kyudo, prettiness

today was absolutely the Best. Weather. Ever.
*kyaa!*
we had a massive thunderstorm last night (久しぶり！) and when I woke up this morning, it was 60, blue skies, and brilliant. which was ちょうどいい as far as I was concerned, because today was my kyudo club's monthly tournament. it was seriously the first time in months that I've gone to kyudo and not frozen my ass off. it made for a nice change--and was just in time, too, since I've worn holes in the soles of my one pair of tabi that are large enough to wear an extra pair of socks under, and I had to wear my other pair today.
On my way home, I took some pics of the budokan, to celebrate springtime. I think I mentioned that the budokan is right next to Kishine Park, which makes it really pretty. That's actually the kyudojo area that you can see there, on the right side. The lake thing, with the grass growing in it and stuff, sort of reminds me of the marshes on the Outer Banks. Well, to me anyway. As for the tournament itself, I'd say middling? Average performance I guess. Today, we shot 10 arrows in the individual competition: 2 shinsa-style; 4 practice style; 4 standing (risshya). I missed both my first two sets, but then I hit 2 out of my 4 arrows in the Risshya at the end, so that made me kind of happy. And a few of my misses weren't that far off. Of course, a few of my misses were also *quite* far off. All in all I felt like I had kind of an average-to-off day.
Then came the group competition, which is done like a brackets tournament. In the first round, we tied with the other group (no thanks to me), and did another tie-breaker round shooting one arrow each. Which we tied again. ;-P So they then decided to determine the winner based on a game of janken (rock-paper-scissors). Which we won. (yay!)
Of course, we then promptly lost the second round, 7 hits to 2. (>_<)
Ouch.
But the day wasn't a total loss--I did win a 特別賞 "special prize"--remember, the kind that I won before? Which I have since discovered are awarded based on a random lottery...
Oh well. A prize is a prize, right?
;-D