Junior Aikido National Meet at The Budokan

Just before we left for the UK we went to the annual national meet in Tokyo, the kids all seem to love it but it is quite hard to get pictures of them because there are about 2,400 kids in there!

They start off with a speech and warm up, they they are split into age groups. Ebi-kun is now in the 3rd group, which is 5th and 6th graders. From our dojo there was only 1 kid for the junior high group and he didn't want to do it by himself so Ebi-kun had to double up and train with the JH kids too. He actually loved it because he got to learn some moves that normally he wouldn't get to try yet. I imagine the sensei all thought he had a growth defect of something, he is little for his age as it is!

Then each dojo gets a few minutes to do a display of the their skills. There are 5 marked areas and it all moves pretty quickly. Ebi-kun is throwing H-chan in this pic, can you spot him?

 Then the university dojo's get to show off their skills, it still amazes me how little amount of effort seems to take place and then the opponent is on the floor...

Finally the head dojo have their sensei come and strut their stuff, more throwing around...

And finally, the great grandson of the chap who founded aikido comes on, does a speech and, yes, you guessed it, throws a load of people around. He starts with just the one but then moves onto three...

Thankfully it wasn't too hot this year, Ebi-kun left a happy bunny !

Saitama Prefecture Aikido Meet

Aikido is a non competitive sport so instead of tournaments, the organization arranges display meet ups. This year it was held at Koshigaya, about an hours drive away.

This was a kids meet up and about 170 kids were there. Normally, at his own dojo I can spot Ebi-kun easily because he is the only one with an orange belt but here there were belts of every colour and some tiny kids in the mix too.

After the warm up, the big sensei demonstrated a move then the kids paired up to practice, it was a bit dangerous having so many kids on the mats at once! They could have done with a few more mats down I think.

The sensei's wandered among the kids checking that they were doing it correctly and they also got to practice with kids from other dojo's. There are a couple of kids or 'the naughty boys' as Ebi-kun calls them that mess around a lot so he doesn't like working with them.

After an hour of practice, it was display time. Each Dojo had 4 minutes to strut their stuff. Ebi-kun was paired up with 'big naughty boy'! You can't see the belt but he's the one with his feet in the air!

The kids seemed to enjoy it and it was the right time of year, in the winter the dojo is freezing and in the summer it's like a hothouse! They finished off with a group shot but I couldn't quite get everyone in, 10p if you can spot the boy...

Next Sunday it's back to the regular dojo and the Sunday after that my mom will be here to watch!