In house tournaments

[jthomas1600]

How many of you attend/run, or have attended/ran schools that have in house tournaments? I have a few questions about them.

Are entry fees usually charged? If so, what's a ball park figure?

Are trophies and medals awarded?

Any schools only have in house tournaments?

Are they generally held to prepare students for outside competition?

 

[granfire]

I guest participated in an 'in house tourney' once.

it was more of a lead in and ease out of the tournament we had regionally.
The rounds sparred under tournament rules were being kept track of and added up later.

Since the school was the host for the regional tournament they had the trophies at hand so the top sparrers got a nice trophy.

There was no extra fee, nor a special day.

The school was small and it seemed to work out alright.


If you set aside a day for the tourney it is probably prudent to charge a fee to cover the cost of the awards. (I am on the fence on whether I like medals or trophies better. I got a handful of medals, but the first ever 1st place trophy, including the gold plastic kicker on the top was nice...too bad he hit the floor pretty shortly after and broke the medals have been to hell and back and still look good, plus they don't take up a lot of space.)

 

[ralphmcpherson]

We have an in house competition every year. Being unaffiliated with a larger org it is a chance for our students to get a bit of healthy competition. We do have an entry fee and it is $10 per student. We have timber breaking (both team and individua), as well as sparring, poomsae (both team form and individual form) and self defence. Poomsae is compulsory and the others are optional. There are trophies and the student who gets top points for the whole day gets their name engraved on the club shield and the shield gets held at their dojang until the following year. Instructors cannot compete, and are usually designated judges positions for the day. It is always a great day and the numbers seem to grow each year.

 

[miguksaram]

I guess this would qualify. We run what is called Dojo Days. It is an inter-school tournament. We charge only $35.00 for all events (Lil' Sharks, Creative/Traditional Weapons, Creative Forms, Traditional Forms, extreme forms, extreme weapons, Musical Forms/Weapons, Sparring).

For judging we have our Junior black belts and Junior brown belts take the reigns. This is their training session on judging. For awards, we have all of our regular competitors donate any unwanted trophies to the event. We run it just like a regular tournament. This is a great way to get kids interested in competing on a bigger scale.

 

[Phenix_Rider]

WTSDA has various Regional and National tournaments throughout the year. But as far as a single school tournament, I doubt many places would have enough students to make it worthwhile. Even with a hundred or two part-time students, once you break it into rank and age groups, the matchups fall short (mostly for adults). For example, at my school you'd have to cast a wide net to get more than three or four people in a pool. And then you run into serious disparities in age and skill. There are fewer than 10 people of all ages 2 belts to either side of me- male and female- from 4th gup to cho dan bo. One in his 50s, one his 30s, three or four of us in our 20s, and the rest 13 or under.

 

[TKD Scotland]

My school is too small, we only have regionals(3 per year) and nationals(1 per year)

 

[jthomas1600]

OK. The reason I started this thread is because I got an email saying our school is having one. There will be a forms competition and a sparring competition. The cost is $30 for either category, or $50 for both. That just seems like a lot of money to me for an in house tournament...it will only be our school, we are not part of a club with several locations. I'm out of the country and will be at the time of the tournament but I emailed the lady who takes care of the logistics and asked her about the cost. I just got her response today. She said "this is not a money making event due to the cost of awards etc." I guess this is a satisfactory explanation, but my feeling is I'd rather have less trophy's and medals and a more affordable event. If I were home and myself and both of my kids wanted to compete it would be $150 and I'm not sure the field is deep enough (there's only a handful of people close to my age and skill level....many who are younger and more advanced, but not too many right where I'm at) to make it a worth spending that kind of money.

Anyway, thanks for your responses.

 

[granfire]

the trophies do get expensive in a hurry...

But having 3 people compete gets expensive in a hurry.

 

[miguksaram]

OK. The reason I started this thread is because I got an email saying our school is having one. There will be a forms competition and a sparring competition. The cost is $30 for either category, or $50 for both. That just seems like a lot of money to me for an in house tournament...it will only be our school, we are not part of a club with several locations. I'm out of the country and will be at the time of the tournament but I emailed the lady who takes care of the logistics and asked her about the cost. I just got her response today. She said "this is not a money making event due to the cost of awards etc." I guess this is a satisfactory explanation, but my feeling is I'd rather have less trophy's and medals and a more affordable event. If I were home and myself and both of my kids wanted to compete it would be $150 and I'm not sure the field is deep enough (there's only a handful of people close to my age and skill level....many who are younger and more advanced, but not too many right where I'm at) to make it a worth spending that kind of money.

Anyway, thanks for your responses.

Yes, it is a money making event. Why else would you have one? Trophies are not $30.00 a pop. This is a sure fire way to raise some extra cash for the school it is taught in most martial art business classes. I feel you on the expenses of registering as I along with my two sons compete and 3 registrations are 3 times more than one.

 

[Omar B]

My sensei had 4 schools going so every summer at the start of tournament season he would have one tournament just for us. It was always cool fighting the kids from other schools of the same style and instructors, it became like a big sibling rivalry thing. Even one summer I trained out of another one of the schools because I was staying with family and I felt like I was betrayign my bit of the family tree.

But anyways, in house tournaments make me go:

 

[jks9199]

Yes, it is a money making event. Why else would you have one? Trophies are not $30.00 a pop. This is a sure fire way to raise some extra cash for the school it is taught in most martial art business classes. I feel you on the expenses of registering as I along with my two sons compete and 3 registrations are 3 times more than one.

Some costs are the same, whether its a small in-house tournament or a big open event. You still have to pay for the facility, have appropriate insurance, buy the awards, and so on. But you can reduce those costs, especially with in-house or small invitation "friendly" tournaments. You may be using your own school, so facility costs can be reduced, and the insurance may fit on the standard policy. And awards... that's definitely something that can be trimmed. Especially if it's literally a school tournament, either your own school, or a couple affiliated schools. You don't NEED 8 foot tall 3rd place trophies... (Hell, you don't even need 'em in open tournaments. Yeah, seeing a little kid win a trophy bigger than they are is cute... but it gets old fast.) Ribbons, medals, or even just certificates are plenty.

Without a few more details, I'd still say the price is steep for this, but it may be justified.

 

[granfire]

Yes, it is a money making event. Why else would you have one? Trophies are not $30.00 a pop. This is a sure fire way to raise some extra cash for the school it is taught in most martial art business classes. I feel you on the expenses of registering as I along with my two sons compete and 3 registrations are 3 times more than one.

I think you would be surprised how high trophies are, especially when you buy only small amounts.
It is a common problem for small groups (not MA specific) to get something nice that does not break the bank. For a tiny piece of marble and some plastic, those things are high...

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

How many of you attend/run, or have attended/ran schools that have in house tournaments? I have a few questions about them.

Are entry fees usually charged? If so, what's a ball park figure?

Are trophies and medals awarded?

Any schools only have in house tournaments?

Are they generally held to prepare students for outside competition?

KMA used to have a kumdo and a taekwondo in house tournament anually. They simply stopped about two years ago. I have encouraged KJN to resume them, as I felt that it was good for all involved. We'll see what happens this year.

There was an entry fee of 20 dollars per event (taekwondo had forms, sparring, and breaking) to cover the cost of trophies, food, and a party afterward.

Daniel

 

[jthomas1600]

Omar, I love your take on in house tournaments.

I hadn't thought about food/refreshments. I'm sure there will be some. I'm sure this will be treated as somewhat of an open house.

With the cost of competing in state, regional and national tournaments my hats off to those of you who do it. Especially those of you who have multiple children competing. Do any of you have sponsors? Is that common or acceptable at the amatour TKD level?