[Teligacio]

while competing in tournaments are not necessarily important, I do think traveling is, even if you guys goto a tournament to volunteer a runners, you at least get exposure to kendo outside your dojo. As for the dominance, its the international student ringers I spoke of... I count nisei/sansei that started kendo at the age of 6 in that category. More tournament experience wont help you beat someone with a decade of kendo experience on you. For tournaments you just have to suck it up and go. The Wisconsin guys are an inspiration, they goto everything (they have a big university van they get to use so that helps) and most things are at minimum 10 hour drives for them, but there they are, every chicago, detroit, cleveland etc tournament. They come to the summer camp in lansing, goto this that. You just need to develop the culture of just doing it. Having a car helps certainly, I did collegiate sailing for a semester as well, and it was the same way, drive to florida, west coast, east cost, staying in cheap roach motels. you just do it, and enjoy it. You have the luxuries of being close enough to the east cost that lots of things should be within close driving distance.