Soo Bahk Do Tournament Reactions

[Makalakumu]

Hi Everyone

Now that you have experienced your first SBD tournament, please share your reactions....

Tang Soo

upnorthkyosa

 

[Makalakumu]

Here's mine

12-9-2007 - Tournament Entry

This is a new style of entry for this journal. I did not originally include it as one of the three types of entries that I would write about, but since I just participated in a tournament, I thought I'd write about it.

So, here goes, we were invited by Master Nelson to this tournament and I am deeply grateful and appreciative of this. This was a Soo Bahk Do only event for years and years and it seems like Master Nelson is now willing to branch out a bit...and I have no problem being a guinia pig for this.

Overall, our school did well. We didn't place in any of the forms competitions, but we did take first and second place in fighting.

I think this is refelctive of the different styles that we have evolved into and if we continue this relationship, everyone will grow in response.

As far as my performance in the tournament goes, I did well despite scoring low in both forms and fighting divisions. Judging a form in inheritly subjective so the stylistic differences played a big part in how I did. As far as point sparring was concerned, I fought my first match and lost 2-1. Things that I thought would score did not. Things that I didn't think were points were.

It is not my intent to cast any aspersions on the masters who were judging this match I think that all discrepincies can be attributed to the fact that I'm not used to point fighting and that there were many stylistic differences.

All of the competitors were very gracious, well mannered, and showed good sportsmanship. This, IMO, more then winning, was a sign of a good tournament

upnorthkyosa

ps - I came in with the attitude that I just did not want to get disqualified for excessive contact. I did not get DQed.

 

[terryl965]

Sounds like you had a great time and that is what is so important. Thanks for sharing.

 

[MBuzzy]

It definately sounds like it was a very good experience, all in all. As long as everyone involved learned something, it was worthe time and effort.

I think that this demonstrates the fact that we're coming to an impass within the TSD/SBD community. We are almost at the point where we will either choose to grow further apart or come back together. Either way, competitions of this sort are great for demonstrating that we still came from the same place. I think that it is great the someone from TSD or SBD can walk into a tournament of the other's organization and still do relatively well.

I hope that the US SBD Fed continues to promote external influences and training with other styles. I'll always hold out the hope that TSD and SBD will grow back together.

Congrats on not being DQ'd!!!

 

[Makalakumu]

The leadership at the top is going to have to change before SBD does anything like coming back together. They have no interest in that. In fact, they have every interest in separating completely and I had that sentiment confirmed by my teacher's teacher himself. He obviously, does not share this sentiment.

As far as the tournament goes, overall attendence was pretty light. There wasn't a lot of competition if you were not a child or a black belt. I felt bad about that because it was kind of expensive and my adult students had to travel a long distance to come to it.

If we do it again, hopefully, there will be more people...and I will have to encourage some of my kids to come down.

One thing that I didn't realize they had was a team form competition. I'm very interested in that. In fact, if I were to do that, I'd present a form and have attackers coming at me from all angles and I'd show the real applications...

 

[jdwindsurfer]

I actually enjoyed the tournament quite a bit. It was not dissimilar to the Shotokan and Judo competitions I had done in the past. The sparring is almost exactly like Shotokan.

If I do another one of these I'd like to work on a form specifically for this purpose (i.e. adapt it to the slower, more methodical style), and I'd also like to do a team form.

As for the sparring, I'd love to have had a larger group, but even so the single elimination format would not have guaranteed many more matches, so I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I mean if you have 32 guys in your division, then 16 guys get 1 sparring match, 8 guys get two sparring matches, 4 guys get 3 sparring matches and only the last 4 get a worthwhile trip with 5 sparring matches (the losers get a consolation match for third place.

My daughters are interested in participating now that they've seen one tournament, too.

As for the atmosphere and the people, I felt they were top notch and I was very pleased to see how the other branch of this martial art conducts themselves. It is obvious that, philisophical differences aside, they are a great group.

I really do think that there is something about subjecting yourself to competition that brings a different element to your training. Even though the sparring is minimal contact, you still have to get in there and get yourself psyched up. That is worth something.

It had been over 10 years since my last Judo tourney, so this was a good reminder to me why I like doing this kind of thing. Count me in for the next one.

 

[MBuzzy]

The leadership at the top is going to have to change before SBD does anything like coming back together. They have no interest in that. In fact, they have every interest in separating completely and I had that sentiment confirmed by my teacher's teacher himself. He obviously, does not share this sentiment.

I think you hit the nail on the head here, the change has to come from the top down. It remains to be seen whether separating is a good thing or a bad thing. I have noticed the same thing in my trainined, that we are separating more and more. I feel that if/when the Pyang Ahn Forms are eliminated completely, that will be the last step. Of course, that rumor has been going around for longer than I've been alive and right now, there are simly no replacements for those forms.

 

[MBuzzy]

As for the atmosphere and the people, I felt they were top notch and I was very pleased to see how the other branch of this martial art conducts themselves. It is obvious that, philisophical differences aside, they are a great group.

That is the most important part. I'm glad to hear that you were so well accepted! I'm looking forward to my first USSBDF tournament.

 

[Makalakumu]

I actually enjoyed the tournament quite a bit. It was not dissimilar to the Shotokan and Judo competitions I had done in the past. The sparring is almost exactly like Shotokan.

If I do another one of these I'd like to work on a form specifically for this purpose (i.e. adapt it to the slower, more methodical style), and I'd also like to do a team form.

As for the sparring, I'd love to have had a larger group, but even so the single elimination format would not have guaranteed many more matches, so I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I mean if you have 32 guys in your division, then 16 guys get 1 sparring match, 8 guys get two sparring matches, 4 guys get 3 sparring matches and only the last 4 get a worthwhile trip with 5 sparring matches (the losers get a consolation match for third place.

My daughters are interested in participating now that they've seen one tournament, too.

As for the atmosphere and the people, I felt they were top notch and I was very pleased to see how the other branch of this martial art conducts themselves. It is obvious that, philisophical differences aside, they are a great group.

I really do think that there is something about subjecting yourself to competition that brings a different element to your training. Even though the sparring is minimal contact, you still have to get in there and get yourself psyched up. That is worth something.

It had been over 10 years since my last Judo tourney, so this was a good reminder to me why I like doing this kind of thing. Count me in for the next one.

I'm glad to hear it Jason. However, my teacher and I are working on getting the judging to be fair to our art so that we do not have to change what we are doing. My teacher's teacher is sympathetic to this goal. It will just take time.