Is Competing Important to Your School?

[Lynne]

How important is competition in your school?

Do you request yout students compete in X amount of events before they can test for their next belt?

Do you expect certain belt levels to compete?

Do you expect your black belt club members to compete?

Is it a requirement that students compete?



Is competition truly important? Why or why not?

Is competition truly important to growth as a martial artist?

 

[Bumblebee]

Competition is somewhat important to my school, I think that goes for a lot of Dojang affiliated with the World Taekwondo Federation though. Competition is important to my school, but it isn't required to get any belt. It's encouraged that everyone try to compete, but we understand that not everyone is there to compete.

Personally, competition is important to me. That's because of my personality. I'm just a competitive person. I like competitions not only for the adrenaline rush, but to be able to try out our skills from fighters outside of our school. I think that's important to my growth as a martial artist.

 

[Blindside]

My instructor is enjoys competition and thinks it makes him better.

I used to compete alot, but now fairly rarely. We have no requirement to compete, but I will say that the students who choose to do so, tend to be our better students. If you can do your form in front of 300 strangers, a testing board isn't such a big deal.

I think testing yourself against strangers is very different than doing so in the comfort of your own school. I know the sparring tendencies of every mid to upper belt in our school, and they know mine. You don't have the mental issue of dealing with the unknown. I took second in a tournament last year because I wasn't used to fighting someone shorter than me (I'm pretty short) and that sort of flummoxed me. I found competition very valuable to me when coming up.

Lamont

 

[CuongNhuka]

At my school, no. In Florida, YES! They are a little tournament crazy (sorry guys).
As a general suggestion, we request students to attend one tournament, seminar (non-Cuong Nhu in origin), and attend Training Camp before Brown Belt (2/3 of the way to Black Belt). Training Camp is basicly a three day long seminar with lots of little seminars going on. Dan level tests are normally done at training camp, as are a good number of Black Belt.

Nope. And anouther nope. And a third nope.

We don't really considered it too importent in general, although we do spar regularly. The reason we aren't too into tournaments is because of the rules. Cuong Nhu sparring rules allows many things that would get you kicked out of a tournament. Some are even out-lawed in MMA compitions.

Hard to say.

 

[MBuzzy]

At the Soo Bahk Do Dojang that I train at, I don't find that competitions are important at all. We are strongly encouraged to attend official events, such as regional events, tests, and tournaments, but as far as I know we are not required to participate. By the wall of trophies, I can tell that people do compete often, but I haven't heard a word about it in a month of training there.

Now tests....heard PLENTY of that.

 

[Kacey]

The TKD association I am part of requires students to compete 2 times before black belt - at least once between 10th gup and 6th gup (white to green) and at least once between 5th gup and 1st gup (high green to high red) - because tournament competition, like many other things, is a learning experience that many people would avoid if they could.

 

[michaeledward]

No.

The school were I study is geared toward personal development, and not toward competition. Once a year, the owner will host an intramural tournament for our 'Kenpo Kids' and 'Little Dragons'. The owner will also host an evening of 'board breaking' once a year. This, too, is geared toward the children, and is extra-curricular and non-competative.

On Thursday evenings, we will sometimes have adult sparring, but it is not competative (and I have the bruises to prove that).

If students (youth or adult) wish to participate in tournaments outside of the school, they are not prohibited from doing so. But neither are they encouraged.

 

[grydth]

The goju-ryu karate school my daughters attend encourages going to tournaments, but if a student is not interested they don't pressure them.

My primary arts now being Tai Chi/Qi Gong, well no, I do not compete. I have read of recent attempts to make competitions for these arts in some regions - and what I have read turns me off completely.

 

[Cirdan]

Competition is not important at the Wado Ryu club where I train. It is in fact mildly discouraged since we are a pretty traditional bunch. However some of our instructors have been competing in the past and students wanting to compete are given special lessons.

At the Ju Jutsu club competing is not really important either, but there are extra classes you can attend two times week that are highly sports oriented. The curriculum for black belt used to include a number of rounds fighting according to competition rules but this may have been changed (BB tests are closed to all except Dan ranks).

We thankfully don`t have black belt clubs.

I don`t compete so it is not important to me. My growth as a practicioner of the arts does not require competing. Sparring on the other hand is very much needed.

 

[Bumblebee]

Kacey: What association is that?

Cirdan: You say that sparring is an important part of your personal growth. Do you spar people outside of your school? If not, wouldn't you only benefit from sparring others? That's mainly why I compete, to spar against others so I have the experience to spar people I know nothing about.

 

[cdunn]

We encourage competition. It is required to attend a certain number of sanctioned events before testing for 1st dan. It is a kind of stress testing to be able to stand up in front of strangers and do your thing. It also lets us see a little bit of what other schools do.

Sabomnim often tells us that sparring at tournaments is a game of tag. It's a game, and has to be remembered that it's a game. But I think it's a fun game.

 

[setboy]

How important is competition in your school?

It's not that important. if a student wants to compete we try and find good tournaments for them(which is not easy. it is getting harder and harder to find good tournaments)

Do you request yout students compete in X amount of events before they can test for their next belt?

no

Do you expect certain belt levels to compete?

no

Do you expect your black belt club members to compete?

no

Is it a requirement that students compete?

no

Is competition truly important? Why or why not?

I can't say it is and i can't say it is not. when tournament hosts are just out to make money and the judges will mark down someone just for being from "That" school and up others for being from a school they know. that is competition turns bad and should be left alone.

Is competition truly important to growth as a martial artist?

i say it depends where you want your growth as a martial artist to go? do you want to be a world winner? do you want to be a good teacher who knows alot about competitions?, a good teacher who just wants to run a school with out going to competitions?


Raphael

 

[Seabrook]

How important is competition in your school?

Do you request yout students compete in X amount of events before they can test for their next belt?

Do you expect certain belt levels to compete?

Do you expect your black belt club members to compete?

Is it a requirement that students compete?



Is competition truly important? Why or why not?

Is competition truly important to growth as a martial artist?

Depends how you define competition.

At my school, it is extremely important within the school. I have my students compete with one another (and with oneself) for top form, set, techniques, and continuous sparring matches.

I definitely don't make it mandatory that students compete in tournaments to be promoted. Many tournaments are evaluated for flash and dance aerobics, spinning the bo like a baton, screaming your lungs out when executing a kiah, a light-tap point-fighting.

That stated, I have a several students that compete in large events from time to time. We typically, but not always, enter events that allow more contact during sparring matches, and that are looking for kata not just within the Japanese/Okinawan realm of technique. They have all been very successful in competition, be it kata, sparring, or self-defense, because they train so hard during class time.

 

[Kacey]

Kacey: What association is that?

YomChi TaeKwon-Do Association - the link is in my signature.

 

[Bumblebee]

Interesting, I haven't even heard of this one. I'm still checking things out, but I think your uniforms are very cool.

 

[Lynne]

Thanks for all the insightful answers and personal opinions.

The philosophy of growth within the Dojang versus competition was on my mind. Our school has instituted a new rule that those testing for black belt have to attend X (I think two) competitions before they can test.

I'm not sure if colored belts have to attend a competition before testing for the next belt. This information was in our newsletter and was a little ambiguous regarding colored belts.

I would like to compete some day. The upcoming competition fees are high (in my opinion) $40 for the first event, and $10 for each succeeding event. I can't afford for both my daughter and myself to compete (I'm not saying the competition fees are unreasonable, just that I can't afford $50+ times two.)

I can see everyone's viewpoint from competition is not important to competition is an aid to growth.

Personally, I like tradition, but I'm old-fashioned and I haven't been in Martial Arts long enough to have perspective.

 

[Tez3]

Lynne, those competition fees are expensive!

I used to compete in full contact karate competitions as well as kick boxing, I just used to do it for fun. I enjoy fighting.

In our club (MMA) no one is expected to fight, they have to ask in fact. That way there's no pressure on people who just want to train. Most people ask for a fight after a while whether out of curiosity or because they like to fight....we don't enter sparring comps, these are full contact MMA bouts. Some will enter under amateur rules...no strikes to the head standing or on the floor, semi pro which is strikes to the head standing only or pro which is strikes to the head standing and on the floor. We fight for fun basically.

The children, who do TSD and judo as well as weapons and SD only spar among themselves, we are not part of an organisation so we can't get them into comps anywhere. they also have a tendancy to be a little full on for other children as they use TSD and Judo together when sparring.

 

[Bumblebee]

The most expensive tournament that I've entered was 60 dollars for one event and an extra 10 for each additional event. So that's actually cheap for me. The 40 dollar event thing.

 

[Lynne]

The most expensive tournament that I've entered was 60 dollars for one event and an extra 10 for each additional event. So that's actually cheap for me. The 40 dollar event thing.

Was that on the west coast??? $60 sounds expensive.

 

[Bumblebee]

Yeah, I guess everything is expensive on this side of the country.