Competition videos

[DWx]

Well instead of just being all talk and no action, here's me competing yesterday in forms (we call it patterns).

Yoo-Sin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYLEBgkUFmg

(If you know this one, try to spot the mistake )

Hwa-Rang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZmWBO7xND8

Please excuse the commentary. In fact it would probably be better just to mute the sound That's what happens when you give kids your camera.

FYI:

Was an ITF competition and the rules and format are slightly different from your normal martial arts tournament. Instead of going up, performing and then getting a score, competitors go up in 2's. They have to perform an optional pattern and a designated one. The optional can be chosen from any of the ones from your current grade (3 to pick from for each dan grade). So for me, I could choose from Choi-Yong, Sam-Il or Yoo-Sin. I went with the latter. You then do a designated which the umpires pick and it can be anything up to your grade. In this round they picked Hwa Rang which is a red belt (2nd gup) pattern. The umpires then vote for the winner and they progress through to the next round. Also means that sine wave must be done and you get marked down if you don't do it.. so tough if you don't like it

I'm by no means a pattern person and rarely place above 3rd, its just a warm up for sparring for me.. however, my observations for improvements are that my kicks still suck and I don't look where I'm kicking. Was also cutting some movements short and my stances could have been better. But my excuse is I have a stinking cold and just wanted to get it over with so I could go cough up a lung! Oh and I could do with slimming down a bit then maybe I wouldn't be so dead by the end of it.

[Dobbersky]

nice, well done, I so hate the sine wave though!

[bushido_man96]

I'm not sure where the mistake was, but we have a few differences between your way and mine. When we come out for the second set of knife hand block/punch/repeat, I do left hand knife hand block, then right punch, then do the other side.

I thought your kicks looked good, however, that one gal stood right in the way after your hand slap crescent/side kick combos. But it looked like you kept good balance, and your side kick stuck nicely.

Overall good job, I say!

[DWx]

Cool thanks guys

Dobbersky, weren't you taking up TKD? How's that going?

I'm not sure where the mistake was, but we have a few differences between your way and mine. When we come out for the second set of knife hand block/punch/repeat, I do left hand knife hand block, then right punch, then do the other side.

TBH its not that noticeable from the camera angle (though the judges would have seen it). Basically instead of the first front kick my brain decided that "no, no, we must do a twisting kick here!" As I did it I knew it was wrong and was debating whether or not to make the other one a twisting kick too to disguise the difference

Which bit do you mean? The section starting at about 30 secs in?

Rewatching it, other stuff I'd mark myself down in Yoo Sin for:

- not looking over my shoulder properly on moves 2 and 3 (punches over the shoulder)

- stance change at the hooking block - punch combo sucks (16 secs), both feet turn toward the camera fine but going the other way I don't fully change the stance.

- end up roughly a stance further forward than where I started so something's not right stance-wise. Probably the bit where I turn right at the front I think (44 secs). I think I'm bringing my right foot in too much when it should really not come in at all.

Anyway guys, don't be nice. Pick it apart and tell me what you don't like if you want.

[Montana]

Anyway guys, don't be nice. Pick it apart and tell me what you don't like if you want.

Well, since you asked...

As I've stated on this form before, I've been a kata judge and kumite ref of open, all-style tournamentssince 1979 or so and have seen hundreds of competitors doing all sorts of kata. Karate, TKD, kungfu, freestyle, etc. I have never been to an ITF tournament before, so I don't know what is considered "good" kata.

So take what I say with a grain of salt.

In my experience with judging all styles of kata, ESPECIALLY AT THE BLACK BELT LEVEL, I would give your performance a very low score.

Why?

Well, as I stated, at the black belt level I would expect to see good speed and power behing each and every block, punch and kick. There was none in your kata. You went thru the motions, which I'm sure were correct for the kata, but there was no attempt at putting any power behind any of the techniques.

I suppose this is why we rarely see any ITF competitors at our tournaments, although they are always invited...as are ANYONE that wants to compete.

[DWx]

Fair enough Montana, thanks for your insight. I suppose in our competitions we value precision and technical accuracy above all. Things like whether a block is chest line or centre line or where the punch finishes, the lines you take. I umpire at these events and we're looking for the technical accuracy first, everything else second. I suppose that's probably why you won't get many ITFers in open tournaments. Also the sine wave thing probably wouldn't go down so well.

But as a caveat, I've always been mediocre at forms so please don't make any judgements of the style based on what I've done. Like I said earlier, my area tends to be sparring or breaking and so I spend minimal time on patterns. If you want an example of what's considered "good" for tournaments see: http://youtu.be/l9Z6bhDHDDA or

Although what you see there is very exaggerated.

[Montana]

I tried to watched the vids, but I have a crummy cell phone "hot spot" internet which works perfecly on my wifes laptop, but stops very frequently on my desktop. I couldn't see past the first 15 seconds or so of the first vid, but did see about half of the 2nd.

On the 2nd vid, although there were a lot of slow motion movements with the legs (very impressive balance andstrength), the other hand and leg techniques were fast, crisp and had power behind them, which is what I was talking about not seeing in your video.

You don't have to be (as in the 2nd vid) a 4-6th dan black belt to achieve that power and speed, you just need to practice it over and over again. I have seen countless mid-level colored belts attain that speed and power, and certainly at the black belt level it is expected (IMO of course) as a matter of course.

[hammer]

Anyway guys, don't be nice. Pick it apart and tell me what you don't like if you want.

Well, since you asked...

As I've stated on this form before, I've been a kata judge and kumite ref of open, all-style tournamentssince 1979 or so and have seen hundreds of competitors doing all sorts of kata. Karate, TKD, kungfu, freestyle, etc. I have never been to an ITF tournament before, so I don't know what is considered "good" kata.

So take what I say with a grain of salt.

In my experience with judging all styles of kata, ESPECIALLY AT THE BLACK BELT LEVEL, I would give your performance a very low score.

Why?

Well, as I stated, at the black belt level I would expect to see good speed and power behing each and every block, punch and kick. There was none in your kata. You went thru the motions, which I'm sure were correct for the kata, but there was no attempt at putting any power behind any of the techniques.

I suppose this is why we rarely see any ITF competitors at our tournaments, although they are always invited...as are ANYONE that wants to compete.

Since you have judged at open tournaments, which styles have usually scored better?

We do similar forms to ITF but we don't do sin wave...but I've seen sin wave forms that have a lot of power and speed.

I don't see too many karate forms but ones that I've seen online can be wayyy too fast. I'm guessing it's done that way because it's the way the practitioners learned it, but if we did our forms that quickly they would not score well on a test or in our tournament. One can have a slower rhythm to a form and still show excellent technique, power, and balance.

For the OP...I actually think these are pretty solid forms. May not be good enough to place in our of our tournaments but it would not get a very low score. From what I've seen of ITF forms you have a nice rhythm (as mentioned, it's not about speed) and your balance looked good. The main thing that we would do differently for more power is to retract more, i.e. not short cut the techniques (which you already mentioned). Only other comment/question is on your front stances...we usually make ours wider and longer.

[Montana]

Since you have judged at open tournaments, which styles have usually scored better?

A fair question, but with no real definative answer I'm afraid.

I've seen soft kungfu kata win, hard shotokan kata winners, and yes, TKD winners also.

Sometimes a good old, well done traditional kata wins, sometimes a more modern, made up kata.

It's not so much which system wins in a tournament, but rather how the kata is performed and executed.

[hammer]

Since you have judged at open tournaments, which styles have usually scored better?

A fair question, but with no real definative answer I'm afraid.

I've seen soft kungfu kata win, hard shotokan kata winners, and yes, TKD winners also.

Sometimes a good old, well done traditional kata wins, sometimes a more modern, made up kata.

It's not so much which system wins in a tournament, but rather how the kata is performed and executed.

That's actually the response I was hoping for...