Thank you very much for introducing my video. That's a great analysis. You know the difference of MAAI between Korea and Japan well.

In the last game, both players get a valid man and hold his shinai toward the sky and shout loudly. It's definitely not a Zanshin but a Celebration. Zanshin means keeping your guard in case your opponent is not killed by your strike. And the celebration will cancel your valid strike based on Kendo regulations. A good Zanshin to me is not giving your opponent any chance of attack for at least 1 ~2 seconds.

What about the strike to the back of the head at 5:32?

The Shinpan were the very worst. The fact that they didn't even waive a claim point tells you that they have control of the match.

Great skills from both sets of kenshi. Unfortunately they were let down by subpar shinpan.

about 6:20, it's World Championship and it's time for Kendo to free itself from the japanese ownership. IF they want to hold a WORLD championship. I hate Koreans's attitude toward shimpans and this guy dives a lot for no reason, but that was an ippon. I agree with your point, not a "classical" ippon. I think we are close to a turning point in how japanese hachidans rule and approach foreign Kendo

ando no manner

I think this team finals drew controversy not only because of the shinpan calls (and I think they did a great job), that's just too much of an easy target, but because of: -The usual Korean player's attitude when they don't get awarded ippon even when their shot was clearly off, well exemplified in the original video. This attitude looks like european fencing at the olympics, and that's plain ugly. -The hooking the Korean players did while not engaging in tsubazeriai but looking for a point halfway -The general mess the team finals always is at the WKC compared to ALL the other matches of the whole event, especially the closer you get to the taisho match. National pride and gold medal craze really deteriorates the quality of the kendo being displayed.