Thanks everybody!
I feel like yesterday a new bridge was made between the western spintop community and the Japanese koma players that could be very significant in the future. I'll write more about that when I come back.
Attached is a photo of me with the owner of the Japanese Koma Museum in Nagoya. Before meeting him I assumed I would have to address him very formaly, but no, he wants to be called ochaa what means uncle in Japanese. All the Japanese players are super nice. There were four generatios of koma styles represented on the prelims, from Ochaa who is 71 to Watanabe who is 19. I only have recordings for some of the prelims as I kept fogetting to turn on the camera.
I wish Shogo (Rupa) Ichikawa had passed to the finals as he had some crazy trapeze catches. Ochaa use a sword on his prelim and Tsutomo Takeda (the one on the koma DVD) used two swords with two tops simultaneously. Ryoichi Katsukawa which represented the second aldest generation did koma bouncing stuff and balance on the fingernail. It is a big pity that Fajar Siddiq from Singapore got confused with the location and arrived late. He really wanted to freestyle. He is the inventor of the first upside down corkscreew, rumor of which inspired me to create my version (which unknown to me went in the opposite direction of the arm).
Counting Fajar and Rob, we can claim 12 contestants from 4 countries and 3 continents on the spintop freestyles
