traditional form in tournament

[ironsifu]

remember when the best performance of form use to win?

now, all i see is breakdance/gymnastics. very little skill in martial arts form. my students dont compete in form, but i still enjoy watching a good one, when i see one, but there's not a lot of attention to this kind of skill now a days.

i found this clip, which, i dont know if she won, she should have, but its very impressive to see a kid so young with this kind of skill. lots of patience, discipline and strength here. hope you like it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdZlh6OWqLI

[joesteph]

Excellent arm and leg techniques, and she's got some kiai!

[bushido_man96]

Very nice. I did think the yells were a bit excessive, though.

[armanox]

Would have been a lot better if she had not been stressing her vocals during kiai. Screaming like that is very bad for the vocal chords.

[Ozpunker]

I know what you mean about the gymnastics and stuff. In the ISKA tournaments I've been in, they have the categories of Traditional Forms and Extreme/Musical Forms as well as Trad Weapons and Extreme/musical weapons. They introduced the new categories to keep traditional stuff true to what it should be. The Extreme forms do produce some pretty cool looking stuff.

One of the criteria for extreme categories is that they must contain at least 50% martial arts content and not just dancing or flips etc.

[the beast]

I don't see how a traditional kata can compete with the "xma" gymnastic style, this is why I believe that tournaments should have a seperate division for both traditional and non traditional or "xma".

Luckily in my division there isn't too much, but I see it alot in the other divisions and honestly don't think it is fair to have to compete with someone that is doing all this flashy flips and what have you.

Like ironsifu I enjoy a good form, one that I can see useful techniques in and flipping in the air in my eyes is not a useful technique.

[white owl]

I compete in the PKC(Professional Karate Commission) they do not have the traditional katas separate from the xma. I once had to compete against a girl who did back flips across the competition ring and this kick I can not even describe. I did a traditional kata called Chinte. I felt I did really well with it and was told so by the judges, but they gave it to the girl that did the back flips and I was the runner up. I feel the same that traditional needs to separate from xma.

[white owl]

remember when the best performance of form use to win?

now, all i see is breakdance/gymnastics. very little skill in martial arts form. my students dont compete in form, but i still enjoy watching a good one, when i see one, but there's not a lot of attention to this kind of skill now a days.

i found this clip, which, i dont know if she won, she should have, but its very impressive to see a kid so young with this kind of skill. lots of patience, discipline and strength here. hope you like it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdZlh6OWqLI

She did that really well.

[Tiger1962]

remember when the best performance of form use to win?

now, all i see is breakdance/gymnastics. very little skill in martial arts form. my students dont compete in form, but i still enjoy watching a good one, when i see one, but there's not a lot of attention to this kind of skill now a days.

i found this clip, which, i dont know if she won, she should have, but its very impressive to see a kid so young with this kind of skill. lots of patience, discipline and strength here. hope you like it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdZlh6OWqLI

I agree. A lot of "open" tournaments have all that flashy stuff. Personally, I prefer & enjoy watching skills demonstrated through forms/katas but without all the gymnastics and flashy stuff.

[bushido_man96]

I don't mind seeing the acrobatics; I have a great appreciation for the athletic ability of the practitioners that can combine the two. However, I do agree that there needs to be a seperate division for both.