初ブログ：北大合宿

• 1年生のアイェントレイです。留学生なので、来年度の秋学期から2年生になります。
  このブログの残りの部分は英語で書きます。( 完全に日本語で書けるようにもっと勉強します:)) )
  
  Today marks my the one year anniversary of my stay here in Japan. I almost forgot I arrived here last year on September 19.
  A lot of things have happened and I am grateful for each one of them. I am grateful that I have stumbled upon this club. Although it's been a year,
  and I apologize, this will be my first blog.
  
  There are a lot of things I want to talk about from these past several months, from the Kyushu University expedition, Kyoto Rensei, Osaka University expedition,
  and to the Nanadaisen. But for this blog, I will only be talking about the recent Hokkaido University expedition, which happened last week.
  
  I honestly did not know what to expect from a practice session of the current strongest university in Kosen Judo. On the first day out of the three practice days,
  I was already impressed by their new captain, Yokomori-san, working right before practice. Everyone was impressed by his unmatched strength during Nanadaisen and
  there was no doubt that he had an impressive work ethic, but I was still impressed. I was also impressed by their warm-ups and uchikomi. The first day felt like
  they really emphasized on mastery and repitition of techniques. After uchikomi, we had a session where we learned a few techniques including 帯取返 and newaza techniques
  that I felt were related to 帯取返. They made us pair up and practice moves on eachother. I couldn't find a partner because everyone immediately started pairing up and I
  was never really the type to speak out when this happens. Surprisingly, their captain, Yokomori-san, came up to me and offered to be my partner. I was scared, but I couldn't
  pass up this opportunity to learn from the strongest. He was a really good teacher and was not the scary person I thought he was. I was able to perform the techniques smoothly
  as was taught by the OB, but he taught me specific details about the techniques that were really helpful.
  
  On the 2nd day was the practice matches against Hokkaido University. As always, I was put as 先鋒. Being the 先鋒 makes me nervous, but I'm getting used to it.
  Both of my matches ended in draws. Although I'm happy to tie against someone from the strongest university, I can't help but feel like I could've won both of my
  matches if I was just a little stronger. On the first match, I was able to get the opponent to a turtle position using a move Nimura-Shihan taught me. At that point,
  I felt like it was up to me and what I've learned so far to win the game, but I couldn't pull it off. I wasn't able to get the proper choking position, and I just
  felt overpowered by the opponent's defense. On the second match, the opponent was left-handed and really good at tachiwaza. All I wanted to do was to pull him to
  my guard, but I was always pulled up like what happened in Nanadaisen and we were back to zero. Halfway in, he attempted a harai-goshi on me which I successfully
  defended and got him into turtle position. The same problem happened on the first match and the opponent escaped this time and we drawed in the end. I plan to
  practice my moves in the turtle and choking positions more next time!!!
  I think Phong, Ishida, and Shirakawa's matches also went well.
  
  
  On the 3rd day were the randori and a learning session. I tried to use my moves as much as I can, but the Hokudai players, especially the first-years, were good at
  tachiwaza and I was having a really hard time. I also got to spar with Yokomori-san. At the end of the practice, Sasaki-san taught Ishida a lot about
  横三角 and all of us watched, although I couldn't really understand anything. I just thought it was really nice that Ishida has 横三角 and Shirakawa
  has SRT, all of which are moves they dedicate to practice and rely on during matches. It would be nice if I could find mine soon :)).
  
  All 3 days were really hard and we were always tired at the end of the day. Every after practice, we go to eat lunch, and then we go back to our hotel to rest.
  I wanted to talk more about our travel on the ferry and different places we went to, but for this blog, I decided to talk more about Judo since it is my first one.
  Nevertheless, I'd like to show some of my favorite pictures.