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| Best of the Best? |
This is an all right video lent to me by David Taylor, another yahoo here in groovy Nippon. I was very interested to take a look at what are supposed to be the best 10 JKA matches of all time. But I have to admit that watching this video has left me a little sleepy.
I think that the problem with this tape is that is assumes that the best matches to watch are the final championship rounds, believing that the best action will be seen there. I disagree. It has been my experience that the best, and most interesting matches are usually the ones that come before “the final conflict”. In gold medal matches it usually has two very accomplished competitors playing it safe, hoping the other guy over-commits so they can capitalize on mistakes. With matches with much less on the line, fighters might try riskier techniques, throw caution to the wind, and charge in like wild beasts. Gold medal matches usually have a couple of guys bouncing lightly on the balls of their feet trying to sucker the other guy into their rhythm or trying to determine when the other guy changes syncopation so that they can zip in for a quick score. For me, it's kind of dull for the most part. I wait until someone scores, get the remote and re-watch it frame by frame in slow-motion.
Sure it is cool to see Tanaka in action, but it wasn't cool to see Ohishi run away out of bounds every time things were going bad for him. It really made kumite look much more like a game than a real match. Other matches were far more interesting, regrettably many of them has Imamura in them who is as boring as watching paint dry on the mat. By far, the best match was with Naka and Taniyama who really let things fly - no running away with these two scary guys. The match was complete with headbutts given and received. Nasty work. Naka is a great karate guy and he is a fabulous kumite competitor.
So all in all I think that you should definitely borrow this video from a good friend like David Taylor, rather than shelling out 10,000 yen (84$US) for this one. This video is not too shabby, but not something that you would watch again and again, even though it is only little more than an hour long. As much as I wanted to like it, I just wasn't too terribly impressed. And with such a heavy price tag I am even less so.
Mark Groenewold
June, 2002
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