PHL women's kendo team bags silver in HK tilt

A Philippine-based women's kendo team placed second at the 14th Hong Kong Asian Open Kendo Championship last week, one year after fielding its first female group in the same competition.

The three-member three-dan squad from IGA-Kendo Club, composed of Loida Estanilla-Inting, Shinmei Sugawara, and Kurematsu Kayo, beat Singapore and Hong Kong in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively before falling to the Japanese team captained by 2012 All-Japan Kendo women's competition runner-up Mai Uchida.

"I was lucky enough and very honored to face [Uchida] as taisho [captain] of my team in the final match," 32-year-old Estanilla-Inting told GMA News Online. "To put this in proper perspective, top kendo players are mostly from Japan and these top players rarely venture outside of Japan to compete. So it was such an honor to meet her and to face her in the finals."

Estanilla-Inting was also part of the first PHL women's team fielded in the 13th Kendo Open last year.

"Last year, we were able to reach the quarterfinals but lost to Singapore. If we had won, we would have made it to the medal rounds," she said. "My goal this year was for the team to get past the quarterfinals"

And get past the quarterfinals they did.

Estanilla-Inting was joined by Our Lady of Fatima University Antipolo student Sugawara, who was born to a Japanese father and Filipino mother; and housewife Kurematsu, whose husband was recently assigned to the Philippines.

"It had been a long time since I fought in a tournament so I was really nervous but excited at the same time," 19-year-old Sugawara, who started competing at age 13, told GMA News Online."The other tournaments I joined was just within our city or within the prefecture, but in the HK Open tournament, I was able to compete with people around Asia, which is of course my first experience."

IGA-Ken club manager Kristopher Inting said the women's feat, as well as the Men's three-dan and under team's break into the round of 16 "shows that as a club we are improving at a phenomenal rate. In fact, other countries are starting to notice this."

"I have a feeling other countries and clubs will start looking at IGA-Ken Teams as serious threats in the future," Inting told GMA News Online. “That is added pressure on us, but we are here to continually improve our own kendo and Philippine kendo in general."

IGA-Ken fielded four teams in total: two for the women's open division, one for the men's three-dan and under division, and one for the men's open division. Two teams were also fielded by Manila Kendo Club: one for Men's three-dan and one 1 men's open.

Kendo might seem "not much of a girl-friendly sport," said Sugawara. " You're going to smell bad and get some bruises. But it's really an interesting sport and it will develop not only physical strength, but also mental strength."

For Estanilla-Inting, kendo is "more woman-friendly than most would expect from the martial art."

"Our regular practice does not segregate men from women, so we typically get to spar with both. From what I have seen so far, it empowers a female to be able to match skill to skill with guys," she said.

"So if a woman does not mind being mistaken as having a “bad romance,” kendo is the perfect activity to mold the mind, the body and the spirit and a great way to empower a person, regardless of the gender." - AMD, GMA News


Disclosure: the author is a kendoka on hiatus from the IGA-Kendo Club.