Kendo in LaCrosse?

So its been awhile. I've been extremely busy since school started. I'm spending most of my time with schoolwork, and Kendo which basically limits my free time. I've even given up World of Warcraft as of last week as it was starting to have an adverse affect.

In any case I spent last weekend at a Kendo tournament held just north of LaCrosse, WI. It was a lot of fun, even though I didn't score any points in my matches. I probably should have scored something in my first match against another Mudansha but wasn't able to get a clean hit in. I had one hit which a judge called as a hit but the main judged waved it off.

My second fight was against a 5-dan who is the Sensei at MSU (btw 5-dan is basically the Kendo equivalent to a 5th degree blackbelt). Knowing my chances were slim I tried a go for broke attack as Kiyota Sensei would put it. Unfortunately, this tactic failed as my Zanshin wasn't good enough. Upon turning around Fox Sensei struck a blow to my men (head) for the 1 point win. Next tournament I plan to last longer than 20 seconds against the other teams Sensei.

On Sunday morning it was my time to test for the rank if ikkyu (1-kyu). Ikkyu is the rank before shodan (1-dan) which is basically the first recognized rank in Kendo (the MWKF does have 2-6 kyu as lower ranks but typically these are only held by children). For the test I needed to demonstrate basic strikes (kote, men, do), do two three minute Ji-Geiko's, Kirikaeshi, and Katas 1-3. In the end I did well and passed. Now I need to get to work on my written essay as the last step of achieving my rank.