Laurentkd
Master Black Belt
Which one do you participate in more, if at all?
When I was a kid I did AAU at the national level (a different school than I am with now).
At my current school we have done USA-TKD (USTU) for several years, but there doesn't seem to be much going on in the mid-west, and what was going on was pretty shady (biased judging, you know the sort). There are also a lot of karate tournaments, but it seems a lot of times TKD poomse doesn't do well at those events, and since we don't train for their sparring rules it was hard for our competitors to compete. This type of thing is fine for those super competitive tough skinned students, but not what we are looking for for our average student. So now this year we are going to go with AAU to see what we think. I have heard from other local schools that AAU tournaments tend to be more fair, and just more friendly. We want to give our kids a chance to compete, but we are definitely not a "tournament school." We just want to find a venue that will give some friendly competition, while giving students a chance to participate in the sport side of Taekwondo.
What do you do, and what have your experiences been?
When I was a kid I did AAU at the national level (a different school than I am with now).
At my current school we have done USA-TKD (USTU) for several years, but there doesn't seem to be much going on in the mid-west, and what was going on was pretty shady (biased judging, you know the sort). There are also a lot of karate tournaments, but it seems a lot of times TKD poomse doesn't do well at those events, and since we don't train for their sparring rules it was hard for our competitors to compete. This type of thing is fine for those super competitive tough skinned students, but not what we are looking for for our average student. So now this year we are going to go with AAU to see what we think. I have heard from other local schools that AAU tournaments tend to be more fair, and just more friendly. We want to give our kids a chance to compete, but we are definitely not a "tournament school." We just want to find a venue that will give some friendly competition, while giving students a chance to participate in the sport side of Taekwondo.
What do you do, and what have your experiences been?