Why compete in tournaments?

[JR 137]

But I do understand competing to win, and I still do aim to do my best and hopefully do well. It's a great motivation to train harder and learn more as I still try to take out the division. But more as a way to become a better martial artist.

It's definitely a great experience.

I definitely want to win, and when I’m preparing I train to win. I train as hard and as smart as I possibly can. But with the whole winning thing, sometimes it’s too low of a bar (if the field is awful) and other times it’s too unrealistic (if the field is way too good). I do everything thing I can to prepare, leave it all on the floor when I’m doing my thing, and walk away leaving the rest of it all to take care of itself.

In my first tournament, I was in the beginners’ pool. It was me and one other guy in my kata division. He claimed to have started 5 weeks ago and was only out there because his kids were competing and talked him into it too. I thought maybe he was just trying to get inside my head. Nope. Once he started his kata, you could tell he wasn’t lying. He stopped about half way through, shook his head, said “sorry, I forgot the rest” and bowed out. I followed his kata and did pretty well. Not spectacular, but pretty good. I didn’t feel good about my first place finish that day
At the last tournament, the guy who placed first was a pro danced and accomplished gymnast from New Zealand. He did Seido 3, which has a ton of high roundhouse kicks. Needless to say he did those kicks flawlessly, and the rest of the kata was solid. The second place guy was a 22 year old guy who was just naturally very talented. Placing right behind those guys wasn’t a loss at all. I did my kata better than I’ve ever done it before.

All I can hope to control is my own performance. I can’t control anyone nor anything else.

 

[_Simon_]

I definitely want to win, and when I’m preparing I train to win. I train as hard and as smart as I possibly can. But with the whole winning thing, sometimes it’s too low of a bar (if the field is awful) and other times it’s too unrealistic (if the field is way too good). I do everything thing I can to prepare, leave it all on the floor when I’m doing my thing, and walk away leaving the rest of it all to take care of itself.

In my first tournament, I was in the beginners’ pool. It was me and one other guy in my kata division. He claimed to have started 5 weeks ago and was only out there because his kids were competing and talked him into it too. I thought maybe he was just trying to get inside my head. Nope. Once he started his kata, you could tell he wasn’t lying. He stopped about half way through, shook his head, said “sorry, I forgot the rest” and bowed out. I followed his kata and did pretty well. Not spectacular, but pretty good. I didn’t feel good about my first place finish that day
At the last tournament, the guy who placed first was a pro danced and accomplished gymnast from New Zealand. He did Seido 3, which has a ton of high roundhouse kicks. Needless to say he did those kicks flawlessly, and the rest of the kata was solid. The second place guy was a 22 year old guy who was just naturally very talented. Placing right behind those guys wasn’t a loss at all. I did my kata better than I’ve ever done it before.

All I can hope to control is my own performance. I can’t control anyone nor anything else.

Yeah true, it does depend on the turnout for the division. And if one is at the lower end rank-wise in your division, sometimes it's a very tricky order to expect to win! Like the 1st Kyu doing Kururunfa in my last tournament, which is a 3rd dan kata generally, and he nailed it. Would be hard to try and top that! But I guess the judges still look solely at how you perform the kata, no matter what particular level it's at. You can still do a really high level kata badly and not necessarily win.

That's something good and grounding I'll keep in mind for sure.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

All I can hope to control is my own performance.

One has to sacrifice a lot for tournament competition. I still remember during my serious tournament time, I had stayed away from sex for over 1 and 1/2 year. Before my last tournament (I had already won 2 years in a role. I tried to win 3 years in sequence), I had moves a 250 lb rock everyday for 3 months. During that tournament, I knew I was the strongest guy in that whole tournament. I retired after that tournament.

To push yourself to the maximum body condition before each tournament is not an easy task. But that experience will stay with you for the rest of your life.

 

[_Simon_]

One has to sacrifice a lot for tournament competition. I still remember during my serious tournament time, I had stayed away from sex for over 1 and 1/2 year. Before my last tournament (I had already won 2 years in a role. I tried to win 3 years in sequence), I had moves a 250 lb rock everyday for 3 months. During that tournament, I knew I was the strongest guy in that whole tournament. I retired after that tournament.

To push yourself to the maximum body condition before each tournament is not an easy task. But that experience will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Ah that's epic Kung Fu Wang . Yeah I guess it depends on the nature of the tournament as to the preparation required (and your investment in it and what you hope to get out of it), but it is sometimes a really fun process to dedicate yourself toward hey

 

[Tez3]

I had stayed away from sex for over 1 and 1/2 year.

You know that's an old wives tale right?

"CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings show that sexual activity had no detrimental influence on the maximal workload achieved and on the athletes' mental concentration. However, the higher post effort HR values after the maximal stress test on the morning of sexual intercourse suggest that the recovery capacity of an athlete could be affected if he had sexual intercourse approximately 2 hours before a competition event."

Effect of sexual activity on cycle ergometer stress test parameters, on plasmatic testosterone levels and on concentration capacity. A study in hig... - PubMed - NCBI

I'm not even sure about the 2 hour bit as we had a fighter who had sex an hour before his fight and won, the awkward part for us was that it wasn't with his GF who was sat with the rest of us, when his fight started there was two females shouting very loudly for him...……..

 

[_Simon_]

You know that's an old wives tale right?

"CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings show that sexual activity had no detrimental influence on the maximal workload achieved and on the athletes' mental concentration. However, the higher post effort HR values after the maximal stress test on the morning of sexual intercourse suggest that the recovery capacity of an athlete could be affected if he had sexual intercourse approximately 2 hours before a competition event."

Effect of sexual activity on cycle ergometer stress test parameters, on plasmatic testosterone levels and on concentration capacity. A study in hig... - PubMed - NCBI

I'm not even sure about the 2 hour bit as we had a fighter who had sex an hour before his fight and won, the awkward part for us was that it wasn't with his GF who was sat with the rest of us, when his fight started there was two females shouting very loudly for him...……..

LOL ah wowza, awkward haha!

Yeah I have always wondered about that. And even though your fighter won, it's possible he may have performed even better if he hadn't have. Who knows hey!

 

[Tez3]

LOL ah wowza, awkward haha!

Yeah I have always wondered about that. And even though your fighter won, it's possible he may have performed even better if he hadn't have. Who knows hey!

No, he was the same as he always is. He was in the Paras ( if you know anything about them it explains everything), nothing bothers them and as they say a shag's a shag.

 

[JR 137]

All I know for sure is I’m not turning down any sexual advances from my wife* for better tournament performance. I love karate and all, but not THAT much I can easily live with a bad tournament performance if that’s the reason why.

And yeah, I don’t subscribe to the theory that sex reduces athletic performance. Maybe if you had a sexual marathon session that physically drained all your energy right before you competed or you were up all night because of it. Then again, I’ve never had difficulty sleeping afterwards, along with every other guy I know.

*Being married 12 years and having 5 and 7 year old daughters who refuse to sleep through the night without us, I can’t exactly choose when to turn down advances.

 

[JR 137]

As they say in MMA.....you win or you learn. You can't lose!

I think many people start out not wanting to compete but then think they'd like to try it once, to test themselves and what they've learnt. They want to know they won't freeze when punched in the head for real, or that they can think while trying to avoid being struck and trying to strike at the same time. it's something that isn't really replicated when you only spar in a club situation with the same people all the time however hard you go. Besides, it's fun!

I agree with everything except the opening lines. You CAN lose. If you get an injury that keeps you from ever competing and/or training again (or worse), or if you do something to get banned. But other than that, yeah.

 

[Tez3]

I agree with everything except the opening lines. You CAN lose. If you get an injury that keeps you from ever competing and/or training again (or worse), or if you do something to get banned. But other than that, yeah.

Well you've still learnt a lesson, if you are open minded enough you will learn from everything. I know a great many people who have lost limbs in Afghan, the ones that are doing best are those who look at it like a challenge, something that inspires them to do something else. If you mope and shimpf then you won't win ever.

 

[Balrog]

Hey guys,

I have never competed in any tournament in my martial arts career.

I am 26 years old now. I’ve only been taking classes. And I got back into it over a year ago after college. I studied Taekwondo.

But I would like to know why many of you guys compete.

If either of you would like to share, would you please do so?

Thank you.

They're fun. You get to try your stuff on new people. You get to learn new stuff from other people.

And did I mention that they are fun!?

 

[skribs]

I don't like tournaments. In Taekwondo, tournaments are how you progress into bigger competitions, like national or international competition. I am a 30-year-old who works at a desk all day. Before Taekwondo, I was mostly a gamer, so I put on quite a bit of weight in my early 20s. This means the people in my weight class are usually 4-6" taller than me and in better shape than me.

And, because I progressed quite quickly (because of my understanding of the curriculum), they usually have more experience than me, even for being in the same belt range. They usually have better fight instincts and better reactions than me.

I'd much prefer a no-stakes tournament. One which is merely done for the sport, and not as a stepping stone to move on to higher levels of competition. I don't want to be the best in the world. I just want to have fun.

ETA: The other issue I have is that some schools go to every tournament they can, and other schools go to a tournament once every so often so they can experience it. So it's like a church softball team going up against the Dodgers because one group does a tournament once a year to get some familiarity with them and the other school is doing one every other month to rack up as many wins as they can.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You CAN lose.

If you get too used to losing. It will affect your life. If you have never win anything in your life, by definition, you are a loser.

Someone knocks you down the 1st time, you get back up. He knocks you down the 2nd time, you will still get back up. If he has knocked you down 100 times, will you still have the courage to get back up?

 

[drop bear]

The risk of loosing is the important part. That is what takes the courage to commit in the first place.

 

[JR 137]

If you get too used to losing. It will affect your life. If you have never win anything in your life, by definition, you are a loser.

Someone knocks you down the 1st time, you get back up. He knocks you down the 2nd time, you will still get back up. If he has knocked you down 100 times, will you still have the courage to get back up?

It all depends on if getting up the 100th time is the best answer. Doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is a good working definition of insanity.

Chances are pretty good I’ll stay down, wait for him to come closer, then use something different rather than standing back up just to be knocked down again.

But I understand the anecdote here. In line with it, I’ll keep getting up until I can longer stand. If I get killed in a gunfight, there won’t be any bullets left in my gun.

 

[drop bear]

. Doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is a good working definition of insanity.

Or kata.

(I make myself laugh some times)

 

[Buka]

I competed for nearly thirty years, all over the place, all kinds of competitions. Learned a lot, met some great people, made some good friends. Watched students of mine compete, those that wanted to, watched them win, watched them lose, fought against some of them, and some bested me. [One of my greatest thrills in Martial Arts was having a student beat me] I also judged and refereed in competitions that whole time.

My favorite part of competing was team fighting. It was wild, raucous, sometimes violent [at least back in the day] and it was fast. Much faster than individual Kumite. Loved competing, so much fun.

 

[drop bear]

I don't like tournaments. In Taekwondo, tournaments are how you progress into bigger competitions, like national or international competition. I am a 30-year-old who works at a desk all day. Before Taekwondo, I was mostly a gamer, so I put on quite a bit of weight in my early 20s. This means the people in my weight class are usually 4-6" taller than me and in better shape than me.

And, because I progressed quite quickly (because of my understanding of the curriculum), they usually have more experience than me, even for being in the same belt range. They usually have better fight instincts and better reactions than me.

I'd much prefer a no-stakes tournament. One which is merely done for the sport, and not as a stepping stone to move on to higher levels of competition. I don't want to be the best in the world. I just want to have fun.

ETA: The other issue I have is that some schools go to every tournament they can, and other schools go to a tournament once every so often so they can experience it. So it's like a church softball team going up against the Dodgers because one group does a tournament once a year to get some familiarity with them and the other school is doing one every other month to rack up as many wins as they can.

you know you can cut weight for a tournament. you could even get fitter if you wanted.

Part of what can make a tournament such a good training tool is the extra preparation you put into training for it.

A big 3 month push for a tounement can reap years of benifits.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

A big 3 month push for a tounement can reap years of benifits.

Old Chinese method that 3 months before tournament, you will be required to sleep side way with a rope around the neck and below both knees. Sometime you sleep in a round bath tub. If you keep your legs bend when sleeping, you won't have wet dream.

I was also told not to sweet 3 days before the tournament.

 

[JR 137]

Part of what can make a tournament such a good training tool is the extra preparation you put into training for it.

A big 3 month push for a tounement can reap years of benifits.

That’s my biggest reason for competing. The last tournament was point fighting. I trained like it was a Kyokushin/knockdown tournament rather than a point fighting tourney. Sure I could’ve trained to the rules of the competition, but that’s not really what I’m after. Had I trained to the point fighting rules, I’d have done better in the tournament; but I’d rather have far more realistic skills developed than the flick of the wrist backfist and reverse punch that doesn’t quite land.

Training for my last tournament consisted of a ton of bag work. I was doing 15 rounds - 3 minutes on, 1 minute rest, 3-4 times a week. Opposite days I was doing a lot of footwork and combination stuff on the bag. Everything increased - power, speed, sharper combos, better flow, etc. Add to that a ton of sparring in the dojo. And very, very little of it was start-stop sparring.

Without having a competition hanging over my head, there’s no sense of urgency. Without that urgency, things get put off. Laziness has been creeping in again, so I plan on competing at our organization’s annual tournament in October I’ll do what I did last time. Preparing for the tournament is really where it’s at.