Commentary by Shinji Terada
The third match (opponent: Ezure Rina, 24 years old)
The reason why she lost the match by 1 : 2
The opponent practiced budo when she was a university student, so she was good at maai and tricks. She always attacked before Ewa did.
Because of that, Ewa seemed to tend to be defending after she took the first ippon.
Ezure aggressively rushed to Ewa when she heard “hajime”, but Ewa only made one step forward and fought the match from that position.
When Ewa got a bit tired, Ezure scored 2 quick ippons and Ewa lost the match.
When Ewa cannot take initiative, she needs to learn how to break the distance to let her opponent attack then she can do the counter attack using debana waza for example.
In this match, Ezure always rushed very quickly, and Ewa was late to attack. She should have avoided the attack to be on an equal footing in that situation.
Since Ewa’s opponents are mostly members of the Self Defense Force or high school students, they are very quick to score the first point. Ewa needs to improve on how to break the distance and how to avoid getting tired.
Commentary by Tooru Sato
They fiercely fought and thrust at the same time, but Ewa was more vigorous and scored shitado.
Just after the fight for the second point began, Ezuretook an advantage on Ewa’s weak spot: her steps were too big (so her starting momentum got bigger). Ezurescored uwado.
They each other had scored one point so you could feel the tension. They fiercely fought again, and just after Ewa attacked her opponent swept her weapon away. Ewa stopped and Ezure scored uwado and won the match.
Awesome!!