Competition advice please

[Gloi]

Next month my TKD club wil being going to a competition. I went to it last year and competed in the forms event. Looking at the schedule for the competition there is also one step and a breaking class I could enter.

 

I would like to go in for these but have not much idea what the judges would be looking for to decide a winner in these classes.

 

What will the techniques be scored on? Has anybody any recommendations which techniquies I should practice for the competition. We have to do 5 techniques in the class, but that's all I know. Should I try and do simple counters well or go for something more complicated?

 

What would I, an adult 4th kup female, be expected to do in the breaking class? I don't have any concerns about my ability to break stuff, but I would like to know what I would have to do in advance. How are the techniques scored?

[ramymensa]

well, the first person you should address to is your sensei. Aks him all this stuff, and he'll gladly tell you. They all do.

[Gloi]

I know he probably will, but I don't like to hassle him too much because he was surrounded with little kids last night all asking him stuff. He's really hard to pin down to talk to for more than a minute. I asked him what one step techniques to do and he said , just pick some and we'll have a look at them next week, so I'd like some suggestions from people who've done this stuff in competition.

[superfighter]

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Edited March 25, 2004 by superfighter

[superfighter]

hmmmm interesting, i havnt seen a division for 1 step sparring before, id like to see that.

 

As for the breaking, usually there are set techniques that they will want you to peform on the day, best to check as soon as you get there what techniques they are.

 

The points are usually scored by who can break the most boards.

[embm]

When judging forms, I look at stances and intensity. Are the stances long and low? Are the heels coming up off the mat? Does the contestant have good balance or are they wobbling and having to adjust? Don't rush your forms - hit every stance and hold it for a second as if you were letting someone snap a picture.

[karatekid1975]

I did a competition with one steps before. It was interesting. Anyways, what we (my partner and I) did was pick which one steps we wanted to do (it can't be ones above your rank, if I'm remembering correctly). We practiced just those over and over and over. We would make sure that our techniques were smooth, but snappy. We made sure we always started at ready stance, and kihap when we were supposed to. The most important thing is DON'T FORGET THEM LOL. I did, and we didn't place

 

As far as forms, practice the form you want to do. Be picky about every technique. Watch/correct anything that needs improvement. Pause after every technique just for a second. Do not do the form super fast. That makes it look sloppy, plus the judges won't be able to see what you are doing. Do the form slow and smooth.

 

As far as breaking, don't try breaks that you have never done before (I learned my lesson doing that). Pick breaks that you know you can do. If you want to try a fancy break, practice it before the competition. It's better to do something simple and break, then doing something fancy and can't pull it off.

[Gloi]

Thanks for replying. It's the one step that I'm most interested in because I want to know which techniques I should be smartening up to do on the day and I'm not sure what to pick.

 

Does the difficulty of the techniques used in one step go towards the score or is it better to pick something simple that I can be sure of doing in good stance/form?

 

Is stance etc scored in the breaking or is it just a matter of making sure the stuff breaks?

 

I've done forms in competition before ( I won my class last year) so I'm not too worried about what they will be looking for there.

[karatekid1975]

No, in the competition I was in, it wasn't the difficulty of the technique they were looking at. It was the technique itself. If your technique is sharp already, you don't have anything to worry about.

 

Breaking, just make sure you do your breaks. They don't judge stances. The judges look at technique (how sharp your technique is to do the break) and if the break was "clean" ( first shot, straight through).

 

That's just my experience with tournies, though. I hope this helped

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I think an important question to ask here Gloi, is "Is this an open tournament with many (all) styles attending, or just a TKD only tournament?"