Another TKD Guy - Yes. I was yellow/green cadet female heavyweight. I was B, Martin and the one who spent an extensive amount of time talking to the officials and then had to run out, grab her instructor from the stands, and then beg him to pay £10 out of his own wallet to fix an administrative mix up where somehow I'd been stuck in the blue/red group. And the girl I was up against was a greenstripe. She'd been to competitions before though. Entered in the South East and won some stuff there. I might have won against her, but some of the bluestripe girls there were really good. I think I would have been happy if I'd gotten to bronze position. It really was a good experience though. Apart from nearly having my nose broken. But apart from that it really didn't hurt as much as I'd feared. It was more tiring than painful. But I do have loads to work on. Firstly, I should definitely do way more cardio-vascular exercise (even though we do a fair bit in class). That, I think will help me with the tiredness. Secondly, guard my head more. I also learnt that when you're in the fight, you pretty much forget all your beforehand tactics and really its just action and reaction between you and your opponent. Side kicks also - good in sparring. I kinda knew that before, but it was good to test that out in a compeition and see it really work for me. Another thing - don't be afraid to hit out hard, even if they do fall over - at the end I think my blows weren't strong enough and so that's why the umpires weren't sure if they connected whereas hers was a real solid blow, so she won it. Finally, I'm seriously considering doing extra training, hopefully with more sparring in it, because what I really need now is just the experience, I think. I'm planning to enter into as many of the local comps as I can so I can build up my comp experience before the next British Champs. Of course, by the next comps, I should be bluebelt, which means no more point-stop for me, and I will also be 18, so I'll be stuck in the ladies division. All in all means it'll get a lot tougher for me - continuous sparring with more competitors in my division. Anyways. I have been meaning to ask... these little regional local comps. Say, well, the South West for example. Am I allowed to enter even if I'm from the South East, or is that not allowed? I just really want to get as much sparring experience as possible. I was pretty overwhelmed too. I kinda expected the amount of competitors there were, but what really threw me were the crowds. There were hundreds of spectators! I got completely lost when I first got there, until I managed to find my instructor and fellow club members. But it was okay during the actual match because I found that I could just block all the spectators out and I wasn't really aware at all of thousands of people watching me. That was one of the good things about my performance I feel. Also, I'm pretty proud of my side kicks and pleased that I was generally able to conduct myself with control and relative precision and wasn't all over the place. As for the rest of my club, well. We didn't really do that well. Tina Sparks and Anna Wardle, redstripe and bluebelt respectively, were entered in the ladies patterns, but didn't win anything. One of my instructors, Tim Brooks, was entered in patterns and sparring for 2nd Dan and above. He added an extra, nonexistent move to his pattern so basically did well to hold onto a score of 93s. I left before I saw him sparring. Some of our 1st and 2nd Dan ladies were entered into the patterns, and though very good, didn't come away with anything. Martin Free, redbelt was also entered in sparring, but I left before I saw him spar. Finally, fellow colleague Jenny Wheelan was entered in both patterns and sparring for greenbelt ladies heavyweight. She was about average in the patterns, but got knocked out first round in sparring too, to the lady who eventually won it. I noticed she was very aggressive, but left herself open way too much, and was very scrappy, wheras the other lady was very controlled and precise and defensive. We think she would have done better if she'd been in with the yellows, who seemed to have a more scrappy style. We've discussed it together and have decided to do some practising sparring together now, outside of class, to really step up our training, because I think both of us are quite serious about competitions. Therefore... my ultimate congratulations goes to... Julia Free, 1st Kup, an old hand at this sort of thing and very well known on the competition circuit, who managed to salvage the honour of our club to come home with bronze in the ladies patterns for her division. EDIT: My colleagues managed to get four or five pictures of me whilst I was up sparring, so I'll try to get them developed as fast as possible and I'll have them up here in about a week or so.
Hmmm, I went to the area before any sparring began where the whole group was just standing waiting. Maybe that was when you went to find your instructor which is why I didn't see you. Also, extra cardio is a must! Continuous sparring is far more demanding than point stop on the cardio front because you don't get any breaks except for penalties and end of the round. If you start now, you should be great for your next comp if you're blue belt by then. As for the other regional tournaments, I don't believe there is any restriction on who could enter. We got a flyer for the midlands one a few months back despite being in the south-east. I'm sure someone else will be able to confirm this though.
I was umpiring this weekend, on the ring where the female cadets green/yellow heavies were I think (ring 4)? Me: tall, close-cropped hair, big nose, umpiring or at the table, You: pyjamas, bloody nose? I don't know if I saw your actual fight as we rotate throughout the day, but I wouldn't say it's contact you need to think about, more visibility. If you throw a punch to the body it's odds on that two of the three judges won't see it; If the ref sees it the mirror may not or vice versa, and depending on which way you're facing the line judge may not either. Backfists to the top of the helmet are popular in point stop for exactly that reason. If anyone saw Mr Parchment fight in the executives they saw an absolute exhibition in point stop fighting. Congratulations to all who entered; an event with 1,850 competitiors is quite an experience! Mitch
Hey all Long day yesterday but my day sort of went like this: Started early referreing on ring 12, luckily had red belt kids... We had so many umpires that I only had to score patterns. Had my first spar in 12 months, in BB heavyweight. Weighed in at 83KG, felt good as I thought i was about 85KG. I bumped into a mate from brighton (and Cavallin, Sorry of i seemed a littte rude) who turned out to be in my division. Turned out that i knew 4 others in the division!!, I don't know that if it's easier to fight people you know or not?. Anyhow we didn't get to fight until 5pm and considering it was my first fight in 12 months it went ok. First fight went to extra time but lost 3 to 1. Strangely when I got to training tonight, one of the other guys had videoed it! so just doing the post mortom tonight!! all in all it was a good day, personally I think the BB Heavyweights was probably the best division on the day, pleasure to watch some of the other guys fight and even got a good vid of the final!!.
Can you put that video up? My division was still going on while that was that happening, and I just saw a massive crowd around that area with various thuds and people "ooooing" and "aaahing" and cheering etc etc, lol. I really wanted to go watch but couldn't. :cry:
ah well wasn't my finest hour on sunday lol lost inthe quarters to Alan Jackson.... was incredibly close though, he said afterwards he wouldn't have liked to have had to call it either which on reflection was fair... lost 3 - 1 on the decision... but then lost about 3 points for running outta the ring..... lol (At least Alan went on to win lol) Not too bothered all things considered, that's 2 - 1 to me against Alan now lol In true cartoon style... I'll get you next time gadget!!! At least my foot has more or less survived.. a little sore today but ok... Hopefully will get to do some training before i fight again...5 sessions since the Worlds in July isn't a good platform lol.. - the korean seminar directly after the worlds (with a broken bonein my foot lol), then the Scottish,then 2 sessions in a week, then the World cup in Germany... then 2 sessions the week before last... no wonder my lungs wanted to explode..... 1 little footnote, anyone else here think the mats were ridiculous??... ring 2 - the one I was on was soaking in the left corner.... not the best place to step to the side must have gone flying about 10 times lol comeon TAGB get yr act together, an Ice rink + tae kwon do???? good for spectators, bad for injuries!! On the plus side thought the tournament was better organised this year well ok now I've bored u all with my 2 cents lol
Believe me, the mats this time were better than the carpet they used at the English - most of the rings were completely soaking, and the one I was one only had about 1/3 that was usable... Anyway, I also got to the quarter finals in my division (BB mens welterweight) and lost 2-1 with one split decision (I always thought that meant overtime...). Kinda disappointed as apart from a few punches I dont remember getting hit - maybe I should try to fall over less next time :bang:
i know the rubber mat roll was a little better than the carpet... but, that's not really the point, the venue simply isn't suitable water & kicking don't really go together
I completely agree. Its not like theres nowhere better, the place they use for the Welsh championships is much better and probably bigger. The other thing that really annoyed me was the whole TAGB sparring equipment thing. If they tell people thats the only stuff allowed (which is what we were told) then they should enforce it. I only took the TAGB stuff up so had to use it instead of my Top Ten stuff which I'm a lot happier wearing. Final rant (I promise), I thought the standard of patterns in general on Sunday was poor. I watched patterns for most of the day (mainly BB ones, but some coloured belt ones too), and I have to say I only saw 5 good patterns. I didn't enter because I didn't think I knew any of my new patterns well enough, but based on what I saw I think I would have done pretty well.
Ah, well I did get punched in the nose but it didn't start bleeding or anything. I think you might actually have umpired my fight. Are you sure you didn't see me? I wore the blue sash and I'm greenbelt and I was up against a greenstripe. Martin vs Patterson (at least, I think Patterson was her surname). I kicked her so hard she fell over at one point? It came to a draw and then she won the next point? No? Meh. Anyways. I'll try to think about visibility more in future too. Thanks for the advice. Dragon2020 - Yeah, I noticed the mats weren't that good too. Thankfully it didn't cause me a problem when I was up there though. Hopefully they'll figure something better out for the next comp. Oh, and I was still around for the big presentation and I got to see Warren Vice. Nice to finally see the guy in person after hearing so much about him.
I'm pretty sure I did line judge on your fight, not Ref or mirror, but I can't remember details, sorry. I certainly remember the names, but there were dozens of punches to the nose during the day, and dozens of people knocked over by kicks. Bear in mind I started work on that square at 9.30ish and finished after 6.00... We need a little MAP badge to recognise everyone Like I said, for point stop think visibility and use your hands much more than you would in continuous. Cheers, Mitch
Hi guys, I got there a 11am and did my patterns at about 3:00pm-3:30pm had my fight at about 6ish. The waiting was terrible. In my patterns I got 6,5,5,5,4 (the second person to get a six) as I was sitting next to the judges I couldn't see the scores people was getting but my dad said I was second until there very end when they started giving decent scores to rubbish patterns. The guy that gave me a 4 seemed to give everyone a 4 till the very end some serious dodgy judging going on!! Like someone else said the pattern standard was very poor. I got creamed in the first round of sparring. But he did go on to win. There was some people there that I could have creamed its a shame I came up against someone so good in the first round I was talking to a guy who know's him and he said he trains every day so im not to annoyed I lost. I agree the venue is stupid I was on area 15 where they had no black mats. James
at last iv made it to this thread! been really busy. im annoyed i missed the action of the thread but never mind! here's my day! i arrived at 12.30pm sat down etc...got changed and weighed in, or got my named ticked off more like cos was in heavy. anyway! i had the most horrible mindset, cos i convinced myself i wasn't fighting! i just thought, i dont want to do this today at all! but anyway, i got called up for patterns, and i am soooo annoyed at what happened. we all agreed the standard was really rubbish!! so i thought mmm shouldnt do too badly...then i hesitated and nearly did a wrong move on my pattern so i got rubbish marks. i am so gutted about that!! as for the winner it was brilliant, cos there are 3 girls i chat to quite a bit since competing so much, and one of them had just passed her grading. so she did choong moo (its still a BB pattern!!) and got brilliant marks and won 1st. she was totally bewildered and next thing...she won the BB grading award!!! her name was lindsay, so you all saw her if you watched the presentation, she was crying and everything, i felt so pleased for her, what a brilliant day! well that was that. then i snapped out of my mood and decided to go for the fight. i got a bye in the first round, so winning my fight would have garenteed me a third place. but i knew very well i was gona lose, cos most girls in my division were about 6ft tall lol!! i did pretty well, and got a head kick in, which without that, i would have been a bit down, but i dont care that i lost cos i got a head kick in hehe.(and she was way taller than me ) anyway, we drew at first, which totally sucked cos i was knackered and battered and i though meh, she'll win. so she did. i think if i was really psyched up i could have won it. cos i forgot to push her away with my side kick, i went in for punches when it was obvious she was a better (bigger) puncher. my face is pretty sore now! well it was a good day! congrats to Ruskie for getting 3rd, cos he really deserved it, won about 4 fights. i'll let him give his own accounts though. im annoyed i didnt get to see xue fang fight, cos i would have told you once you got some points in to hang back and waste time! no point in going in for more points once you're ahead. thats my advice for most point stop people anywho. i really wanted to meet u but never mind. also thank you seb for coming to say hello, really would have liked to see you fight too! and gould thanks for scaring me. lol he said "hi michele" i was like, "who are you" lol! hi to jules and jamesy again, and i think that was it as for who i spotted! hope you all enjoyed that awesome day, lets now all right to the commitee asking for a new venue! there must be another one in britain lol.
im not sure if it happens in colour belts, but thats called seeding sucks but thats the way it goes. people from the squad always get put up against non "famous" fighters so the 2 best people end up in final. im really pleased i almost broke the mould though
Her pattern was the best I saw all day, the rest were either average or rubbish - and the 2nd dan and above were even worse, they had a play-off but the top scores were only 4's with the occasional 5. Not good. How did Richard do in the end? I spoke to him after his first fight, but kinda got distracted so didn't find out how he did in the end...
Judging patterns is an interesting and difficult task. There are several obvious basics that everyone should already be aware of: 1. If you add or miss moves, you're going to get a lower score. Bear in mind that due to nerves you may not even remember doing it afterwards. 2. If you don't perform the pattern with power and conviction, you're going to get a lower score. I don't care how fit you are, if you're not knackered at the end of a pattern you didn't do it properly. 3. Your stances are critical. At the next level there are degrees of emphasis: 1. How much hip snap do you use, and do you use it on every move, like when landing jumps? 2. Do you audibly breathe out on each technique, twice in some techniques eg dollimyo makgi? 3. Do you ever plant your feet then hip snap and peform the technique? (personally I think this belongs in the basics but video yourself doing your patterns and really ask yourself, do I ever do it? Box turn at the start of Do San is a classic) However, beyond this there seem to be distinct variations of emphasis by Instructor and region. As a result, what looks like a good pattern to one may not look so good to another. For example, take Won Hyo: 1. Do you open the non-striking fist when chambering for the inwards knifehand in move 2? 2. Where does your lifted knee point in goburyo sogi? 3. Do you bend the back leg whilst performing dollimyo makgi? 4. Where do your hands go whilst performing the front kick? There are similar points to be made on any pattern - when does the backfist actually strike in Yul Gok, when the first foot lands, or the second? Or do the feet land together? I know from talking to judges that opinions on a given pattern can vary quite widely, in some ways it's surprising that marks are generally reasonably consistent. And this doesn't even take into account random things like me sneezing and missing you perform your particular killer combination Cheers, Mitch
lol brilliant. i totally agree with that post, i love judging patterns myself. i am gutted that i messed up my pattern, i fully deserved my marks. richt uk, richard went out to warren and ended up with 3rd, whihc is very cool! but he was way modest as usual
Mitch, i copied and pasted your post in the thread about forms competition. i thought that it would come in handy there http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=698585#post698585
