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General Tournament Rules and Info for Coquille Fall Tourney, November 19, 2016


New: at a Glance

1. Community Center has extra parking behind the park, acessible from highway 42

2. Medals to third. Grand champion sword sets for high point across divisions

3. Best Overall Award

4. Doors open at(or before) 8:00 am for registration, and open floor practice time! Starts at 9:30 with Blackbelt forms - and ending with Black belt sparring.

Coquille community Ctr

Directions: From I-5 to Hwy 42 to Coquille, turn right Birch(second St past signal) and left into main parking lot

From 1-5 to hwy 38(or 126), take 101 south to hwy 42 to Coquille, and turn left at Birch. We will have a sign on the highway

From 101 Northbound to Bandon take hwy 42S to Coquille, turn right at hwy 42 left at Birch or into parking from 42

Mailing Address
74 E 1st
Coquille, Or 97423

Please check back to see updates as they are posted!! Updated registration forms will be available soon

Printable Poster for your School

An updated registration form has been uploaded for your convenience.

Printable Registration Form

Awards Offered

We will be offering medals to third place, in a wide range of age brackets. Please check back as age groups may be slightly rearranged as we get a better idea of how many competitors we will have.

We proudly offer flag sparring for tiny tots ages 6 and under! No gear required(headgear suggested). Tots competitors must wear gi and belt

Age Categories and Descriptions:

6 and under beginners(6 and unders will be split into at least 2 classes, either by age, size or time spent training, assuming we have enough entries. We want this to be a positive experience for our youngest competitors). In addition to traditional forms, we will be offering flag(or belt - as it is also known) sparring for the under 6(six) crowd. Int/Adv 6 year olds may be bumped up to the 7 year old category, depending, again on entries, or they may be in their own group. Any 6 year olds who wish to compete in creative or weapons forms will be grouped with the older children

Older competitors will be split by age and rank/time in training.
Ideally we would like to see the following divisions, however, our entries will determine the final divisions, which may be further divided or not:

Ages: 6 and under(all belts)
7-9(beg, Int, adv/bb)
10-11(beg, int, adv, bb)
12-14(beg, int, adv, bb)
and 15-17(beg, int, adv, bb).

If there are enough adults, we will offer an 18+(beg, int, adv, bb) and a 39+(beg, int, adv, bb) division as well as divisions for men and women. It all depends on you, the competitors, just how many divisions we offer!

Beginners: up to 9 mos training
***Intermediate: 9 mos to 22 months training
***Advanced: over 22 mos training and under BB
*** final classes will be decided more on total number months/years in training than actual rank
Seniors: 39 and over, if we have at least 2 competitors in that age group

Forms categories and descriptions

Competitor(except tiny tots/under age 6) must complete presentation and do a form in order to be considered for best all around martial artist award.

Traditional forms either hard or soft style as taught by your school for belt ranks. Not to include gymnastic techniques or more than 3 ki-haps(black belt 5 ki-haps allowed)

Creative forms - open or weapons With or without music. We will try to have the stage sound system/ music player available, but cannot guarantee access. Non traditional weapons material, ultra light weight bo etc allowable.

Traditional Weapons Hard or soft style traditional form. Weapons to be as traditional and functional as possible(except that bladed weapons forms must use unsharpened weapons or iato - see skita rules for bo size requirements) and bos to be one piece traditional style, or judged capable of sustaining contact. In case of a weapon break, competitor may continue with the broken weapon, unless stopped by judges for safety, without a score reduction penalty. Or, competitor has 3 minutes to get replacement and restart form with a minimum .5 pt penalty.

Point sparring: competitors must wear vinyl dipped foam sparring gear on hands, head and feet, mouth guards, and male exhibitors must wear cups.

Light to no contact(2" rule, well chambered punches and kicks will be counted at all rank levels, including focus to the face, as long as glove or boot does not touch face in underbelt and kids divisions), kiss contact to face allowed in adult and black belt divisions, techniques to the following areas, head(covered by head gear), torso above belt(moderate okay in upper belt divisions), groin, and sides. No "fall through" punches or kicks at any level, as all contact must show good control.

Points will be awarded as follows: 2 points for head kicks, 1 point for all others. We will run two 1 minute 30 second rounds with a 30 second coaching break in the middle. No other coaching allowed. Wins for most matches won. Round robin ties are the only rounds to be decided on cumulative points. All others by number of wins.

Excessive contact will be considered for the rocking of the head, contact over moderate on torso. Any moderate contact after time or point is called, especially multiple techniques designed to drive the opponant out of the ring IE any contact that is in flagrant disregard to the judges' call of stop/stop time/point. Blood may be considered a disqualification, depending on circumstance. Poor sportsmanship/disrespect to judges other competitors is an immediate disqualification

Disqualification upon judges consideration as to the severity and deliberation of excessive contact. Otherwise, first warning gives point to opponant, 2nd warning a point from offending competitor(both at center's discretion or call of any two judges) and then disqualification for third violation

Age and rank categories as for forms, when ever possible.

Adult categories will be split by gender and/or age/size depending on registration numbers

Flag sparring: 6 and under ONLY, all ranks - will be divided into divisions depending on registration numbers. First competitor to remove the two "flags" from his opponant wins.

Spectators: 5.00 adults, 3.00 children 5 and up. Family rate 10.00 for family arriving together.
We plan to hold Adult BB forms divisions first to allow the black belts to be seen at their best. BB sparring will be the last division of the day.

For other tournaments see Pacific Northwest Martial Arts Calendar

Why Tournaments?

Most of the martial arts have their roots in tribal or feudal periods of human history when fighting was viewed as a necessity, and happened fairly frequently. Ineffective ideas died out: literally.

Today, we live in a age where fighting for one's life is fortunately, rare, and thus, by necessity, those who train in the martial arts need a way to test their effectiveness.

If one only trains within their school, or even within their style, they are not exposed to different people and differing ways of thinking about defense.

Tournaments thus, have multiple purposes: humans are, by nature competitive. Sports actually derived out of training for war. The skills inherent in martial arts tournaments are, more directly applicable to defense, then say, those of football, soccer, or baseball. Yet, if we look closely, we see those things, both in the formation of a team, and in the skills of running, hitting with a club, or taking someone to ground.

Students who test themselves at tournaments, get a chance to see how they fare against others with the same amount of training and of the same age, body size etc. Those who claim tournaments are not necessary to the proper learning of martial arts, or even detrimental to learning martial arts, are often fooling themselves into thinking that they are somehow better than others, without once testing themselves or their students. Often, however, the reverse is true. The person who speaks out against martial arts tournaments, does so, because he or she lost in competition, and made the excuse that tournaments are not applicable to the arts. This is the reason for rules: to even the playing field. Allowing competitors who break the rules to continue, creates an unfair disadvantage for those who do follow them. Yes, in real life, there are no rules, and I think we all realize this.

In reality students who train with the same people, week after week, month after month, year after year are thus depriving themselves of an opportunity to improve themselves and their art. Instructors who do do not test their students, are in actuality, their students worst enemy in not allowing the students to test themselves in competition.

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Last Updated October 25, 2016 by Karen Saxton