15 Worl Kendo Chanpionship: Novara 2012

This is a report not on a trip visiting a dojo around the world but a brief description of the "behind the scenes" of the 15 WKC.
I was part of the volontiers involved in the 15 WKC. I started my work abount three days before the start of the WKC, provinding support to the arrival of teams, delegations and referees. I share this work with other four volonties. We collected people and orginized their bus transportation.  I  also used my car to bring referees to their hotels. It was a very nice job it allowed me to meet many high rank kendokas. It was very nice to meet Yuge sensei, the president of the Southern California Kendo Federation, the owner of e.bogu, Kumpf sensei and many others.  I was also present at the arrival of the Japanese delegation, 36 sensei, encharged of the supervision of the WKC event. It was impressive.
I worked at Malpensa airport from Monday to Wednesday, and Friday morning I arrived at 6:30 at the location where WKC was taking place. I was assigned to the recording of the results of the shai at one of the four shai-jo (shai-jo A). I was a little worry since I never did it ,but the chief of the table and one of my friend help me to handle the paper work. It was exciting to see  shai of people from all over the world. Being at the table I had the opportunity to record a lot of shai that are collected in this You Tube playlist.
The most impressive shai for me was the Male individual final between Japan and Korea. More then 5 minutes of tight contact betwenn the fighters, very few strike but very impressive. In my modest opinion was really a fight showing what kendo is.
In the video below you can see the final part of the shai  where Japan won with a tsuki.

I met a lot of friends and it was very nice to meet again Marsten Sensei, from Seattle, and many others.
Furthermore, every day, before the competitions started, I made a lot of pictures of the people present at the WKC. So if you were there, maybe you are in one of these pictures:

At the end of the first day there was a brief open jigeiko it was absolutely GREAT to cross shinai with referees, competitors, etc. I had a great time during the three days of competitions. Being part of the volontiers I can say that, although not everything was perfect, the Italian Kendo Confederation did a very good job in organizing the event. Kendo in Italy is run on volontary basis and the strenght of the WKC in Novara were really all the volonteers that did their best to make everything work as perfect as it was possible. In conclusion, I would like to  report the very professional behaviour of people from the SANKEI company that were at the 15 WKC with a stand for bogou repair. I left them a pair of kote with two holes and I asked for repair of the holes and not the total replacement of the leather. I went to pick up the kote on the last day of the competions and, instead of closing the holes, they exchanged all the leather. In practice I got two new kote. I said that it did not matter if they did a full repleacement and I could pay for the repair, but they say that it was their mistake and therefore I had not to pay anything. I said that it was ok and I could pay anyway for the good work, but there was no way to pay them. In my opinion this was a very professional behaviour that should be taken as reference.