A Tournament Guide for Taekwondo Students

Tournaments are a fun way for martial arts students to display their hard work and talent. They are a great way for students to meet other martial artists from other cities, states, and sometimes countries. Students attend their first tournament at many different levels. Some students are white belts. Some students wait until they become black belts to attend a tournament. Whatever the belt rank, tournaments are a lot of fun. Here's what to expect at a tournament.

At tournaments, students are divided up according to age, sex, rank, and sometimes height and weight. The number of people participating in the tournament will determine the number of people in a "ring" and how wide of a variety they are. The "ring" is the group of people that have been chosen to compete with one another.

Usually, the first categories to compete at tournaments are forms and weapons. Board breaking is also offered at some tournaments. Sparring will be last. Forms, weapons, and board breaking will all be performed individually in front of a group of judges. Keep in mind that there are many rings competing at the same time. So, when a student does their form, they are not standing alone in a large gymnasium with hundreds or thousands of spectators. The judges for forms, weapons, and board breaking may announce their scores for the student or do it without the competitor knowing.

In forms competition, once each competitor has performed their form, the scores the judges have given will be totaled and a check will be made for ties. If there is a tie, the competitors tied will be asked to perform their form again. This will also be done individually. Once all of the ties have been broken, competitors should know what place everyone finished. Ties in weapons and board breaking competitions will be settled in the same manner.

The final category to be judged is the sparring competition. They way that this is handled varies from tournament to tournament, depending on the organization hosting the event. Usually students will be required to wear all of their safety equipment. As students spar, judges will be looking for and call out when a point is made. Depending on the tournament, different techniques may be worth a different number of points.

Once the competition is done trophies will be handed out. Sometimes all of the trophies for the ring will be given out once all competition in that ring is complete. Other times, trophies will be awarded after each individual competition. At most tournaments all children competitors will receive a trophy.

At the end of the day, students will have had great time and made new friends. As students continue to attend tournaments they will continue to make new friends, some of whom they will only see at tournaments.