Hello, I’m Natsumi.
I am trying to translate my blog about “All Japan Fencing Championship Tournament”
written in Japanese into English. Because I wanted to convey this excitement to the world. As my first challenge, please forgive my poor English.
Here is original Japanese blog.
Have you ever seen a fencing match?
I have never seen it before, but I saw the fencing game for the first time at “Abema TV” live streaming.
The final game of the 71st “All Japan Fencing Championship Tournament”. The stage is “The Globe Tokyo”.
Why at the Globe Tokyo? I will explain it later.
I saw the fencing game for the first time, but fencing is really cool!
Thanks to that production, the rules were much easier to understand than I thought!
I was so excited and enjoying the game.
There were some fencers who won, and others who lost. However, I was so impressed by each of them.
Abema TV’s live viewing was over 11,000! It is amazing! I did not expect such huge number.
For this competition, I have seen posters and information of it for months ago, but when I knew it the tickets were already sold out.
I knew that the final game had live distribution of Abema TV and I was really looking forward to it.
Why were you looking forward to so much? Please let me explain.
“Fencing towards a new era”
Yuki Ota, former Olympic medalist, took over as President of the Japan Fencing Federation in August 2017.
Since that time, Japan fencing has undergone major transformation.
In the fencing federation which was an old constitution, Mr. Ota first reviewed the “mission” of Japan fencing.
This “mission” is posted on the federation’s website, but please let me post it here as it is very wonderful.
(from Japan Fencing Federation website)
Pierce your heart!
VISION ”Fencing ahead, creating impression”
In the past sports circle, winning the gold medal at the Olympics was the top concept.However, we aim to escape from this supremacy of victory.
Under the catch phrase of “Pierce your heart!” the new vision we have developed is “Fencing ahead, creating impression”.
We promise to provide exciting experiences to all the people surrounding fencing and continue to produce fencers who take pride in engaging with fencing.
MISSION ”Keep on moving, keep on sticking, forward”
Darwin’s masterpiece “Origin of Species” states that “strong people did not survive.
A wise person has not survived. Those who respond to the change will survive. ”
And now, we can say that our sports world has entered new era in which we can not survive unless it changes.
Under this situation, we can not survive in the same way as it used to be.
From last year, this year, from next year to next year, while constantly evolving, we will work on becoming a role model of the sports world.
I think that is the mission of the fencing federation.
We continue to pioneer the era, keep pushing the heart of the times, and will continue to change.
~ end ~
I have heard Mr. Ota’s presentation directly in the event before and I was so impressed by his hot feelings very much.
Since then, I am interested in fencing and I was looking forward to this competition.
By the way, the Web site of the Japan Fencing Federation has also been renewed significantly recently, and it has been reborn quite coolly.
A new challenge at the 71st “All Japan Fencing Championship Tournament”
This is the 71st time at the traditional convention held from 1948.
Mr. Ota and his federation members have made major reforms since last year.
This year’s tickets are 1,500 seats.
For last year’s tournament, they could focus on selling the “number” of tickets that it did not fill up and sold it out.
For this year, they focused “quality” rather than the quantity of tickets. They focused “entertainment” in production such as lighting.
The venue for the final game was “The Globe Tokyo” which is theater, and we can enjoy fencing as entertainment there.
Sold out in just 40 hours, and three months ago!
Mr. Ota himself searched for sponsors, and sponsorship income have also increased to six times in the past.
All of this sponsorship income was devoted to production.
What is fencing?
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are sabre, épée, and fleuret; winning points are made through the contact with an opponent.
There are three forms of modern fencing, each of which uses a different kind of weapon and has different rules; thus the sport itself is divided into three competitive scenes
The difference between these three forms is that the video here is extremely easy to understand.
It is really cool, so please watch the video of “More enjoy fencing”
There are three weapons in modern fencing: sabre, épée, and fleuret. Each weapon has its own rules and strategies. Equipment needed includes at least 2 swords, a Lame (not for épée), a white jacket, underarm protector, two body and mask cords, knee high socks, glove and knickers.
Valid foil targets is different in sabre, épée, and fleuret.
10 new challenges in “All Japan Fencing Championship Tournament”
Various new challenges are being held at this game.
There are things already introduced in this blog, but please let me introduce 10 pieces here again.
1) The poster is cool!
This poster was taken by Mika Ninagawa.
It is a new image not in fencing so far, is really cool!
2) 5 hours Live streaming in Abema TV
And the surprised number of viewers exceeded 11,000, and more than 4,000 comments were included.
3) The venue is “The Globe Tokyo”
It was a great venue choice where games can be seen at close range and the production of LEDs etc.
4) Focusing on the production (LED, sound)
LED and sound were wonderful! This led to the excitement of the audience.
5)”Fencing Visualized” is new entertainment!
What is “Fencing Visualized”?
To make fencing easier to understand, to evolve into sports that everyone can enjoy. Developed a system that visualizes rules and techniques, so that they can be sensuously understood.
At this game, instead of infrared / motion capture, image analysis technology by machine learning is used to visualize the trajectory of the sword tip without imposing a burden on fencers.
Again, it is really cool, so please watch the video of “More enjoy fencing”
Fencing has a problem that the movement of the sword is too fast to see, and it is a sport that was said to be difficult especially for beginners to see.
In order to solve the problem, they were putting “directing LEDs, making it easy to understand when points enter” and so on.
Furthermore, as “fencing visualized” advances from now on, we will be able to understand the movements of the beat points in real time, and fencing will become increasingly fun!
Very looking forward to the future sports presentation, and as a step toward entertainment!
6) Show the fencers’s heart rate!
Fencers are wearing a mask during the game, so we can not see their face.
From the audience, this is because we can not see the player’s face, so we do not know the player’s feelings. To solve the issue, the fencers’s heart rate was shown. It was interesting.
After the game, we were checking the graph of heart rate as above.
7) With the LED, easy to understand the game!
With the LED, easy to understand that the point entered!
8) “Fencer introduction video” before the game!
It was created by themselves, so cool!
If we have something like this before the game, we can sympathize with the fencers.
9)Dancing during the break
Dance was so cool! We were enjoying even during break!
10)Signing session after the game
The signing session was held at the venue after the game.
People who went to the venue were happy to communicate with fencers.
Overall I felt that everyone resonated with Mr. Ota’s transformation.
As many athletes are young people, it may be easy to resonate with young leaders like Mr. Ota.
I think that it is so hard to transform the old sports association. I was so impressed and excited by the new challenges of the game.
In January 2019, the Takamadomiya Cup which is the World Cup will be held at Minato Ward sports center.
For more detailed information, please see Website of Japan fencing federation
I also want to see it at the venue next time!
Please share this article if you like it.
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