To be or not to be tournament tested

[terryl965]

I was just currious how many of you on this forum are tournament tested or do you reley on what you learned from the Dojaang.Me myself and family use tournaments to gauge ones ability(not real street level) but for self convidence that they are actually are learning from there training. GOD BLESS AMERICA

 

[glad2bhere]

Dear Terry:

For Hapkido I think that tournaments are counter-productive. Even when my students execute a technique incorrectly I do not stop them until after the technique is executed so as not to encourage any possibility of them compromising their dedication to completing the technique. Unlike tournaments which encourage the encounter to continue so that people have time to show their stuff, in Hapkido the idea is to stop the conflict which tends to reduce the time necessary to demonstrate prowess to a judge. FWIW.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

[midnightninja]

I've heard of masters testing their students in tournaments, but at least to me, it's pretty similar to the testing environment in itself. While I undestand the quality of a test to ensure the student what he/she has learned, there's an extrodinary amount of pressure to perform correctly. In these type of testings, it gives the students more of an opportunity to "cram" before the test which doesn't help the learning process as much as if they were just gradually learning over a period of time. On the other hand, a student might know the techniques and patterns very well and might by chance present his/her knowledge poorly based on a variety of circumstances. My kung fu master does "graduating" which basically is where he lays out a set number of requirements one must learn before going on to the next belt, and the master observes the student to whether or not he/she's learned it over a two month period. The class sizes are also smaller, a class of 7, so it's easier to see the status of each student.

I understand how tournament testing would be both beneficial and hindering, but I guess that follows with most testing techniques. That's just the way my master does it, so I hope it gave you some different insights

--Midnightninja

 

[TKD USA]

In my old organization we did tournament testing as demonstrations it was just like regular tests but with larger audiences.