Good opportunity to hit - University 47

The following youtube video is from 2015 Kanto student kendo championship 2^nd round. Red player is Yamashita belong to Tsukuba Univ, and white player is Goto belongs to Tokai Univ.

In the match, swing speed or power in shinai handling were almost same, but one player successfully caught good chances to hit. So it made the differences.

At 1:11, red player hit Men from reverse side. It might be a good try. But, soon after that, white player stroked Men to find red player’s stuck in reverse.

It might be shallow hit, but the timing was perfect and two judges decided to admit as ippon.

At 1:44, white player stroked hiki-Men. At moment, red player was drawing backward and his Men was completely unguarded. Fortunately for red player, this hit wasn’t ippon.

But, red player couldn’t make chances and at 2:16, he stopped a moment again in halfway risky distance of his, and white player didn’t miss it.

So, speed and stroke technique itself didn’t differ among players, but opportunity of stroke differed so much that end up in one-side victory.

In either case, red player’s footwork was stopped and white player aimed at these opportunity to hit and succeeded.