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TOURNAMENT EXPERIENCE

Tournament participation is an essential part of martial arts training. It offers many opportunities for learning as well as for discovering your abilities. The extra knowledge you’ll acquire will go a long way towards improving your training, but it will also help you to develop character and to grow as a person.

Observing competitors from different martial arts styles and various ranks offers an opportunity for you to expand your knowledge of other cultures and people. At the same time, you may learn how to enhance your own techniques or style, and learn even more about yourself. Every time you stand up to perform in front a panel of judges, you’ll get a sense of your abilities, and an increased level of self-awareness. The more often you try it, the better your sense of self. In addition, when watching others perform in front of those same judges, you might recognize that extra something missing in your forms or fighting. Seeing first hand what the judges are looking for might give you ideas on how to fine-tune certain techniques or perhaps even learn some new ones. However minor that something may be, it will be added to your own skills and knowledge--it’s all about learning, and it’s all good!

It’s for certain that the more often you participate in tournaments, the more you’ll gain in knowledge and experience, and the more confident and self-aware you’ll become. Tournaments also give you that extra “polish” necessary to make you shine. Think of it as really competing against yourself, see how much better you can do each time you step into a ring.

Tournament participation will also give you first-hand knowledge of how you’ll react and fare in a physical confrontation. Facing the unknown is always a stressful situation, and is often scary. In a real confrontation, both you and the attacker stand to get seriously injured (or worse), so it’s understandable that you would be nervous and tense. Tournaments, however, offer a controlled environment and an opportunity for unknown opponents to face each other, but in a monitored situation that allows both competitors to test their self-defense and fighting skills without the risk of serious injury. Whether the confrontation is real or staged, the tension and anxiety are the same, but you can make them work in your favor. The tension gives you that little extra edge you need for sparring and anticipating your opponents’ moves, while the nervousness enhances your caution so that you may avoid getting injured or being scored upon.

The tension and excitement of being in a competitive atmosphere often brings out the best in us—it’s that primal instinct of survival of the fittest, perhaps—or it’s simply the need to be a part of something, to be in the company of others just like us. Each of us has that instinct to survive. Though it may be dormant at times, it’s there somewhere deep inside. With each tournament you’ll participate in, you will grow more comfortable in your role as a competitor—as a survivor. This will help you to be more confident in your everyday life, with everything you do, and it will stay with you forever.

Keep in mind, though, that the outcome of the competition should be the furthest thing from your mind. The idea is to step into the ring and give it all you’ve got and to do your absolute best. Winning is great, but then all you’ll get for it is a piece of metal or plastic—what you bring home in your mind and heart is what really counts. Knowledge and learning from the experience are what really matter. Hopefully, as this knowledge grows, it can enrich your life while expanding your understanding of other people, of yourself, of peace and harmony—which should be our ultimate goals in life.

TOURNAMENT REQUIREMENT

Having established the importance and benefits of tournament participation, know that we feel so strongly about it that we’ve made it a mandatory requirement for all of our Intermediate and Advanced students. They must participate in at least one tournament per year or they risk being passed up for promotion, especially at the Advanced level. We also highly recommend that our Beginner/Novice students compete as early as possible in their training, but it’s never too late to begin at any level.

Many students are reluctant to enter tournaments. Some may feel that they should put off competing until they’ve had more training, or they may feel that they might do better at a higher rank. These students fail to realize, though, that their opponents will be of the same higher rank, but they may have  more tournament experience if they’ve been competing for a while. Doesn’t it stand to reason that students should compete as early as possible in their training so that they can amass more experience in the ring?

Another mistaken belief most students have is with regards to fighting (or sparring). They may feel that they’re not up to it, that it’s not in their nature, that they’re not good enough to win, or they may simply be afraid that they’ll be hurt. Although it’s understandable  to have these feelings, you have to realize that they are preconceived self-limitations—which will hold you back and prevent you from succeeding. Some students may decide to compete, despite these same preconceived self-limitations, but in a diminished capacity. They may reluctantly agree to compete, but perhaps only in forms or in team events such as self-defense or team forms. They may feel that they’ve fulfilled their tournament requirements this way and that their instructors will be happy. This is not only a misconception of our tournament requirements, but of our martial arts training as well. Our training is balanced equally between forms and fighting, which is the ultimate development of self-defense. You can’t do one without the other and still obtain the full benefits of out training.

Fighting—or sparring—in a safe, controlled situation such as a tournament, protected fully with equipment and with 4-5 referees ready to jump in, should not invoke such fear or insecurity. If it does, then the students must learn where that fear is coming from so they can work closely with their instructors towards eliminating that weakness.

Sparring is not about beating up someone or getting beaten up. It’s not even about winning or losing. It is a very important (and delicate) part of martial arts training. Psychologically, sparring teaches a weaker student to be stronger and the more aggressive student to use control. We learn how to respond in a confrontation, how we react to pressure and fear, and how it triggers our emotions or anger. Fighting may bring out our most vulnerable or hidden emotions, but we cannot experience the valuable insights of those emotions by just imagining what it’s like to fight.

Forms, on the other hand, are the “enactment” of fighting, they’re merely motions and techniques—or the visualization of a fight—without the actual application of the techniques. You cannot just train in forms, visualizing how you’d react in a fight, and you cannot just train in sparring without visualizing your actions and reactions to certain attacks or techniques. You need to train equally in both to experience the full benefits of that training. Just so, you should compete in both Forms and Fighting to obtain the full benefits of the tournament experience!

TOURNAMENT OPPORTUNITIES

We attend at least two competitions each year, the Garden State Karate Invitational Games in the spring and the FIMA Fall Class in November. There are also other tournaments that we may be invited to from time, so there are always opportunities for competition. However, you should not pass up a tournament thinking that you can enter the next time, what if something comes up and you’re not able to participate later on? Then, you’ll have missed two opportunities! Wouldn’t it make sense to try to compete in as many tournaments as possible, thereby increasing your opportunities and your chances to increase your expertise? The more tournaments you participate in, the more experienced you’ll become—the more experienced you become, the better your chances for success!

TOURNAMENT PREPARATION

So, now that we’ve hopefully sparked your interest, and hopefully eliminated or alleviated some of your fears, how do we go about preparing you for a tournament? With training, of course. However, training for a tournament requires a higher degree of commitment and dedication than regular training. Practicing and working out in class is never enough. You should be putting in many hours of practice, both inside and outside the Do-Jang. It’s also necessary to make extra time for practicing with your team or your self-defense partners. You can get together on your own, or you may consider attending our tournament preparation lessons together.

We offer tournament preparation lessons prior to any upcoming tournament. The one-hour lessons are focused entirely on forms, sparring, self-defense and presentation—all geared to preparing you for competition. We usually limit the lessons to one or two ranks (or “teams”) in order to concentrate fully on their individual requirements. You should talk with your fellow rank mates and plan on either working together on your own or attending the preparation lessons together.

 It’s highly essential to be physically and “technically” prepared for an upcoming competition. Your day-to-day training and the tournament preparation lessons help you with that. Once you’ve developed the strong basics and practiced your techniques, you must then rely on a strong spirit—you must be mentally prepared. There are many techniques that can aid you in obtaining this mental preparation, some of them you may already know, but there are many things that you can do.

Think first about your intentions; what do you want to accomplish from entering the tournament? My answer to this is: step into the ring and give my absolute best performance. I can’t do that if I’m not focused. So, for me, focus is number one on my list.

For current tournament information and tournament preparation lessons available, please DON’T HESITATE TO ASK!