Becoming Akyu ! (English)

(I used an automatic translator for the english version of this article, so there might be some part that sound a bit werid, sorry about that.)

Gabriel from Karuta France, on 20 March I came second in the Matsuyama tournament and on 23 March I also came second in the Kagoshima tournament. Two second places, so the conditions for moving up to A are fulfilled. So, this is the first French A kyu pass, the first A kyu pass for a European, the first A kyu pass for a player who hasn't started karuta in Japan, and the 3rd A kyu pass for a non-Japanese.

I feel it's important to write an article about this, to leave a trace, to show the way to young French people who will be starting out and becoming passionate about karuta in the years to come. That's why, even though I hadn't written a karuta article for quite a long time, I'm taking up the pen again. When I switched to B kyu, I wrote a fairly long article recounting my entire career from the start, so I suppose that as I've already told all that, there's no point in going over it again. I'm posting a link to the article anyway:

‘https://francekaruta.wixsite.com/my-site/post/tournois-de-shinshun-2023’

I started karuta just over 10 years ago in September 2014 after seeing Chihayafuru, I simply said to myself why not, and after one practice session, I had already become a bit addicted to the sensation of picking up cards while being synchronized to the player's voice. When you watch Chihayafuru, what the characters are doing seems supernatural, but when you start playing you realize that it's much closer to reality than you imagine. In fact, karuta is so special that to make an anime about it exciting, you don't even need to invent things that don't exist in the real game.

2 years and 3 months ago, in January 2023, I passed B kyu, and after many years in C kyu I really felt like I'd reached a goal. I could go to training and fight as many B kyu as I wanted and even A kyu from time to time, which wasn't the case when I was still a C and which had become a real frustration after all those years. I was happy and satisfied to have passed B, especially as it was the new B kyu, the third dan B kyu, and I was sincerely very happy with my level in karuta. What's more, the step up to A seemed so big to me, almost unthinkable, and I didn't want to set myself another unattainable goal and just enjoy being B at last.

When I started my working horliday in September 2023, I didn't say to myself: ‘Only a week after arriving in Japan, I took part in the Toyama tournament. In this tournament, I started with a victory by default, two not too hard victories by around ten cards, then a difficult match in which I held up well and won by 4, but in the semi-final, the blackberry I came up against was much too big. I lost by 7 and was happy not to have been roasted by 15.

That first tournament made me think that there might be a way up by training hard and playing a series of tournaments, but the next 8 tournaments I lost all of them without ever winning more than 1 match...

As the days and months went by, by January 2024 my motivation had already dropped, I wasn't going to as many training sessions as I had at the start, and even my performances in the first matches of the tournaments had deteriorated, the solo training sessions that accompanied the club matches had become non-existent and I decided to go travelling, to move away from Tokyo to enjoy Japan for the rest of my working holiday. Between meetings and the job I found, I didn't touch karuta until July, when I decided to sign up for the Miyasaki tournament, both because I was beginning to miss karuta and because I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to spend 10 days in Kyushu to get a good look at the island. In this Kyushu tournament, after 4 wins including two unmei-sen, I nevertheless managed to get through to the semi-final again. I played a close match to 10/10, but with tiredness I lost my nerve a little and I made a double fault at a critical moment, and I couldn't get back into the match after that, and this tournament ended with a defeat of 6 and a second third place.

It was my last tournament of the working holiday and in September 2024 I'm going back to France with two third-place cups. Third place is very frustrating because it doesn't allow me to progress one millimeter towards A kyu, but it's still 4 tournament victories each time, so two fine performances, and somehow, as I'd never really thought about going A, and in training I clearly wasn't a match for the few A players I was up against, I end up telling myself, a little resigned, that these aren't such bad results, and I'm happy with the two third-place cups that are sitting on my desk in Paris.

Around December 2024, the idea of going back to Japan to play in tournaments started to cross my mind. That's when I started doing differentiation training (Kikiwake). I was afraid that this training would take me backwards, make me adopt bad habits and make me make more mistakes, but I told myself that in any case, if I didn't change anything, with my current level, I'd have no chance of passing A kyu. So I'm venturing into unknown territory with a new training program, without really knowing whether it will pay off or not.

As I'm still looking for work and still have some savings, I decide that the opportunity to go and play karuta for 3 months in Japan may not come up again soon, in January 2025, so I get my tickets and leave at the beginning of February.

My first tournament was in Yokohama, where I lost 13 cards in the first round to an opponent who only managed 4th place. It was a harsh reminder of reality, but one that was probably necessary, because from then on I was going to give a lot more of myself in my matches, and I was going to think about how I could change my game to better exploit my opponent's weaknesses and try to prevent him from exploiting mine. I think I already had a karuta where I was thinking quite a lot, but I'm going to start playing a karuta where I'm going to think even more. That's when I start to put into words the three weapons you can use at the end of the game.

- Where and how you move your hand

- What you aim for with your mind, with your memory

- What you aim for with your eyes and gaze

At the end of the game, against someone who isn't aware of these 3 weapons, you can develop interesting tactics such as aiming at 3 of the 4 corners by aiming at each corner with a different weapon. If you're used to it, you may be able to take the cards 3 times out of 4 at the end of the game against an opponent who has no strategy and doesn't aim at anything.

I'm realizing that these weapons can also be used in the middle of a match and that, depending on your opponent's karuta type, if you play well, there are often weaknesses to exploit.

What's more, in tournaments, mistakes and fatigue play a crucial role, so I'm starting to concentrate on identifying high-risk cards and organizing my memory so that I don't make mistakes on them. If you've ever played tournaments with a hundred people in the room, there are dead cards where there are no fouls out of 100 people and dead cards where a foul appears in one match out of four. When you notice this phenomenon, it becomes clear that some cards are riskier than others. Once you know this, you can spot the risky cards and organise your memory and strategy to limit your chances of making mistakes on them.

The second tournament I played was in Shizuoka, which was already better than the Yokohama tournament. I won the first 3 matches by around ten cards and got to the 4th match without really having accumulated any fatigue, But all the strategies I mentioned above are not yet fully formed in my head and my opponent, as well as being strong, contests a lot during the match, making it hard to concentrate because you're always wondering in the back of your mind if you're not being cheated by a dishonest opponent. A referee starts watching the match, and towards the end of the game I even get back a card that I was going to leave when the referee got a little overzealous. But that wasn't enough, my opponent started to get even faster, I had the impression that I wasn't having any luck with the cards that were coming out, I fell back on a poor defensive strategy at the end of the match that didn't pay off, and I ended up losing by 5 a match that had been level for most of the way.

Of course, with a bit more luck on the read cards I could have won the match, but to think like that is to misunderstand the true nature of the problem, and if I'd used all the strategies I mentioned above, I think I could have negotiated this end game, not easily, but towards a win, nonetheless.

The next tournament was Kuwana. It was my 3rd B kyu tournament since returning to Japan and my 13th overall. I got 3rd place, a frustrating 3rd place, but I tell myself that I've got to keep trying to do as many tournaments as possible and train hard to maximize my chances. If I can get even a second place, I tell myself that even if it takes a few years, I'll be able to do it a second time. And so, even if I don't pass A kyu on this trip, I'll at least have taken another step towards that goal.

We then arrived at the Matsuyama tournament, where I won the first match by 11 and the second by 14. It was in the third match that the problems began. At the start of the match, I had absolute bad luck with the cards I was reading, and combined with that my opponent went very fast and surfed on an incredible nagare (flow). He took eleven cards without me touching one, but it also made two faults, which still left me 7 cards behind, and all the momentum was on his side. At that point, I knew I was in deep trouble and that it was going to be complicated, but I didn't want to give up. I understood that the only way to win this match was to wait for the wind to change and above all not to make any mistakes. This eventually happened, I managed to pick up more and more cards, and he continued to make a few mistakes, the match was level again, and it turned out that he was better at the start than at the end of the match, he finished the match with a fifth mistake on his part against zero for me, allowing me to win this match by 5 cards when I really thought it was the end at the start of the game.

The fourth match was a close one, with me playing against a girl from Toudai (Tokyo University). We were evenly matched for the whole match, but I didn't make any mistakes, and she did, so I managed to press on and win the match by 8. In the fifth match I played against someone whose first semi-final it was, my fourth, and as I had no intention of becoming a bronze medal collector, I gave it my all, even though I had nothing left after that match, I memorized and concentrated so hard that I forgot about the stress, the pressure and the need to go to the toilet. In the end, I won the match by just over ten cards without scaring myself, but I ended up drained of energy as the next match awaited me in the final. My first match of my life where I have a shot at becoming A kyu.

A referee is present during the final and my opponent tends to brush against the cards, not to move them when picking them up, and inevitably we end up asking the referee's opinion quite often, except that on the first 4 times we ask the referee he has the card 4 times, but I'm pretty sure that on at least two of these cards, the referee just gave it to her because she considered it to be “same”, one more card where we contest and I look at the referee and she nods at me before we ask her anything. What's more, my opponent asked me to replace some of my cards, which were a little misaligned, as if he was looking for the smallest detail. On the second challenge, when the referee ruled in his favor, he also shouted out a phrase like “Ah well, it's a good thing there's a referee, otherwise it wouldn't be playable”. The match was nevertheless close, and I even led by a few cards. We reach the end of the match and the cards I'm aiming at aren't really read, he's also pretty good at the end of the match and doesn't let me aim at most of the cards on the board as I'd have liked, but the referee rules in my favor 3 times in a row, notably on one of his fouls where he told me it was “without any doubt a common foul”. It's in these conditions that we arrive at two all, and he gathers his last two cards to defend, I hadn't managed to break through his defense on the previous cards, and I tell myself that if he wants to play it by luck, let's do so, so I gather my 2 cards at home and protect too. The next 3 cards read are a dead one and his two cards, and I lose the match by two. On top of that, I realized after the match that he's already won two unmei-sen (luck of the draw when you get to 1-1) matches in the tournament.

I tell myself that it's a pretty cruel way of not getting past A kyu, but at least I've got my first second place, and that's infinitely better than coming third again.

Three days later, it's the Kagoshima tournament, which is really at the end of the world, especially as I didn't fly there, and I really don't want to lose in the first match, although I'm down by 11, but I manage to come back with a defensive strategy plus a good use of the strategic principles I announced earlier.

The second match I play against someone with a dash (who already has a second place in B under his belt) and I start by being led by 6, but without really understanding how I manage to do that I win the match by 10. The next two games aren't too difficult, my third game my opponent is relatively weak, and if in the 4th game I play against a guy who must be at university and who contests quite a bit, but even letting him have his contests (which to be perfectly honest were very close cards, so it's hard to be 100% sure, I win by 14. So, I'm through to the semi-finals, but for me this second final is the decisive match to go through to A. My opponent looks pretty strong, but she starts the match by making a lot of mistakes and I take a lead of over 10 cards. But suddenly she starts playing well, I make a double fault, and my 10-card lead turns into a 4-card lead, I'm at 8, she's at 12 and I've lost all the momentum. I change my strategy to one in which I aim, and after a few hand-fights sometimes resembling kung-fu more than karuta, we find ourselves at 7 - 1, I attack her, Ashi is read, she's completely defensive and doesn't attack my last card, and so it's on a beautiful modorite (return catch) that I pass A kyu!

During the final match, my opponent is really strong, better than me I'd say, but she's not Akyu yet, and if she loses, she won't be. In these conditions, I gave in quite easily to the two challenges, one of which I thought she had abused a little, but at the same time I think it's hard to blame her. She leads at the start and then the match is tight, we end up at 3/3 then 3/2 for her, I've got

Yu on my bottom right, and ki and nani on my top left, she's got Ya on her bottom right and Nageke, knowing that Nageki hasn't been read. I say to myself that I'll aim for Ya at her place while defending Nani and ki, I'm confident about my defense and about managing to take Ya and I tell myself that she can make a mistake if she panics on Nageki, it seems like a good strategy to me.

In hindsight, I should either have aimed for Nageke to avoid fouling Nani at all costs, or switched Yu and Nani to defend two one-syllable while attacking Nageke or Ya, but after 8 hours of karuta, even if this mistake costs me my chances of winning the final, I think I can't really blame myself and can still be very pleased with myself.

Two third places in three days, A kyu in 2 years and 15 tournaments, I think that's a really great performance. I still find it hard to come back from that myself.

I'm the third foreigner to pass A kyu and the first European to do so during a trip as a tourist.

Mohammed, who grew up in Japan, has been A kyu for almost 10 years.

Mattew, who has been an English teacher in Japan for 6 years, has been A kyu since January.

The A kyu has always been a goal almost out of reach for me, as a foreigner not living in Japan it seemed almost impossible to achieve, and I never imagined going any further. Yet I love karuta deeply and want to continue playing and improving. So, I guess the next step is to go and see what it's like in A kyu tournaments and start trying to pick up a few matches here and there.

The card is read, I hear Na and she goes for my Nani which makes me hit home, Nageke is read, and she takes the card home a bit in panic but it's the right one. And I made a mistake. She collects one of her two cards and sends me the other, so I lose by 4...

I've tried not to go into too much detail about all the strategies, and I haven't talked about all the matches or training sessions, and yet my article is already quite long. If there's anything I've touched on in this article that you'd like me to go into in more depth please don't hesitate to contact me and ask, but otherwise I don't think I'll be writing any more article about becoming A kyu, at least in the near future.

I hope I'll have the pleasure of seeing other Frenchmen become A kyu and that maybe one day we'll line up a team with several A kyu at Kokumin Bunkasai!

Thank you all for reading this far, see you soon at

training!

PS: My strategy for fighting the tournament fatigue is: 1L hot chocolate, 500ml double-dose matcha tea and one or two vitamin D energy drinks from the third or 4th match onwards. And if all that makes you feel like going to the bathroom, all you must do is concentrate hard enough to get it out of your head, so that the only important thing on your mind is the match in front of you!

Gabriel in Tokyo on April 11, 2025!