Chuken strategy - Highschool 22

Chuken is the just middle person of team play between jiho and fukusho. Team might expect Chuken to be flexible, but also stable.

If team situation is behind, player is expected to push back. And if it is lead, player is expected to keep the momentus of one’s team, at least tie score.

So, players have to calculate and understand the flow and it is difficult. Sometimes, very strong players are placed in Chuken position, which makes it more difficult to play an expected role.

Red player is Ono belongs to Tokaidaiyon and white player is Yasuraoka belongs to Oyama high school respectively. The team score before Chuken was 1(1) – 1(2).

So, white team subtly lead. The following video shows the match.

At first, red player didn’t show his stroke, but carefully dodged white player’s stroke.

At 0:29, suddenly he hit Men backward and it became ippon. Although white player defended, it was so heavy blow that could reach to white player’s Men.

Red player read white player was coming Men at 1:58 and stroked Do. It was not hit precisely the place, but the aim and timing was perfect.

At 2:15, white player hit Men from a bit left of red player. This time, red player approached risky opponent territory and failed to defend his attack.

The white player was dominated in the match before this ippon. However, he caught up only one mistake of red player. It was obviously good thing not to miss this kind of chance although it is not so easy to do.

At 3:04 after red player’s Tsuki, he stopped the match temporarily to check his shinai was not bend or broken. It was good practice to check like this. Otherwise, it might lead to trauma of players with abnormal shinai.

Red player had strong physical as seen his combination stroke from 3:32.

White player tried hard to get ippon, but he inclined to choose Men especially before the last moment and red player grasped the counter attack chance hiting Do at 4:26.

So, red player made his team dominated, did expected work. Not only physical strength but also cool decision made it possible. Chuken is not easy position.