Jeff,
I found the rules confusing at first too. It helps if you understand football. As in most games, the teams are fighting over something and in this case it's a baton.
Basically, each team is trying to score on their opponents goal and the opponents are trying to defend their goal. So the defenders try to stop the attackers from kicking the goal. The person kicking the goal must have possession of the baton in order to score and the defenders will do whatever they can to stop them.
If someone kicks someone in the goal zone (near the goal pole) twice then they can do a take down and grapple. The reason to do this is to keep that person busy so they can't defend the goal.
The game lasts an hour. I don't actually play but my husband came up with this before I met him and I just got around to trying to understand it myself. He is a black belt in taekwondo and also studied karate for a while. He played team sports in school and likes the concept of playing as a team.
The rules are posted on
www.combaton.com but most of the players learn them by playing. Right now, the officials for Combaton are experienced coaches and tournament officials. They meet and discuss the rules and adjust them from time to time.
I hope I cleared this up. Combaton is not just for taekwondo players, it just so happens that all of the schools that are doing it are TKD schools.
We plan to make a video for YouTube featuring CJ, one of the players, explaining the game. He did a great job at Disney explaining the game to the DJ outside the Milk House.
I actually submitted the clip of Nick (who knew some players and just walked up) because of his talent. He can do some amazing tricks and is a good martial artist too. =)
