Hey guys. I’m about to compete in my very first martial arts tournament, April 2nd, and I must say–I’m terrified.
Any tips from old pros who can remember being new to tournaments would be greatly appreciated.
Given how nervous I am now, I can only imagine how nervous I’ll be on the day of the tournament. I’m imagining bowing to my opponent in my first point sparring match and throwing up on the mat. Not good mental status.
Help!
p.s. I did a search of the site for “first tournament” and didn’t find much, so if this thread is redundant, I apologize.
Relax, that’s the best tip you can get, nothing to be terrified about. There are a ton of people who will be there putting themselves in the same sort of position you are. That and you’ll come out the otherside just fine
Forms…Show your intent. Nothing worse than someone with a blank expression and weak power.
Point sparring…is it continuous or one-hit? If it’s one-hit, then it’s basically a game of tag. You don’t have to worry about leaving yourself open for a follow-up or counter, so be aggressive and hit first. If it’s continuous, fight like you’ve been trained. You should be OK.
My first and only tournament I competed in forms and sparring. Forms were first. It was an open tournament and I was the only kung fu guy in my age group. All the rest were karate guys. I knew the form I was going to do inside and out. First, I’m practicing out in the hall and I some how cut my knuckle on my wedding ring, so I’m bleeding. I have nothing to stop the blood so I wipe it on my uniform. I step up to the form area to wait to be called and I get called first. I step on the matt and bow to who I think are the judges. These people just look at me weird and point to the other side of the matt. I turn around and see three guys who are obviously the judges. The people I bowed to were the score keepers. I apologize to the judges, introduce myself and do my form the same way I had always done it. Then all of the karate guys went. I got second place and just missed first by only a couple hundredths of a point.
For sparring, I was not used to point sparring at all and had my ass handed to me.
The whole experience was fun. So practice as much as you can and remember this is suposed to be fun.
Is there anything you know now that you wish you could have communicated to yourself when you were first starting out in tournaments?
It’s supposed to be fun.
Find out if its ‘point sparring’ or ‘continuouis sparring’, theres quite a difference in format, its probably continuous if its a CMA tourny, start sparring a lot of rounds with those particular rules.
Since youre doing both forms and sparring don’t let yourself get distracted by one event while youre getting ready to compete, keep them as mentally compartmentalized as possible. Tell the judges in advance that youre competeing in both events, find out when the tentative times of events are (theyll probably all run late anyway..) and try to space them apart as much as possible, if the judges know they may be able to schedule your times accordingly to some degree.
Bring music and get out of the building as much as possible and relax, being in one of these things all day is boring and mentally taxing, so once youve found out your schedule don’t sit around all day waiting and don’t warm up too early. Don’t eat junkfood.
If this is your first event then it will be a novelty. The traditional events are sort of like if a sci-fi convention and an anachronist society meeting collided with a Chinese flea market. Fun for a while but you get burned out quickly.
Definately stick around for the master’s demonstration if there is one.
Enjoy the event and good luck!
i have never done a formal competition, but i did do a demo in front of about one thousand of my highschool classmates my junior year. our japanese teacher told us that we had to come up with something to do for multicultural day in front of about 30 kids. we figured hell … we could do a martial arts demo and even get some of them involved and teach them some stuff. the day of the demo we find out that its not in the library but in the gymnasium. and that its not going to be 30 kids but half the ****ing school. we hadn’t even really worked on anything … we were just going to wing it. to make matters worse some kids from another school were also doing a demo they busted their asses working on for weeks. i have to admit … all 3 of us were terrified.
the point im getting at though, is that once we stepped out and started everyone else disappeared. it was just me and my two buddies going through what we choreographed that day the best we could. the funny thing was that it was so raw that people questioned whether or not it was real. high kicks were all the rage at the time, so the very first thing we did was have me throw a spinning whip kick to my buddies head (my spin kicks were beautiful in highschool) while he just stepped into it and dumped me on my head. i do remember the entire gym going “oooooooo” at that and a couple other things. the other group looked real pretty, prettier than us, but no one questioned if it were staged or not.
so try to relax dude. i think that finding out your doing something that day, with 0 planning, in front of a thousand peers, is about as bad as it gets. and in the end it didnt turn out that bad at all. the performance itself could have been better with actual planning, but the part i feared the most was simply being in front of that many people and i quickly found out that it’s not so bad once your actually out there. i cant imagine a formal event being much different. just try to remember that anticipation is the worst part.
enjoy the anxiety…it let’s you know you are alive…and it will make you feel all the better afterwards when you can say that you actually did it despite the pressure…but don’t put TOO much pressure on yourself…it’s suppose to be fun…and whatever happens you will be a winner afterwards…think of all the people that don’t have the guts to get up there and do their thing…
the best thing to combat nerves is to feel prepared. Practice your forms over and over and over, spar the toughest people in your school and learn from what happens there. Drill your most effective sparring techniques ad nauseum (literally) and you’ll be ready.
MK had a good point, get yourself a good game face. A solid display of spirit and intent makes a basic form look great.
One other thing, remember to breathe, especially when you’re performing your forms.
the butterflies you get before sparring are natural - they will subside as soon as the action starts. practice hard in class, and you will be fine in the competition.
really appreciate this, guys. I’m writing it all down. I’ll ask my sifu if the sparring is one-hit or continuous tonight. Certainly, I’ll report back after the tournament to tell you how it went. I’ll just remember to breathe, relax, have fun, put on a serious warrior face, remember which side the judges are on, bring music, and not eat junk food. This is after I practice my form in sections and alltogether, spar the best students, and bring my own gear.
be confident and do not be afraid, you can even slightly smile to encourage your face muscles to relax, also fear is associated with tenseness, if you relax and focus you will not be afraid, and remember to have fun! we all go through this, you will be battle tempered soon enough. no fear!
