[Saka]

This past weekend in Jyväskylä (Central Finland) there were Finnish Championships in Kendo organised by the Finnish Kendo Association, jointly with Ryutokai, a kendo club in Jyväskylä.

The championship competitions are intended for all members of the Finnish Kendo Association. Preparing for and participating in competitions are important opportunities for learning, even if the main goal of the hobby is not to compete. In the competition, the kendoka has to face competitive tension, pressure, and dealing with loss and victory, and exposes his own skills to public evaluation.

The Kendo SM competitions were held in Jyväskylä on the last weekend of January, 27-29 January 2023. For new kendo enthusiasts, there was now also its own series for kyu level, and a competition seminar was organized at the beginning of the games, where new kendo players can get to know the rules and course of the kendo competition before the games start. Together, these form a whole that gives new enthusiasts a good idea of competing in kendo. Along with graduations, competitions are a valuable way for kendo to measure the level of one's own performance in a pressured situation and thus get new guidelines for one's own progress in kendo training.

In addition to the competition seminar, at the beginning of the games, a referee seminar was also organized, the purpose of which was to familiarize kendo players who have been practicing for longer (2+ dan) with refereeing. And possibly some of them could try judging in kyu-level competitions under the guidance and supervision of our more experienced kendo judges. As the finish of the event, a team competition was held, where most of the clubs in Finland managed to participate. After a long corona break, it was great to meet and fight faces from the entire kendo community in Finland!

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Can you participate in that one, or are there some requirements that need to be met?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch I participated. I got out of the group, but then lost my match to the person who won the series. 😅But the two guys from my club who participated in the same series didn't even get out of their groups. Unlucky. Maybe next year would be better, if I don't outrank the kyu series.

The normal championship series have the whole national team competing in them, so that's uh, more difficult.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Does it depend a lot on luck? I mean, you can get a stronger or weaker opponent by chance, or is it all about persona ability with nothing left to fortune?

[DracoTarot]

@Saka you got out of the group and I think it's an awesome achievement.😊 Thank you for the video. It's interesting to see how the whole scenario plays off. I've not watched the whole vid yet because of the length but will watch it a few minutes at a time. Are you also in the vid somewhere participating in battle?

[Saka]

@DracoTarot Yup, I do appear several times! I even have a rather long fight in the ladies series, because I got bullied to join (along with a few others), so that they would have a proper bracket rather than the whole thing resolved in 3 fights.
@DoctorEldritch Yeah, sometimes you can just get hardwalled by an opponent from the draw and there's nothing you can do about it. There isn't any sort of rating or anything affecting the order in the brackets.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka I shudder to think what bullying methods they must have used on a kendo fighter 😅

It is interesting how this tournament is then a mix of luck and skill, I always find it curious to put activities on a scale where something is left to chance or not. Mahjong, for example, has a strong luck component, while chess does not. Sports competitions are similarly affected on a different level. I guess a chance of randomness makes it more exciting for spectators?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch They were kendoka too!

As for randomness, I think part of the reason is that there just aren't enough competitors. It's a very niche sport compared to hockey for example.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka I thought as a rule team sports have more competitors than single-person sports. You need a lot of people to make a team, and teams form into clubs, so hockey, football, and the like are popular, while martial arts only need one person, and while they can form dojos (or the kendo version of that), essentially, that's about it. Fencing has the same situation, I want to say.

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch I mostly meant that hockey is one of the most popular activities in Finland. Even very small towns have their own teams.

Kendo, unfortunately, doesn't get much publicity, so a lot of people never heard of it. FKA tried to get the news outlets to post a notice about the championships and I think even that one didn't go through, even if a small article online is not so much to ask. But they rather post something about a random person doing zumba (no offense to random people doing zumba).

From the people the clubs manage to lure not that many decide to stay. Kendo is hard to master, very sweaty and sometimes violent. It's not unlikely to end up with several new bruises after each practice. It is also very easy to get one's ego bruised as well.