Ligo Dojo in Connecticut Tournament
Hosted by Shihan Fujiwara Kenji
October 14, 2009

Videos and images from our October trip to Fujiwara Shihan's tournament in CT are being prepared. In the mean time, please enjoy these photos of the 20 of us who stopped by at the Statue of Liberty Sunday morning on the return drive.

Top row (standing) from left to right: Kyle, Laron, Desandre, Amy, Chris, Erin, Greg, and Rahshawn. Next row (standing): Erie, Crystal, Antion. Seated (from left to right): Douglass, Chris, Alberto, Victor in the stroller; he came along with his mother and brother: Sandra and Aurelio, and Khamisi and Araceli.

Ligo Dojo members with Shihan Fujiwara (center).

Residential Student Kris (above, right) and Dojo student Greg (below, right) were two of the surprise heroes of the weekend. Frankly, we didn't think either had the stamina to go the distance. Remember that this was a very small tournament, but Kris won his first two fights (before being knocked out in his third) to take second place in the men's full-contact (no pads) division. Greg lost his first fight after two extensions, and won his second in the fight-off for thrid place. His divison was a semi-contact one, which really means it's the same full-contact intensity but with the padding you can see in the photo. Our photos and videos are coming in from different sources, so it will take us a few days to get them all up. The fighting, this weekend, by Ligo Dojo students was spectacular (given how new we are) and we had lots of wins.

Antion, Erin and Crystal.

Desandre is 15, Laron 14, and Alberto 16.

Above, from the top deck of the Liberty Island Ferry.