The Good Old Days?

Back in the 80's competing as a Kung Fu stylist was a lot different than today. Unless you wanted to travel extensively, it was difficult to find a Kung Fu tournament. It was big news when we were finally able to see tournaments with Kung Fu in the title even if they were not really Kung Fu tournaments.

What was competing like? The normal method of competition was joining an open tournament where you were judged by Karate judges. These were judges who knew Karate only and had to do their best to judge Kung Fu based on their knowledge of how things were done in their own style. I even remember having Kung Fu and Tai Kwon Do grouped together in something called a "Soft Style" division...what exactly does that mean? There are hard and soft styles of Kung Fu and if you ever watch Tai Kwon Do performed properly, it certainly does not seem soft to me. At that time, Kung Fu practitioners were just happy to find a way to compete.

As far as fair judging, you had to understand that this was not possible. Judging by Karate judges certainly made competition interesting. This is not a criticism of the judges as they were doing the best they could with their training and I certainly know how it feels to judge styles that you don't know. Unfortunately this meant that the best way to do well in open tournaments was to Karatesize (is that a word?) your techniques. Those of us that stood by our style and refused to change how we did things should be proud.