Martial Art Events
Martial Art Events
Martial art events fall into several categories. Most prominent are public tournaments and competitions. Other events include martial art festivals, internal testing events, and various official gatherings and conferences of martial art organizations, as well as social events of practitioners.
Competitions Martial art organizations especially those that are oriented towards sports hold various types of competitions between its practitioners. These may range from competitions between students of a one school, to one between several schools, to national and international competitions. These competitions are organized according to rules laid down by the main governing body of the particular martial art.
In case of privately owned martial arts organizations like International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) participation in these competitions may be open only to students of affiliates. However in case of competitions held by public originations like those that come under World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), The International Olympic Committee recognized world governing body for Tae Kwon Do, they are open to all as long as they have fulfilled the necessary entry qualifications.
This type of competition can go all the way up to Olympics in case of Judo and Tae Kwon Do. Other martial arts too have national, regional, and world championships. In addition some private organizations hold professional championships, especially for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Kickboxing. Most popular of these tournaments are the Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC events that feature MMA, and K-1 events which feature stand up fighters, mostly kickboxing.
Martial art competitions take two main forms. One is sparring bouts between two competitors according to rules laid down by the organizers. These bouts may take the form of full contact fights to various lower levels of contact depending on a point scoring system. Bouts are usually classified according to weight classes. They are judged by a referee or a group of ringside judges.
Other type of martial arts competition involves performance of ?Kata? (a prearranged sequence of movements to show mastery of martial art techniques) or similar performances. In competition individual or team performances are compared against other individual or team performances by a group of ringside judges.
Other events Martial art festivals usually feature demonstrations of martial art techniques and skills in order promote a martial art or a particular school among people and to give practitioners and students an opportunity to show their talents. These usually feature Kata performances, and practice sparring, to show self defense skills.
Testing events take place in order to allow those who make decisions regarding ranking an opportunity to judge the proficiency of the students eligible for promotion. Here too Kata play a major part. These events are an important part of a student?s training. Other notable martial art events include conferences and meetings of martial art organizations. The importance of this kind of event depends on the way the particular martial art is organized. These usually involve huge gatherings of practitioners from all over the world. Some important decisions regarding the martial art are taken at this sort of event. Some martial arts hold various social gatherings of practitioners as a tradition.