AJKC final - 2018

Yesterday, 2018 all japan kendo championship (AJKC) was held at Nippon Budokan.

The final match players were same as last year as well as all japan police kendo championship final. So, Nishimura and Uchimura.

I would like to mention about age. Nishimura is still young but Uchimura is already 38 years old. And most of top kendo players are 20 to mid 30’s, so it is amazing he kept high-quality performance even now.

Getting back on track of their match now. Following is the final uploaded by all Japan kendo federation.

Uchimura won his matches before final with Men-kaeshi-Men, which is very difficult technique and many player are not able to imitate what he did. I will try to explain another time for this.

In this final, Nishimura tried similar stroke at 0:18. It is just a guess, but he researched Uchimura’s wins and he might try to break off Uchimura’s rhythm.

0:35- Uchimura’s guard was sticking his arm in front to clinch Nishimura.

However, this guard was not perfectly defense his territory and effectiveness is also depend on the footwork. Nishimura hit this small unguarded space very skillfully as you see the first Kote.

Uchimura is not good at Nishimura in terms of his kendo style in my opinion. And he has limited option what to do next. So he chose to hit Do, but it was not good choice this time, as he made unguarded Kote again.

Nishimura is very good at defensive when he is good condition of his offense, and in such case, for opponent player, it is very hard to find any place to hit.