Cleveland Report  (Following report submitted by Yutaro Matsuura) BC Instructor The 16th Annual Cleveland Kendo Tournament was held on March 20th at the Cleveland State University's Woodling Gym. The tournament itself was well attended with close to 160 participants. Unfortunately, the tournament was not very well attended by Battle Creek Kendo Kai members. Only myself, Craig Dieringer and Tetsuya Tokuhiro attended the event. Testuya did very well considering it was only his second appearance in a tournament. He won his first match ever and was very excited about it. Unfortunately, he did not win his pool, but I felt that he performed very well and will continue to succeed. Craig was also able to score one victory, but was defeated in his second outing.  Craig has shown a renewed dedication to Kendo of late and it is really beginning to show.  This was his first tournament since

Left to right: Craig, Big Bob, Matsuura, Little Bob, and Tetsuya   (Photo by J. Perry)

securing his Nidan rank. I myself did OK. I had to contend with a player who used Nito (two swords)  style in my first match. I won with my first ever Gyaku-Hiki-Do point. I had been training hard for my upcoming Godan test so my hits were landing solidly. However, I lost in the second round to a player from Washington DC who had defeated me the previous year. What makes this defeat hard to take is that I felt I had him beaten, but lost a point in the last second and then lost in encho (overtime). Not good. As a team, we hooked up with a couple of members of the Detroit Kendo dojo to form a "Midwest" team. We won a round, but lost to one of the many dojo run by Kato Sensei.  This was a very good event. Yes, it ran late as usual, but it is also a good event to attend if you are not ranked Yondan or higher. Due to the round robin nature of the opening rounds, you are assured to have more than one individual match. I have always enjoyed attending the Cleveland event. Hopefully you will all be able to make it next year.

Kodansha testing  Matsuura sensei tried again to pass the exam for fifth degree (godan) on March 28th, in Detroit. The good news is he passed the first section of the test, the "fighting" part. But alas, the sensei deemed him unworthy in the "kata" portion of the test. So we are now teasing him about being a Four and a half dan. They are a hard testing board to pass. I was there and I felt he did a very good job, performing the kata. But I don't sit on the board. He and I both face this hurdle as our next test, the test for godan is very serious, and the judges are very critical, they want to see MORE than just physical skill. The picture above is all the candidates. 15 for godan, and 4 for rokkudan.

Summer Camp Announcement, Aug 6-8 Very exciting news, Hajime Sugawara has had contact with one of his instructors back in Japan. We have invited him to come to be our guest instructor at summer camp this year. His name is Yamanaka. He is hatchidan (8th). He was instrumental in teaching Sugawara sensei his high quality jodan techniques. Yamanaka sensei is just as comfortable in chudan also.

Grand Rapids Matsuura sensei has decided to take a fledgling group of people under his wing in Grand Rapids. People there at the Toyoda Center have been struggling to establish a beach head of kendo in a huge metropolitan area. Instrumental in this effort is Dave Mata and Blaine Feyen. They have a well established Aikido dojo there, and are also doing their best to introduce kendo in the area. They have had some luck previously, but it has sputtered a bit. With my encouragement, Matsuura has decided to mentor this group until they have the wherewithall to be a probationary dojo. Eventually they can earn affiliate status. If anybody would like to travel up to GR with sensei, please do.....he'd appreciate your help. Check with him on which Saturdays he may go.

UPCOMING EVENTS
	AUSKF Iaido camp: June 10-13, 2004 at the University of Colorado, in Boulder CO. Click here to find the registration forms: http://www.yamakagekendo.com/camp.html AUSKF Kendo camp: Jul 23/24/25, AUSKF Summer Camp. Will be in Las Vegas. MWKF Summer Camp: We have scheduled this for August 6 - 8th. It will be held again at Kalamazoo College. We will be hosting Yamanaka sensei ( 8th dan) from Saitama, Japan. He will be our guest instructor for this summer's camp.

New Monthly Feature

I've collected a lot of stories, quotes, koans, poems and haiku. Here is one I really like: When the samurai Yamamoto Jin'emon was 80 years old, he was dying and was in great pain. At one point, he seemed to be on the edge of groaning and someone said "You'll feel better if you groan, go ahead." But he replied "Such is not the case. My name has shown up well 80 years, to let people hear my groaning voice in my last moments would never do." It is said he never let out a groan to the very end.                                                             (Yamamoto Tsunetomo)

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