Month: February 2018

2018 BU Joint Practice

BUKA hosted its second annual collegiate joint practice on Saturday, February 24 with BU alumni and fellow Kendoka from the following universities: Harvard University, Yale University, Brown University, Northeastern University, MIT and Wesleyan University. This year we were able to practice with about 50 people over two full courts. Our practice included a variety of drills and activities such as 1000 suburi, Uchikomi, Shiai waza, mawarigeiko and jigeiko. After a long, hard and rewarding practice everyone was able to eat lunch together and got the chance to know each other better. This year’s joint practice was an overall success and we were able to learn so much from each other. Thank you to everyone who was able to join us and make this joint practice possible! We enjoyed the valuable practice we had as we hope everyone else did too. Hopefully we will see everyone back again for a future joint practice!

2018 Shishihai Tournament

BUKA participated in its first tournament of the spring semester at Columbia University's 3rd annual Shishihai on Saturday, February 3. We had the opportunity to compete with students from fellow universities such as Cornell University, Columbia University, New York University, Stony Brook University, Pennsylvania State University and University of Connecticut. We brought along eight competitors to make up one full and one mixed team. Everyone did their best at this tournament and the final results  showed a slight improvement from last year!

Here are the results:

Beginners

  • Jake Lee
  • Maggie Sumioka
  • Jialin Zhu

Mudansha

  • Mike Ruan
  • Ryan Shimizu
  • Alan Tan
  • Sabrina Tran

Yudansha

  • Hiroki Kawai

Results

Ryan Shimizu placed second and Alan Tan placed third overall in the Mudansha division.

Highlights

Hiroki Kawai and Maggie Sumioka made it to the second round of their divisions , Yudansha and Beginners respectively, before getting eliminated.

Teams

A

  1. Senpo: Mike Ruan
  2. Jiho: Jialin Zhu
  3. Chuken: Ryan Shimizu
  4. Fukusho: Sabrina Tran
  5. Taisho: Hiroki Kawai

Mixed

  1. Senpo: Jake Lee
  2. Jiho: Maggie Sumioka
  3. Chuken: Alan Tan
  4. Fukusho: Rahul Prasad (SBU)
  5. Taisho: John Seo (SVA)

Results

Unfortunately neither of the teams placed at this tournament, however BU A made it to the quarterfinals before being eliminated.

As the first tournament of the semester, Columbia's Shishihai definitely demonstrated to us where we stand now, in terms of our skills, and what we need to work on and improve before our next tournament, Shoryuhai, in March. We had the great opportunity to see a wide range of Kendo skills and experience levels from people within our age group, all of which motivates us to practice harder and with more focus on areas that need improvement. With this in mind we are inspired to come back as even stronger and tougher competitors. Overall BUKA had a great and memorable tournament experience!

We thank Columbia University for inviting us to be a part of their growing tournament and we'd also like to say thank you to our BU alumni, Shawn, Lucien and Eugenia, for coming out to support us! Also, thank you to our drivers, Maggie and Ryan, for making the long drive to and from New York! Furthermore, we would like to give the biggest thank you to our Coach Alex for coming on this trip with us and giving us great support and direction throughout the tournament! Great job to all of the participants and thank you everyone for your support! Faito, BU!