Originally posted by hunt1
First a question. In this tournement were attacks to the ehad allowed. Most Sumo Sao matches I have seen have not allowed head attacks.
Yes, attacks to the head were allowed. The rules are up at www.goldeneaglemartialarts.com, just look for the .pdf on Chi Sao competiton rules.
Next Sumo Sao shows poor understanding of Wing Chun and /or poor teaching. It is up to the ref to insist on clean technique.
I disagree. It can also show people having a bad day and worried about competition. All the people involved in the chi sao tournament actually all chi sao’d with each other before the tournament. They basicly got together beforehand at the direction of Ed’s student who competed, who thought it might be nice for everyone to roll ahead of time as a way of meeting one another and not worrying about anyone being a “head case”. During all that stuff, I didn’t see anyone do any sumo. The sumo didn’t start until the actual tournament itself and was generally during the first two offense/defence rounds of each match. Likewise, it’s not up to the ref to force people to do clean technique. Besides the fact that everyone’s version of clean and of technique is often different, the ref has enough to watch with regards to enforcing the rules. Likewise I don’t feel that anyone’s performance reflects on their sifu’s teaching (though I’m sure most sifus will disagree with me if their student wins and agree if they loose 
). I think the student’s conduct both before, during and after the match more accurately reflects a sifu’s teachings.
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Tag or not instead of belittling other arts that have been doing competitions for 30 years or so it is best to learn from them.
A clean technique coupled with a clean hit = a point. break and start again. What ever you think this is clean ,easy to understand and not open to debate among judges or contestants.
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Absolutely not. And I’ve seen it first hand at other chi sao competitions - what’s clean to one is debateable to another. And I completely disagree on the point/break thing. That’s one thing most people hate about the karate “open circuit” type sparring, and the most often heard complaint I hear when talking to chinese martial artists. People have indeed learned from the 30 or so years of other art’s competitions - they learned what they don’t like and don’t want. That’s one of the reasons most chinese tournaments have continuous sparring instead for example, which goes on a continuous exchange rather than point and reset. The last thing you want to do is start moving a chi sao tournament in a point direction.
You want to make it about control instead then remove striking and turn it into a taichi puch hands type of thing. Again clean simple and not open to debate.
But it is open to debate. Not everyone views chi sao to be about just hitting and tag. Control is often seen as just as equal an aspect. These tournaments should be about being inclusive to all points of views on the art, not exclusive. To bring together in healthy compeition, not to divide by forcing people to conform to your views in order to perform. That’s one of the reasons for example there were no points kept at this tournament. Each corner judge kept track of the match themselves however they wanted and judged on what they felt was important based on their background. At the end of the match, all corner judges confer and each one states who they felt the winner was and what in each person’s performance they based that off of. Person with the most votes won. And to keep it fair - if a judge had a student in the current match he removed himself from judging that match.
Marty
Watchful Dragon