Amazing Kote - University 12

Nishimura, who is a champion of all Japan Kendo this year, have been good at Kote. The following video is 2009 all Japan student championship semifinal match. He was Tsukuba University student at that time.

Nishimura was red side player and white side was Ebisudani.

First one minute, white player made good pressure to red player. But, red showed various kinds of stroke from very-fast hiki-Men to abrupt one-handed Tsuki to confuse opponent.

From 1:07- white player pressured again, and red player avoid this with his backward footwork.

The strong point of red player in this match was that he showed many patterns of strokes and didn't allow opponent to anticipate next movement.

In this match, red player stroke more than one after opponent player finished his attack. He had nice gut to push opponent pressure back.

1:46 Tsuki was a bit incomplete, but his aim might be a next stoke. So, the Kote after he brushed off shinai was his real aim.

Tsuki is sometimes used for making opponent raise shinai, and hence Kote space show up.

For me, it was most impressive skill in this match. It was so fast and unavoidable. White player also as soon as got hit by red player, he admitted ippon and went back to starting line.

After Kote ippon, during serial movement red player added hiki-Men. He tried several times and it had not been ippon, but he had feeling of touching Men and he tried at the best timing.

In general, players tend to be careless and unguarded when they try to do something or try to move on to next action. White player had to take back ippon and when he moved, he was hit at the moment.

I would like to introduce another aspect; White player Ebisudani was a medical student at Keio University, very prestigious private University in Japan. And it is very difficult to pass the examination.

In terms of Kendo, so many numbers of University and College students play kendo and among them, he became top 4 players of that year, isn’t that amazing?

So, he did both kendo and study for excellent performance. His effort must be tremendous. It is nice to see such a respectful person also playing Kendo very well.