Better organization serves PHL kendo team well at ASEAN meet

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Senior Reporter

THE Philippine national kendo team had a successful campaign in the recently held 12^th ASEAN Kendo Tournament in Jakarta, Indonesia, with the men’s A team bagging a bronze medal, which the delegation partly attributes to better organization in the lead-up.

Competed for the third straight time in the triennial regional kendo tournament from Aug. 9 to 11, the Philippine team said it was happy to have been able to achieve its goal of a podium finish, something it was angling for since returning to the competition in 2013.

For delegation head Kristopher Inting, a better prepared and organized team surely made a difference in their campaign that saw them finishing joint for bronze with Malaysia A, behind Vietnam A (gold) and Thailand A (silver).

“Part of the difference [in this year’s tournament] was the organization behind Philippine Kendo Team. Unlike in previous delegations, the management team was not composed of players doubling as managers. This allowed everyone to concentrate on specific roles, rather than pulling double duty,” said Mr. Inting said in an e-mail interview with BusinessWorld.

“We were also successful in raising money for the team. While we were not able to cover everything, we were at least able to lessen the personal expenses of the players. This reduced the pressure on them, so that they were able to focus more on training for the event,” he added.

Mr. Inting also highlighted the training that the team had, allowing it to fashion out a game plan more suited to the competition and worked to its advantage.

“We give credit to the team’s training which was focused this time more on competition tactics and mindset, rather than just on technique and endurance training,” the delegation head said.

Apart from the bronze finish, the Philippine kendo team also won “fighting spirit” awards, given to players who did not place in the Top 4, but still made an impact on the tournament.

Winning the award were Veejay Joson for the Women’s Individual Event, and Robert Carabuena, Jr. for the Men’s Team Event.

Recognizing that they did not have it easy in the lead-up and the tournament itself, and yet wound up with the best finish for the country so far in the tournament, the team is viewing its recent campaign with much pride and gratification.

“It was very gratifying. This is something that I have been personally working on for the past six years, ever since the Philippines returned to competing in the AKT in 2013 (after missing out on it for 12 years). It was sweeter because nothing was handed to us. No government subsidies or grants, just hard work done by everyone involved (players, coaches, management, and staff). After all that work, we got the result that we dreamt and hoped for, finally giving the country a medal in the event,” said Mr. Inting, who also gave props to the rest of the team, including the women’s side, for giving their all and turning heads during the three-day event.

Mr. Inting said they are hopeful that this achievement of theirs would spur the further growth of the Japanese martial art of kendo in the country and propel them to bigger international competitions down the line, including the World Kendo Championships.

“As the saying goes, success breeds success. This early we are already seeing the effects of the AKT results because mainstream news outlets are (or planning on) carrying the news. This can only lead to more people knowing about kendo in the country, which will lead to more interest in joining the various clubs,” Mr. Inting said.

“I think that the future will be even brighter for Philippine kendo moving forward. While I am certainly very happy about the team’s performance in the AKT, this was by no means a perfect performance. We made some very crucial lapses of judgment during the tournament which can be attributed to lack of experience in getting to the medal stages of the AKT. We actually had a very good chance of beating Vietnam A (the eventual champion) in the semifinals. We only lost by two points on the aggregate team scores, so we know we could have done better,” he added.