Thoughts on my performance at the East Coast Tai Kai 2015 by Charles Choi

Thoughts on my performance at the 2015 East Coast Tai Kai

The 2015 East Coast Tai Kai was great. The people there were a lot of fun and very supportive as always, reminding me of why we like taking part in tai kais to begin with and why we like staying in battodo.

I got second place in shodan and under kata, second place in kumitachi with Noah Mitchell, and third place in team cutting with Jason Hatcher and Zach Biesanz. I'm pretty happy with my performance. Would I be happier placing higher? Sure, but that's motivation to perform even better in the future.

What I like about my performance in the tai kai is that I can identify at least one major thing during each of its components where I can do better. This is great, because I think I know how I can improve.

I'm really happy about how Noah and I performed in kumitachi. I do think the team that won first place deserved it, though. What I liked most about that team's performance was the precision and control that pair demonstrated. Their moves were clean and efficient, with strong grip, without bouncing or whipping, with power but without too much power, with neither too much tension nor too much relaxation. That, combined with their timing and intent, made for a winning combination. Me and Noah both called that team as the likely first place winner after we saw it. It's a quality I've seen a number of times with Japanese kendo and battodo practitioners. It's definitely something I want to bring to all my kata.

Team cutting involved me flubbing my first cut with futomaki. However, I made all my subsequent cuts with futomaki. Normally when I cut kesai toward my left, I have to think flat, but I find that with tsubama-gaeshi, inazuma and wakizashi, I have to think steep. That was my first time successfully cutting futomaki! I'm glad I think I know what to do in the future when it comes to doubles.

I made it to the semifinals with gekken. I lost to better fighters — Zach and Itto-san — and I find my losses instructive. With both fighters, I tried fighting smarter. I tried baiting Zach, but I left myself too vulnerable, and thus got hit. I've got to find out how to seem vulnerable without actually being too vulnerable. With Itto-san, we both kept our distance at first and kept on aiuchi-ing. I closed distance to try and get Itto-san to expose a vulnerability. That was a mistake. I've either got to get better at my close-in game, or learn to be more patient and wait for my opponents to come to me — definitely the former, and perhaps both.

The main reason I think I didn't make it to the finals or semifinals with shodan and under cutting is because my suihei wasn't flat enough. What happened there was that I was glad to make the first five cuts in rokudangiri, and I know that if I make those first five cuts, my suihei is usually pretty flat. I was complacent, and I really should have tried harder and been more mindful. It's just like fighting — if you're complacent you're going to win, very often you get screwed at the last moment.

When it came to shodan and under kata, I tried kata five, which may be one of my worst kata. Might I have won if I tried a kata I know I'm better at? Perhaps. Trying kata five might have been a mistake, but I'd rather lose by trying something I find difficult than win by trying what might be an easy out. If anything, this loss now makes me want to turn kata five into one of my best kata.