Kendo is the order of the day at Rivonia Kendo Club Autumn Championships
The Autumn Championships at Rivonia Kendo Club saw club members demonstrate their best skills.
Rivonia Kendo Club hosted their Autumn Championships at Rivonia Sports and Recreation Club in Paulshof on May 14.
The championship comprised of four categories including iaido, kendo kids, kata team and kendo team. Buster Sefor sensei, who is a renshi seventh dan kendo, iaido fourth dan and jodo first dan, was invited as the guest of honour to oversee the competitions and provide guidance and training tips.
With the iaido competition being the first of the day, nerves and excitement were in the air. The final match saw recently-graded shodan members Jayson Rothman and Warren Ho face each other with Rothman winning the contest. Carina Rothman took third place after defeating James Miller.
Next event of the day was a jodo demonstration by Heinz Weilert and Quentin Barkenhuizen that took place just before the next competition.
The kendo kids competition saw participants split into two pools and take part in a round-robin competition against each other. The top two from each pool went into the semi-final rounds. Caden Howell (10) defeated Nathan Ho (7) in the first semi-final, while Jaime Lewis (10) defeated Sebastian Weng (7) in the second semi-final. Jamie eventually took first place and Caden was runner-up. Both Nathan and Sebastian earned third place.
In the kata team competition, the two-person per team event required the teams to perform a series of kendo kata against another two-person team. Six teams were divided into two pools in a round-robin competition and two teams from each pool would go into the semi-final.
These were the results:
- First place: Decclan Lawrence and Matthew Michel
- Second place: Lisa Chivanga and Khotso Masithela
- Third place: Carina Rothman and Jayson Rothman.
The final competition of the day was the kendo team competition. For this three-person team competition, the only requirement was that the maximum sum of dan grades in that team were limited to five-dan in total. Six teams were again split into two pools to have the third-place play-off, semi-finals and final. The results were:
- First place: Team OBS consisting of members Thio Naidoo (second dan), Decclan Lawrence and Matthew Michel.
- Second place: Blue Exorcist (known as Question Mark) consisting of members Logan Naidoo (third dan), Aura Naidoo (second dan) and Tyler Nitzen.
- Third place: Ghost Division consisting of members Quentin Barkenhuizen (first dan), Kian van der Walt and Ashton Atkinson.
Lisa Chivanga of Team Bankai received the fighting spirit award for her performance.
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