wubo (4) wrapping up

Just some wrapping up on the wubo / Sport Accord / Combat Games posts (see previous).

I would like to hear from anyone else who was there as an athlete, journalist, or whatever, just to compare notes. I was only able to attend the kendo events and I was quite satisfied with the organization and execution overall. And now I am especially glad that all the events were completed before the recent….downturn…. in relations between China and Japan.

How was the level of competition in other events? The judging? Both were quite good for the kendo events, as were the additional demonstrations which helped to introduce a relatively unknown martial art to the audience.

For those interested in more in-depth coverage of the kendo events at wubo / Sport Accord / Combat Games, you’ll just have to wait for the next issue of Kendo World!

wubo (2) Chinese watching kendo

Ten years ago, I took part in two brief kendo / iaido tours of China. Both were excellent experiences and I wish I had known a lot more THEN that I know now (in terms of Japanese martial arts, Chinese martial arts, the languages involved, everything). (Human relations, too).

On each tour, we gave demonstrations in several cities in the Southeastern province of Zhejiang. We toured together with members of a local wushu school. At each stop, reactions were fairly similar.

The Chinese crowds knew something of Chinese wushu and knew how to appreciate the Chinese martial artists. The crowds did not know much at all of Japanese martial arts, nor how to appreciate our demos.

They were used to flashier demonstrations with large numbers of techniques. Kendo, iaido, and other Japanese martial arts are not flashy and tend toward pursuit of a single technique which finishes the encounter. Our kendo and iaido demonstrations were usually met with curious silence, followed by tentative applause, often at unusual points in the demonstration.

In just ten years, general knowledge about the Japanese martial arts has increased significantly in China, and fledgling clubs can be found scattered across the country.

At the Sport Accord Games (wubo or 武博), there was an overall greater understanding and appreciation of kendo in particular. Even so, I loved the fact that the greatest crowd response seemed to come not after the masters’ bouts or any of the other excellent demos, but during the childrens’ kendo demo.

You just have to love the kid who is shorter than everyone else’s shinai (bamboo sword) – and who is trying twice as hard as most of them.

wubo (1) Combat Games

I finally made it back to Beijing a couple weeks ago - the trip was much too short but good in many ways. I traveled on a journalist visa for the first time, for Kendo World but also teamed with journalists from Kendo Nippon and Kendo Jidai magazines.

More on that later...About the games - this was the first of what is to be an annual international event, gathering martial artists of various disciplines. I have heard that these "Combat Games" will be followed by a "Mind Games" event in 2011, which could be a lot of fun. Personally, like "chess-boxing" (was that in the UK?), I would like to see (or be??) contestants participate in both games.

I wanted to see the wushu event but our journalist visas were extremely strictly controlled by the government of a certain country involved in it all. We were allowed in the night before the games, and had to return home the morning after they finished (two days of competition).

Overall, things went well and I look forward to next year's Combat Sports tournament. More details to follow...