Comparable players at Fukuoka - Highschool 17

The following youtube video is 2018 Fukuoka prefectural high school individual final at summer. This tournament also includes preliminary to all japan high school championship.

So, this was quite important for players. In each prefecture, two individual players are able to take part in all japan tournament. These two players already get the right to join.

Red player is Fujiki belongs to Yamegakuin high school, and white player is Higuchi belongs to Higashifukuoka high school. Before the match, Higuchi was more famous as strong player because of his brilliant past records of tournaments. So, not a small number of audiences expected him to the champion.

But it is Fukuoka prefecture, where competition is the most severe among all prefectures.

Needless to say, both players were strong and comparable. In such situation, small differences sometimes influence which side to win. For example, the numbers of foul one can get.

So, they tried to get advantage over other like getting foul to drop opponent’s shinai as well as looking for weakness of opponent players. At 0:50, white player tried to shake off shinai. From 1:24, red player on the other hand, tried the same.

Two fouls mean one ippon, so it is natural to aim shinai drop if possible. Slashing shinai also has good effect of attacking because it makes opponent player unguarded state temporary.

2:24 Do was pretty good timing. With a bit deeper and steadier hit, it could be ippon.

2:45 Kote of red player was good stroke as he set position to hit Kote a moment earlier than white player.

At 3:08, white player slashed red player’s shinai at last. So, even with one advantage of ippon, red player was not easy position. With one more foul also meant the score tie.

As expected, white player attacked more fiercely and also aimed foul like 4:35. But, red player dodged critical point and got victory at last.

It was high level match and we can learn much from it.