My son (6) is interested in martial arts; he just earned his first junior Tae Kwan Do (orange stripe) belt yesterday. I thought he might find it interesting/entertaining to see a MA tournament, TKD or other. I know zip about martial arts; what might we expect to see at a tourney? Would a kid his age get anything out of it?
Well, I attended a Mike Miles kick boxing tourny here in town:
There was a whole group of people kicking the crap out of each other, blood and spit flying, and one knock out.
Depending on the child, that may be a bit much.
However, if you can find a point match, that would be a great choice - the fighters don’t actually try to kill each other - they try to score points and will actually be penalized for using too much force.
Another great choice is a pattern competition if you having something like that around your area.
I think I may have had a touch too much coffee this AM…
Yeah, I was thinking something more like a point match, I just didn’t know what it was called; my knowledge of tournaments comes from watching The Karate Kid, which takes liberties with reality. How does a point match work? Would my kid find it interesting or too arcane?
I know my son’s school attends tournaments at other schools on occasion. I’m going to try to find out more about them. I’ve seen the older kids practice, and they’re generally covered in pads and working on specific moves. Not that interesting. I don’t know if it gets better when they practice sparring, the classes we take are offset in time from those classes.
What’s a pattern match?
There are many types of MA tournaments. Pretty much anywhere in the US you will find everything from No-Holds-Barred Mixed Martial Arts combat to musical forms similar to a gymnastics routine. Many places have tournaments exclusively for kids that usually involve forms (patterns) and very tame point-sparring. Point sparring seems inappropriate for a six-year-old (participating or watching, really), but forms could interest him. IMHO, a six-year-old doesn’t get much more out of MA than they would from any other sport, but it is a great tradition to become a part of – seeing a tournament might be just the thing to motivate him to keep going.
A point match is simply a fight that stops every time a point is scored. Only certain techniques score points, and, especially in children’s sparring, there is much that is off-limits.
A pattern match is something like a floor routine competition in gymnastics. Competitors practice pre-set series of motions in an effort to display to the judges their command of their style (flexibility, power, speed, etc.).
Sorry for the triple-post, but its worth noting that the latter is a lot of fun to watch for pretty much everyone. If nothing else, the experience would be entertaining.
I can only attest to ATA (American Taekwondo Assoc.) matches, but here is goes. At a tournament there would be about ten “rings” going. The lower belts would go first. Each belt had its own ring or rings, they did not mix colors.
A participant would get up and do their form. The three judges would judge the form. One on hand technique, one for foot technique, and one judge would judge overall.
Then the participants would spar. We always wore head, hand, and foot gear. The instructors would usually warn the adult males to take it easy as we would have to go to work at some point in time. They did tend to let the teen-age males and females go a little harder.
I did see one guy get a nose broke. He was a black belt and REALLy should have known better. He left his face WIDE open. In the lower ranks this would not have happened. If you started getting rough, you would be disqualified.
At each legal hit or kick, the points were assesed and the match re-started. We sparred to a certain number of points and then were done.
We were not allowed to hit to the face, but we could kick to the head. We could not do “blind” techniques like spinning backfists. There is a strike zone from the neck to the belt and along both underarms (like a targetshooter silhouette) that was legal for hands and the same except include the head for feet.
The schools that I went to did not allow free-form or open sparring, although the guys in the class were a little more physical.
I would think the sparring to him would seem really cool. My nieces sure liked it. It was not very much like Karate Kid. In the ATA there were a lot of 6-year olds that sparred. Kinda cute really, lot of ponytails and flying feet and hands.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I also thought it’d be good for him to see what people who have advanced training can do with thier skill. I don’t want him to think that the stuff he see’s on TV is ‘real’ karate, but instead get some idea what he’ll be able to do if he keeps training.
Is this somewhat like the kata (I think I’m using the right term here) forms that I sometimes see the older kids at the school practicing en masse? Or specific moves, punches & kicks?
Sounds fun. I know that my son’s school doesn’t allow sparring at all for the junior (4-6) belts, and for older (7+) the kids have to reach a certain belt (gold? not sure) to be allowed to spar. Dunno if that means in-class point matches or just practicing moves wearing padding. The school is of the Ernie Reyes franchise, if that means anything.
Yep.
It is the kata. However, at higher belt levels, participants create their own patterns and they can be very creative and fun to watch. Kids of any age would probably enjoy it. (Adults too.) If he’s even remotely interested in the sport, watching really skilled people fly around in the air without aid of wires is pretty cool (which is what a lot of the higher level routines include).
I have studied MA on and off for most of my life. I would recommend talking to the instructer. I think even high level adult point sparring may be too much for a 6 year old if he hasn’t been around it. However, I have found the MA community to be very safety oriented on the whole. An exhibition would be great to go to–they usually do things like Kata competitions, weapons display, or scripted self defense techniques. Very impressive without being scary for a 6 year old.
Yeah, I was going to do that before I did anything. I just wanted to know what any MA enthusiasts on the SDMB thought about all this as well. Plus, it can be pretty tricky to get face time with the instructor; the senior one that teaches Walker’s class does several 30-45min classes in a row without stopping. There’s an assistant instructor I can usually get some time with, though, but I wanted to ask the big guy what he thought.
I dunno if a non-bloody point match would scare my kid or not. He likes exciting things. I just want him to understand the mechanics of what’s happening and learn something while being entertained, or at the least get enthused about MA in general. An exhibition sounds great; not sure how I’d find one of those, I’ll ask around the school.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge fan of MA and sparring. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. If and when I have a child, s/he will be encouraged to fully particpate in MA and I will take him or her to events.
I used to compete in the point tourneys and I used to compete in Kickboxing. KB is defintely pretty darn violent (I quit because of that and because I wasn’t very good) and point sparring is definitely less violent. However, point sparring can still get pretty intense. Sometimes accident happen and sometimes one contestant is there for the wrong reasons (pretty rare IMO though).
A tournament involves lots and lots and LOTS of “hurry up and wait.” I’ve been at a tourney all day just for one minute of doing my form, and a few minutes of sparring.
I’d think that’d be more true for the participants than the spectators, no?
At the tourneys I went to, yeah there was a lot of hurry up and wait. I would be there 4-5 hours at the higher ranks.
I enjoyed spectating much more. There was always a match going on somewhere.
The ATA taekwondo seemed to be more of a sport than a real self-defense school. Don’t get me wrong, I did learn self-defense but I have been to more hard-core schools that really taught how to defend.
But even if we weren’t that hardcore defense, some of the moves the higher ranks could do were impressive. Butterfly kicks, board breaks, and some spin kicks that I couldn’t do when I was 18, let alone close to 40. But if one starts early enough…
My son went too and I think it gave him a lot of confidence in himself. At his first tourney, he didn’t win a trophy or place. He praticed his butt off and the next one he did very well.
I’m not familiar with the association you mentioned, but at both schools I went to, ATA and UTF, safety was a prime concern.
It’s one of these schools.
at ATA tournaments the kids generally go first in the morning.
Also, at lower ranks, you don’t actually spar. One person does a set attack (one move), and his/her opponent does a set defense (4-6 moves). Then they switch.
Whoever did better gets a point. Then they do it again with a different defense. (smae attack)Again the winner is chosen. If it is a tie, both do one of the two defenses (defender’s choice) as a tiebreaker.
Brian
Quite true, squeegee. As Surb noted, there’s always a match going on somewhere for spectators to watch. It’s us competitors that wait for several hours for our division to be called.
Don’t get me wrong – I loved my experience in TKD competitions (I’m presently on the injury list, my own fault). It improved my learning the discipline a lot, and it gave me purpose at a time when I needed purpose.
Definitely talk to the instructor, and go watch a local tournament.