I’ll make 3. My main reason is that point sparring promotes too much of an in-out in-out strategy. My school, at least, emphasises an in-in-in-take-em out strategy.
Originally posted by MonkeySlap Too
I think you are confused about what continuos sparring is - a boxer would do well UNTIL he got disqualified for excessive contact!
I’ve had points taken away for excessive contact. out of habit, I threw a right to his face. I caught him square in the nose and buckled his legs. in that same match, I threw kicks that looked like they landed to hard. I got penalized. but when I got hit in the nads by a different guy, they counted it, saying he hit me in the stomach…I hate point fighting
SevenStar wrote:
but when I got hit in the nads by a different guy, they counted it, saying he hit me in the stomach
Just another reason that point fighting sucks. It’s all perspective. The judges have to have a clear understanding of all competing styles and then they have to use their eyes.
I’ve witnessed CMA students fighting against predominantly Karate styles that were judged by Karate instructors. These judges didn’t recognise any valid techniques that they didn’t understand. So, needless to say when Karate guy threw a reverse punch at CMA guy and CMA guy clocked him on the head with another strike - Karate guy scored. I just shook my head.
I went to a point sparring match and a fight broke out!
Sevenstar, you sound like the perfect pointer. I’ve seen more knockouts during point sparring than full contact kickboxing matches. This was during the late seventies before everyone started using Jhoon Rhees gear and before every tournie had a lawyer lurking in the stands. Thems was the days!
too bad it’s not like that now 
I’m with royal dragon on this one
Hey Hey Hey!
Guess what? The rules are going to be completely different than I imagined. They are going to allow low kicks and up to 3 takedowns in the 2 minute time frame. Don’t know if you can receive any points for these. “Medium contact,” I was told. The action is to take place on a padded surface. Man I am excited! This is going to be my first tournament in a long time. I pity the fool that has to be my first opponent. I know I’m going to get f’d up too, but I’m going to do my best to win this thing.
I’m fighting in the Black belt division. It should be near the end of the tournament, around 3 pm or later. I’m also going to participate in forms.
I just want to flow tomorrow. I’ve been doing sparring lately so I am prepared.
-FJ
Good luck fa jing, make sure you bring back all the details of the fights. Careful of the moderate contact rule, everybody has a different idea of “moderate”. Also do you have to strike the person right after the takedown? Can they strike from the ground?
I’m sure there’s no groundfighting, I can’t imagine. Maybe there is a rulle like the one you’re talking about, I’ll get the final scoop tomorrow morning, we are meeting early at my kwoon to discuss rules, strategy, equipment, etc. They are permitting chest protectors but I won’t be wearing one. It’s going to be cage-mask headgear and we apparently can wear MMA gloves that have padding. So grabbing is in. I hear no knees and no elbows, that’s too bad 'cause my knees are fierce. I will go hard, but I don’t want to hurt anybody (maybe shake 'em up a little) and hopefuly they’ll give me the same respect. I’m watching out for my groin because I’ve been in tournaments before and I know the deal. Accidents and fouls happen. We may be capturing the action on film, BTW, so hopefully you all will at least get to see some pics. I’ll work on it.
fajing- Who is your sifu? where is your school?
is this a kungfu tournament or an open martial arts tournament?
Good luck; and yes, give details when done. Remember, the secret is in the calm.
Hi SD.
My sifu is Nikita Young Johnson, I study WC and a little JKD. He has been a student of Ted Wong’s for about 10 years, has about 26 years in Wing Chun. Our kwoon is Kung Fu Academy of Chicago on North Sheridan (northside near Loyola), it’s Master Kwan’s kwoon and is primarily 7* praying mantis. The coalition sponsering the event is TCMAC, composed of about 5 different Chicago schools including Choi’s. I don’t think Ng family arts is included. It is an open tournament, although it’s only been publicized in the kung fu schools it says “Welcoming Traditional Karate & Tae Kwon Do stylist, etc.” When I was at another tournament as a spectator it was pretty much just kung fu. But if you want to come and participate or spectate that would be great, just let me know.
-FJ
Oh yeah the name of the tournament is “Chicago Kung Fu Championships and Master’s Exhibition.” It’s at 1725 N. Addison and lasts from 10:30 to about 5. Children’s divisions are usually first.
I just read through the thread…
“There are alot of strategies seen and encouraged in point fighting that leave you open to get drilled if it were actual contact.”
And vice versa. Take for example the classic fast jab to beat a hook (straight line to the chin beats an arc to the side of the face). You need your jab to have contact so that it takes the power out of the incomming hook.
In point sparring, at least the first punch would “win” (if the judges saw things correctly). But in continual point sparring both would get a point! :eek: That is completely the wrong feedback for developing fighting skills.
Medium contact might help keep things more honest. At least your attacks will slightly unbalance the opponent, which will give the winner an appropriate advantage on the following moves…
Now just hope those judges have perfect eyes and can keep a level medium contact playing field!
Good luck Fajing!
-crumble
The rules sound a little promising. Fa-Jing, any hope of getting a tape of the fights?
There is hope! My sifu’s bringing his digital camera, he has to go early but will leave it with someone reliable. Eventually we’ll get it to tape. Sifu says he doesn’t want me just striking a pose, however!
Fajing- I don’t think Ng family is involved. I haven’t heard anything about this tournament in class. They seem to go to mostly USAWKF stuff. I was mostly just curious, i have allot to do this weekend (training, work etc)
BTW guys, last 'continueous light contact sparring" I saw looked like san shou with no throws. It’s hard to determine what level of contact competitiors use in a continuous match. There was a TKO in one of the fights. It was pretty hard contact. The kids were the toughest though.
VENUE CHANGE
It’s actually at St. Andrews Gym, not at the smaller venue. 1658 w. addison. Should be a very good event. I’m going to help judge and stuff. There seem to be several different divisions to participate in. I’m psyched.
Hi guys. The results were postive, although I felt could I have done a little better.
It was a small turnout, perhaps because of the weather. But it was an excellent tournament.
Sifu Kwan’s school and Bei Mei Shaolin, Sifu Andrew Lee’s school were well represented. I took three silvers, one in Southern forms, one in black-belt point sparring, and one in heavyweight continuous sparring. But the #of competitors in each division were small: 5, 4, and 3 respectively. I’ve seen the videotape, unfortunately the second round of both of my continuous sparring matches is missing, due to the camaraman we entrusted goofing off and screwing up. I was robbed on the forms, I’ve seen the tape and my performance was nice, my sifu agrees. Oddly, my junior beat me out for the gold, as did this cool young-buck wushu guy who said his introduction in chinese before repeating in english and doing his form. His form was a’iight, he did a much more impressive form in the Northern Kung Fu catagory where he slapped himself about a 100 times all over the place during the form. For black-belt point sparring we had two Karate guys as opponents, from the Shikido school near here. They describe their art as an Okinawan soft style. Their forms were cool and looked a little like Kung Fu. There was a big guy, a little round in the gut who weighed about 235, he had ten years experience, and a shorter guy, pretty fast and strong with 15 years of experience. First my classmate fought the shorter guy, and lost. But he did pretty well. Then I fought the bigger guy, incidentally the center judge (out of three judges) was their sensei or whatever. We were definitely not getting the calls. I went down0-2 against this guy, but it was wrong and I was like “what??” on the second point like a pro basketball player complaining to the ref, but I quickly realized my error and apologized to the center judge. Then I got it together and won three straight points to win the match. Next I faced the shorter guy for 1st place, I quickly hit him with an axe kick to score the first point, then we clashed a few times. I’m not sure why they gave him the first and last points, the second point he got me with a clean body shot and I should have blocked it, I started my block but for some reason didn’t follow through and he slipped it by. On the last point he jumped at me with a back fist, I leaned back and side-kicked his mid-section and I felt my foot sink in, but they called the point for him, you can’t really tell who hit first from the tape, and my shot was a lot more decisive. When they called the point for him, he leaned forward and said to me “Nice shot.” So I have his respect, which is more important. My classmate beat his opponent in the third-place match. Anyway these Karate practicioners are very nice guys, they are cool, and we’ll probably meet up again sometime for some friendly action. Their sensei is cool too, although he wasn’t too happy about his guys losing to us…next up was the continuous sparring, which took place on a large interlocked rubber mat. Rules were as follows: no points, it was to be decided by a consensus of the judges. 2 one-minute rounds with a minute break. Cage headgear and 14 oz. boxing gloves, I used my 16-ouncers. Try as we might we couldn’t use our regular Thai-boxing headgear. Foot protection so you dont catch a toe on the facemask. 3 clean takedowns was supposed to be match over. If you went down too, you didn’t get credit. We were allowed to kick the thigh, but not to buckle the leg. Also, you were supposed to not try to hurt the other guy. Sweeps were supposed to be performed with the toes scraping the ground. We were explained all the rules before the matches started. There were seven competitors, which they divided into light, medium, and heavy weight classes. I (180 pounds) was in the heavyweight division with my classmate (230) and the bigger Karate guy. The light-weight match wasn’t so exciting, the guys were good but they didn’t mix it up much, a lot jumping in and out. The middle-weight match was quite good, between a chinese stylist and the other Karate guy, it went to overtime and the CMA guy won, I thought fairly. But the real action came with the heavyweight division. 
My classmate was selected to have a bye, so I went up against the Karate guy. In the first round, I dominated the striking, hitting him with about 4 round kicks to the head, one of which really connected and made a loud noise. I also hit him with a couple punching combos. But, my strategy almost back-fired, if you fall three times you lose, he almost took me down once on kick but I fell when we were out of bounds, and a couple times he did succeed in taking me down from the clinch, I wanted so badly to knee him but that was not allowed, we were told it would bring automatic disqualification. Another time we both went down, another time he went down to his knee on a missed takedown. So the round was over, and my classmate played the role of coach since my sifu had already left, he gave me really good advice that turned things around for me. He pointed out that the other guy couldn’t handle my strikes, and not to clinch with him. Round 2 I just dominated. My opponent was running out of gas, and I started to get in on him. This time when we clinched, instead of grabbing his arms like I would if trying to knee him, I worked it the way my sifu taught me, like a boxer finding the holes, hitting him with body shots, and up top, lowered my center of gravity and he couldn’t get the throw. I also hit him with a really decisive punching combination that rang him hard, the crowd was like oooh… I wasn’t sure what the decision was going to be, the judges were discussing for a long time…probably over whether I was down three times. Incidentally, my opponent went down twice too, once on the failed shoot and once when I caught him in a reverse headlock and pulled him down, staying in front of him…still I was confident I’d get the win - I did. Then I had to go against my classmate, my worst nightmare, because he trains the way I do. I was tired to start and he was fresh, and that was probably the difference - he did what he had to do, and came in punching. I put on a good show and got him a few times, the most decisive part was somehow he picked me up and flipped me over, setting me down with control (thank God!), and his punching was superior. We took it a little easy on each other and punched gloves after every break. He fell down once as well. The decision went to him, and he earned it.
Congradulations on your silvers. Sounds like you had a good time and the tournament was a success.