Episode 52: Tournaments
Tournaments - Episode 52
Bill Wallace Jeff Smith Joe Lewis
Our tournament - whistlekick Martial Arts ShowdownHistory of Modern Sport Karate - a great reference if you're interested in digging deeper.
Episode Transcript
Bruce Lee Tournament
Kids Sparring Tournament
tournament champions
Kids medals tournament
Chuck Norris Kicking Tournament
Tournament Sparring
Skipper Mullins at a tournament
Pittsburg Tournament 1964
Read the transcript below or download here.Hey, there, everyone it's episode 52 of whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, the only place to hear the best conversations about the martial arts, like today’s episode all about martial arts competitions.I'm the founder here at whistlekick, but I’m better known as your host, Jeremy Lesniak. whistlekick, in case you don’t know, makes the world's best sparring gear and some great apparel and accessories, all for traditional martial artists. I'd like to welcome our new listeners and thank all of you returning fans.If you're not familiar with our products, you can learn more about our products at whistlekick.com. All of our past podcast episodes, all the show notes and a lot more are at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com.
And while you're on our website, go ahead and sign up for our newsletter. We offer exclusive content to subscribers and it's the only place to find out about upcoming guests.As I hinted to during the introduction, today we’re going to talk about martial arts competitions – tournaments. It’s pretty clear to anyone that is tied into martial arts that competition is a significant element to martial arts training. While it’s not something that every school or every individual participates in, I’d venture that most martial artists compete in at least one competition during their career.I’ve trained in a number of different martial arts schools, and none of them have been what some call “tournament schools.” A tournament school is a school where the competition is a heavy element in the training. Forms are trained not simply for knowing them or for rank advancement, but for success in competition. Sparring is done with a heavy emphasis on how successful certain strategies are in the ring, and so on.While the schools I’ve trained in do not fit this mold, they all encouraged competition to one’s own comfort. Several of them had an unwritten rule that you should participate in at least one martial arts tournament during your lifetime.While standing up in front of people and performing isn’t always easy – in fact, a fear of public speaking continues to rate at or near the top of most common fears in the United States – it can bring great benefits.Learning to perform in front of strangers is a valuable life skill. My comfort in speaking in front of groups comes in large part from my time spent in competition. If you can stand up in front of people and present a form, all by yourself, and then be scored on it… you can tackle just about anything.Many of the people that attend competitions attend more than one in a year. In most areas of the country there are groupings of tournaments that tend to attract the same groups of people year after year. These people become friends and the bonds formed can be just as strong or stronger than the bonds formed within a martial arts school. Many of the contacts I have now with whistlekick come as a result of my time competing back in the 90s. I can honestly say that whistlekick would not be this successful were it not for those contacts.For many, competition brings out their best. I’ve worked with numerous students who never displayed their best in a class setting but rose to the occasion incompetition. We could argue about whether this is right or it should be, but it doesn’t matter. Some people are wired this way. I’m one of them. Whether it’s martial arts or CrossFit or even an academic test, something changes inside of me when I know I’m going to be compared to others. While it’s stressful, I enjoy seeing what my capabilities are and I know that I get no clearer picture than when I compete. Many of the competitions that exist are referred to as open tournaments. I can’t say for certain that these are the most common public tournaments, but I suspect they are. Open tournaments offer a fairly standard set of rules and permit anyone of any style to participate. I enjoy these tournaments because I find I learn the most at them. Diversity in competition encourages the sharing of ideas. Let’s take forms competition as an example. Whether you enjoy it or not, you can’t argue that there’s been a shift in the way forms are presented in competition as years have gone by. Today’s forms are now more acrobatic and, for some, more exciting. Individuals engaged in these sorts of forms are pushing boundaries and challenging their competitors to do better.Other competitions are limited to a certain martial arts school or style. These events can have dramatically varying rulesets, and we’re not going to cover them here.Ironically, the first martial arts competition is thought to have taken place in Kyoto, Japan in 1949. The first tournament of any size to be held in the US was in 1955 by Robert Trias while the first open tournament was held in Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1962. Two years later Ed Parker hosted his first International Karate Championships event in Long Beach, California. It was here that Bruce Lee burst onto the scene and into the limelight forever.Today there are a multitude of martial arts tournaments that dramatically range in size. The largest events attract a few thousand competitors while most open tournaments are much smaller, bringing in a few hundred. Some inter-school or inter-system tournaments can be surprisingly large, especially among those schools and systems that mandate student participation.As with everything else in the martial arts, people are often critical of martial arts competitions. Anyone that has been to one has seen things that they’d like to see changed. I’ve attended a lot of competitions, both as a participant and a spectator, and I’m no exception.I feel strongly that in order for martial arts to grow larger in the United States we need to move competitions forward. One of the major criticisms I have always heard of tournaments is that, for most of the people in attendance, they’re boring. Spectators are bored at most events unless they’re watching their friend or family member compete. Competitors are bored unless they’re in the ring competing. Judges are often simply bored, especially as the day wears on and they remain seated in a chair, scoring.As martial artists, if we want to see our beloved passion grow and claim a larger place in the American landscape, we need to address these issues. It’s ironic that martial arts competitions aren’t more exciting, because martial arts is something that so many people enjoy watching. While it is not my sport of choice, Mixed Martial Arts has been presented in a wonderful way and you need no better proof than to attend a smaller, local MMA event. The majority of the people in attendance don’t participate in any form of martial arts. It’s exciting for them, it’s easy to understand and there’s near-constant action.In order to bring more people to traditional martial arts competition, we need to make competitions more exciting for both the participant and the spectator. We can no longer ask people to spend 50, 75 or event 100$ to spend a day sitting around, ultimately having 10 or 20 minutes of “action” in an 8 hour day. This is not the way most families will choose to spend their time. There isn’t one simple way to address this challenge, but the easiest way seems to be a two-pronged approach. First, offer more events. The typical small, open martial arts event has only two or three events – forms, point sparring and weapons forms. Some add breaking divisions but it usually stops there. When I see other events offering divisions like continuous sparring, team demonstrations or musical forms, I see the crowd respond. People enjoy watching these events because they’re exciting. Crowds demand excitement. Participants want opportunities to participate. We saw that proven over the last couple years with the pushup challenge we ran at many events.The second prong involves offering things other than competition. When whistlekick shows up to an event plenty of people come to browse simply because it gives them something to do. Tournaments need more activities and options for those people in the crowd. If we can keep people engaged, families will no longer make a decision between doing a martial arts event and then doing something fun, later on, as a family. Keeping them engaged will mean less pressure to finish a competition by 2 or 3pm.If more families are engaged and enjoying the time they’re spending at martial arts events, more people will come to, and remain in, martial arts. If these events grow we’ll see more companies come through with sponsorships which will yield prize money. If we can offer more and better prizes, including money, we’ll see an entirely new generation of martial artists that are actually able to make competition their profession. How good would a competitive martial artist be if training was their full-time job? I would imagine they’d be incredible to watch. If we develop an environment that fosters this sort of growth, martial arts will grow in popularity.And this is whistlekick’s vision for martial arts competitions.For those of you that don’t know, whistlekick is holding a martial arts competition. I don’t want to turn this into an advertisement for the event, so let me just say it’s on April 2nd, 2016 in Vermont and you can learn more at our whistlekick.com.I’m often asked why we’re holding a martial arts competition. To many, it seems counter to what we do. We make sparring gear. We make apparel. We don’t put on events. While we have put on some, and will do others in the future, it’s true that putting on a competition is a bit outside what you might expect from us, but there’s a reason.Our tournament has 14 different events compared to the typical 3 or 4. Whereas most tournaments have 150 divisions, we have 250. During the day of the competition you won’t have downtime unless you want it, because we’re offering 8 different, free 30-minute martial arts seminars, free massage, free acupuncture, free access to the facility swimming pool and a ton more. Why? Because we believe that there should be too much happening for you to do it all in one day. We want you to stay the whole day and have a great time.We’re going to prove that martial arts competitions can be different. We want to raise the bar for what people expect from a tournament because we believe other tournament promoters will follow suit. In doing so, participants and spectators will be more engaged, they’ll attend more tournaments and stay in the martial arts longer. More new people will come to the martial arts and we’ll see the martial arts grow.And the more people involved in the martial arts, the more customers we’ll have. It really is that simple for us. So, head on over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for the show notes. We’ve got some great, old photos from early martial arts competitions and videos of people performing impressive forms and incredible sparring. If you want to learn more about the competition we’re hosting, there’s a link to that, too.So, head on over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for the show notes. We’ve got some great, old photos from early martial arts competitions and videos of people performing impressive forms and incredible sparring. If you want to learn more about the competition we’re hosting, there’s a link to that, too.If you want to follow us on social media we're on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & Instagram - all with the username whistlekickIf you want to be a guest on the show or you know someone that would be a great interview, please fill out the form on the website. And don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter so you can stay up on everything we do.If you liked the show, please subscribe or download one of the apps so you never miss out in the future. And if we could trouble you to leave us a kind review wherever you download your podcasts, we'd appreciate it. Remember, if we read your review on the air, just contact us and we'll get you a free pack of whistlekick stuff.Remember the great stuff we make here, and you can see all of it at whistlekick.comSo, until next time, Train hard, smile and have a great day.