Shodokan Open 2008

Today was the Shodokan Aikido Open Competition in the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Only 11 women took part (a record number, apparently) but there were about 31 men competing, mostly black belts, so there was definitely a lot of old grudges and testosterone flying around: it was definitely a lot more serious than the Student Nationals. It's 7 months since I took up Shodokan and I still feel like a beginner, so I definitely missed the camaraderie this time.

Nerves aside, I won two bronze medals. The first was for the Suwari Waza (kneeling techniques) with Cora (above), although only three pairs took part we still took a good stab at it. My second was for the Junanahon (17 randori techniques from handblade) with my boyfriend Paul as my very compliant uke... I was so frikking pleased when we won the 3rd place play-off!

My randori was a bit mixed... I got tamed by two dan grades and managed a nil nil draw with a 1st kyu from Nottingham. Paul did great though, he very narrowly lost about against a brilliant guy from Leeds, but his team got silver for the men's team randori (beating loads of dan grades) and I was so stupidly proud of him.

Still, mixed feelings aside, the Sheffield Kyogikan had a great evening of noodles, beer and nipple tweaking afterwards :)