And I love snow so let it snow!)
So, without the knee deep powder, how was Rusutsu? I'd say that it definitely stands out among all the resorts we've been to. It's probably in my top 3 along with Furano and Tomamu. I don't really have much to add that I didn't already say about it before- it's a big resort, nice long runs, great snow, and some steepness. I do have to add a little bit about the view though!
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| From Rusutsu Revisited |
Rusutsu has it all- a view of Mt Yotei (considered Hokkaido's Fuji), Lake Toya AND the Pacific Ocean. Yotei was in full effect that day. It was so grand and majestic with its peak cutting right through the clouds. But even more breathtaking than that was seeing Lake Toya in the distance, shrouded in mist and mountains like a fairytale and just beyond it the flat serenity of the Pacific Ocean. Ah, it was spectacular!
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| From Rusutsu Revisited |
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| From Rusutsu Revisited |
We had a good day. Ryan was even able to realize his dream of being a "human sled," which was just as fun for me. I was also able to ride the carousel this time AND we had ice cream. Also, I think my skiing is much improved. But in case you're thinking I'm probably a pro skier now, think again. I was totally schooled by two little girls on an expert course. Hahaha. At first it looked like they were being forced by their dad, one of them was even sitting down at the trailhead in what I thought was defiance. A few seconds later, they had gained on me and were carving like racers right past me. I have a long ways to go before I can catch up to those 8 year-olds. Haha.
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| From Rusutsu Revisited |
Here's the album:
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| Rusutsu Revisited |
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Kiroro
Kiroro's Mascot (Hokkaido fox)
We were lucky. This last week was pretty warm but the weekend cooled down quite a bit and we even got some fresh snow accumulation in Sapporo. So, it was a snowy, cold day at Kiroro. And I was really surprised by the snow accumulation at the resort!
Look at all that snow!
Look at all that snow!
Snow reaching past the windows up the stairs
Ryan is amused as always.
The snow is almost as tall as me!And wow, I'm short!
Over all, we both agreed it was nothing much to write home about (though I AM writing home about it now...just to be thorough!). It is much bigger than the resorts closer/in the city (Bankei, Moiwayama) and probably has better snow too. We think that it's probably better than Sapporo Kokusai too...so that puts it in the middle somewhere.
Two non-skiing highlights of the resort for me were the fresh melon bread and the super cute two-seater covered lifts! Seriously, people would wait on line for the fresh melon bread. They disappear faster than it takes to for them to bake! Truly worth the wait to eat them still warm though. And the covered double chairs were so cute...too bad I don't have a picture of them. So romantic! Haha.
おいしい！(Yummy!)Monday, February 21, 2011
Tomamu
I feel like whenever we go somewhere new to ski, I find my new favorite place to ski and Tomamu has not disappointed me!
Taking advantage of a three-day weekend, we planned a trip with two of our friends, Rob & Midori, to finally visit Tomamu, a highly recommended resort. Just like Rusutsu, Tomamu was built around the idea of a luxury resort. In fact, after we came back, Midori spoke to her sister about their respective weekends and since Rusutsu and Tomamu both have Tower hotels, they both thought that they had spent the weekend in the same place!
Luckily, we were able to find an awesome pension to stay at with a really great package deal that included our room, breakfast and dinner, a ride to and from the train station, resort and pension AND our choice of full day lift ticket or a ticket to the spa for each day we stayed. AMAZING. Pension Ingu is a gorgeous 22 year old building with beautiful dark wood floors and two huge tree trunks serving as posts in the dining room and entrance. We booked a Japanese family style room, which was very comfortable for the four of us. And to top it all off, our pension hosts were so friendly and kind!
Pension Ingu's food was excellent. It was such a treat to come back to such a well presented and tasty 4 course meal. The specialty of the house was deer meat though I'm not really sure why. It seemed like a random choice but the host did mention something about some number of deer getting runover by trains in Hokkaido a year. Were we eating train-kill? Haha. The highlight of our meals was anything covered in blueberry sauce. Our desserts came slathered in it as well as our yogurt in the mornings. We should have asked what brand of blueberry sauce they used!
So what about the skiing?! Well, Tomamu was kind of a small mountain but it had plenty of wonderful, wonderful powder snow! We even had light flurries on both days. We basically skied everything on the first day and spent most of our time at the top skiing the advanced and expert courses. Yes, that's right! I was hitting those expert courses hard! We even did a little off-piste.
There's one section of Tomamu that's called Powder Heaven that can only be reached by taking the highest lift up and then going on a 300m hike. To go to this area and any of the off piste areas you must register at the resort desk and wear a yellow bulls-eye vest and helmet. Unfortunately we didn't have any time to do this since on the first day we were just exploring the mountain and on the second day we had kind of poor visibility and were very tired from the previous day. We were also told that Powder Heaven wasn't really worth the trouble of hiking. I would love to go back to Tomamu for some all-day off piste adventures though.
Besides skiing, we also did some sledding at the pension. Because we found a pair of sleds in the drying shed we put our skis in we just HAD to take them out for a ride. Of course, there was plenty of snow all around the pension but no hills really. So we had to kind of build our own sledding hill. The pension host helped us out by using his little snow plow and even let me help him drive! In the end we had a nice sledding session and the pension host told us we were like little kids. Haha.
The day that we left I had trouble finding one of my casual gloves and had decided that I would just have to buy a new pair but a few minutes after leaving us at the station, we saw our kind pension host parking his van again. We thought he probably had more customers to pick up but then he ran out of his van waving my missing glove! There was a moment of confusion when we couldn't decide how we would get to each other (we were on the other side of the tracks and would have to run the length of the platform and up and down lots of stairs AND our train was coming very soon). And then suddenly the pension host and Rob had gone down on to the tracks and were making the switch right there. I really felt like he went above and beyond his duty and I really want to go to Pension Ingu and Tomamu again soon.
Enjoy the album!
Taking advantage of a three-day weekend, we planned a trip with two of our friends, Rob & Midori, to finally visit Tomamu, a highly recommended resort. Just like Rusutsu, Tomamu was built around the idea of a luxury resort. In fact, after we came back, Midori spoke to her sister about their respective weekends and since Rusutsu and Tomamu both have Tower hotels, they both thought that they had spent the weekend in the same place!
 |
| From Tomamu |
Luckily, we were able to find an awesome pension to stay at with a really great package deal that included our room, breakfast and dinner, a ride to and from the train station, resort and pension AND our choice of full day lift ticket or a ticket to the spa for each day we stayed. AMAZING. Pension Ingu is a gorgeous 22 year old building with beautiful dark wood floors and two huge tree trunks serving as posts in the dining room and entrance. We booked a Japanese family style room, which was very comfortable for the four of us. And to top it all off, our pension hosts were so friendly and kind!
 |
| From Tomamu |
Pension Ingu's food was excellent. It was such a treat to come back to such a well presented and tasty 4 course meal. The specialty of the house was deer meat though I'm not really sure why. It seemed like a random choice but the host did mention something about some number of deer getting runover by trains in Hokkaido a year. Were we eating train-kill? Haha. The highlight of our meals was anything covered in blueberry sauce. Our desserts came slathered in it as well as our yogurt in the mornings. We should have asked what brand of blueberry sauce they used!
 |
| From Tomamu |
 |
| From Tomamu |
So what about the skiing?! Well, Tomamu was kind of a small mountain but it had plenty of wonderful, wonderful powder snow! We even had light flurries on both days. We basically skied everything on the first day and spent most of our time at the top skiing the advanced and expert courses. Yes, that's right! I was hitting those expert courses hard! We even did a little off-piste.
 |
| From Tomamu |
There's one section of Tomamu that's called Powder Heaven that can only be reached by taking the highest lift up and then going on a 300m hike. To go to this area and any of the off piste areas you must register at the resort desk and wear a yellow bulls-eye vest and helmet. Unfortunately we didn't have any time to do this since on the first day we were just exploring the mountain and on the second day we had kind of poor visibility and were very tired from the previous day. We were also told that Powder Heaven wasn't really worth the trouble of hiking. I would love to go back to Tomamu for some all-day off piste adventures though.
 |
| From Tomamu |
 |
| From Tomamu |
Besides skiing, we also did some sledding at the pension. Because we found a pair of sleds in the drying shed we put our skis in we just HAD to take them out for a ride. Of course, there was plenty of snow all around the pension but no hills really. So we had to kind of build our own sledding hill. The pension host helped us out by using his little snow plow and even let me help him drive! In the end we had a nice sledding session and the pension host told us we were like little kids. Haha.
 |
| From Tomamu |
The day that we left I had trouble finding one of my casual gloves and had decided that I would just have to buy a new pair but a few minutes after leaving us at the station, we saw our kind pension host parking his van again. We thought he probably had more customers to pick up but then he ran out of his van waving my missing glove! There was a moment of confusion when we couldn't decide how we would get to each other (we were on the other side of the tracks and would have to run the length of the platform and up and down lots of stairs AND our train was coming very soon). And then suddenly the pension host and Rob had gone down on to the tracks and were making the switch right there. I really felt like he went above and beyond his duty and I really want to go to Pension Ingu and Tomamu again soon.
 |
| From Tomamu |
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| From Tomamu |
Enjoy the album!
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| Tomamu |
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