Announce Yourself

As a judge in tournaments for many years, I have seen many students come up to perform. I have seen many ways of announcing their forms and have formed some preferences. Here are some tips for those that intend to compete in forms/kata competition:

1. Always bow - show your respect for the judges.
   
2. Speak in a loud clear voice. If I can't hear you, there is no point to speaking to me. Remember the tournament is a noisy place.
3. Announce your name
4. Announce your school and/or instructor
5. Announce your form

The Nervous Kick

I have been training people on their sparring techniques for over 20 years and have been able to get the students of our school to be focused on fighting in a manner that is representative of our style of Kung Fu, Fut Gar Kung Fu. As schools teach free fighting I have often noticed that there is a trend in beginners to kick. Nervous kicks that keep their opponent at a comfortable distance. This is something that is not always the correct way for students to fight as most styles to not focus completely on kicking. I would urge newer martial artists to monitor their fighting to see if they are falling into this habit. Although it feels better to have your opponent at a longer distance, this is not ideal for your future progression. You need to fight in the style that you are learning which probably means you will not throw kicks for your entire fight. Kicking has a purpose as I mentioned in a previous post but sparring in class is the controlled situation that allows you to do the things that are uncomfortable for you. Take advantage of the opportunity to work on perfecting your technique in these conditions.

Body Coordination For Power

Generation of power can be maximized through properly coordinating the moving parts of your body to lock at the same time. You generate power by striking outward very quickly with your arm. You generate power by pulling back with your non-striking arm. You generate power by turning your waist. You generate power by pushing off with your legs while gripping the ground. These are some of the individual things that you can do to generate power in your strike. The big trick is to do all of these individual things at the same time and have them coordinate so the peak power in each individual component occurs at the exact same moment. Turning your waist followed by extending your arm results in a technique where you only use the power of your arm because the waist turn finished before you began your technique. The ideal situation has all of the components of your technique ending at the same time resulting in your hips, arms, legs, shoulders all locking at the same time. Think about this when you are executing your techniques and your power will increase.

Another Local Tournament

I had previously posted some events that I thought might be good experiences for the students. I recently received an ad for an open tournament that seems to be in a fairly accessible location for many of the students so thought I would add that link too. This is on Saturday, November 29th in Toronto - here is the link. I have never been to this tournament so do not have any recommendations for it but it seems like it might be good for those that want to experience an open run by Karate practitioners.

Horse Stance Training

All styles of Kung Fu stress the importance of stances. Regardless of which stances are most important to your particular style, you are probably still asked to do some sort of horse stance training. I have often been asked by students about how to practice/train stances.

The base stance for practice is the horse stance. Once again, depending on the style the proper technique can differ. I recommend the student take the time to understand the proper way to do a horse stance in their particular style. Understanding this is important to ensure that the student practices properly on their own.

The next question is normally how to practice, high stances or low stances. The answer is both. I recommend higher stances for long periods of time while doing something else such as watching TV to take your mind off of shaky legs. I also think it is important to practice proper stances in the lowest possible position to train your legs to hold your weight at that height. You will never fight in your lowest stance but training your legs to be comfortable in a low position will help when you need to be in a lower than possible position.

Open Martial Arts Tournaments - Should We Care?

When I was competing, Kung Fu tournaments were not easily found in the area. If you wanted to compete the only option was to find an open tournament. These were normally tournaments run by Karate practitioners and if we were lucky, we would have a separate division for non-karate styles which was normally called a soft style division...which didn't really make sense because Tai Kwon Do was thrown in there. The competitors were normally judged by Karate judges who normally gave the best scores to the people that looked most like what they were used to seeing.

What are my thoughts on open tournaments? I believe that these tournaments can provide some value if you go in with the correct attitude. Understand that the judges do not know the techniques that you are executing and will not necessarily see the value of your forms. Understand that fighting will be limited by the rules of the tournament and often will eliminate (for good reason) the more effective and dangerous techniques of your style. My recommendation for tournaments is generally to not care if you win or lose. The purpose of the tournament is to give you experience performing in a stressful situation (in front of a crowd) to train your mind and to continue to perform in these types of situations. Fighting in open tournaments is also a good experience because it allows you to see how it feels to fight people with different styles and techniques from your own school.

In the end, real life combat situations are full of uncertainty and stress. Gaining exposure to these feelings through competing decreases the chances that you will freeze when confronted in a real situation.

Upcoming Event Schedule

This is a note to the students that are interested in upcoming events. Here are the ones I know about:

CIKWF Tournament - September 27th - Poster and rules
CCKSF Tournament - October 4th - Tournament Info
Hainan Association 20th Anniversary Dinner - October 11th - see me for details

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.