British Universities Taikai 2010

At last, the event I've been training for the entire year rolled round once again! The British Universities Taikai, affectionately known as the Uni Taikai. This year the event is held up in Edinburgh. I've always wanted to go to Scotland and what better excuse than to compete in a kendo tournament!

The UCL squad was quite upbeat for this event, we feel it's about time we win it again seeing that we're entering quite a strong team too. For the journey North, some of us took the coach, and the others took the train from London.

Straight into the competition, first up on Saturday, we breeze through the pools, and the first round for that matter. We were expecting the SOAS team (who were on the train with me) in the quarter-finals, but it turned out they were knocked out by Queen Mary, which surprised us a little. Easier task for us may be?

Or so I thought ...

IIGT 2010 & 2Dan Shinsa

Finally the weekend of the International Irish Goodwill Taikai (IIGT) 2010 came round. I haven't had a competition since the Summer in Thailand! I hope I won't be too rusty in shiai situations, but not only that, it is going to be a big weekend for me in another aspect. My 2dan Shinsa! Gahhhh ... I hope I pass. I hate gradings, that's why I've never done it up until a year and a half ago when I got my Ikkyu.

After a massive delay and hanging about in Heathrow for longer than is healthy, Aer Lingus shuttled us across to Cork. Being the last flight of the day to arrive, it took us a while to get a taxi. Even more annoying was a bit before that Shohei got stuck at the Immigration for ages, they're real arseholes! Probably really bored with nothing else better to do but harass innocent passengers.

The competition was first on Saturday, we split up into 2 teams of 3s. It took us a while to do so, arranging the order and what not, we were also unsure whether or not