What's your take on this. This is a e-mail between my sifu and Pete Starr regarding a tournament.
Hello, Everyone!
I've been batting around an idea...a tournament for traditional martial arts practitioners - one in which practitioners of both grappling (judo, jujutsu, aikido) and percussive (karate, kung-fu) arts can compete on equal footing.
I think it would be great fun...but I'll need your input and help. Maybe it's not really feasible but maybe it is. We'll see. I'll toss it into the meeting today and see where we go with it-
:-)
Pete Starr
My school would be interested in a full contact tournament. We would not be interested in a karate type point system tournament. We would like weapons as well as forms to be included as well. Please reply if this is agreeable.
Best regards,
Sifu Ralph Young
Hi, Ralph!
Oh, yeah - we'd have traditional forms and weapons...but the sparring wouldn't be full-contact (if nothing else, the insurance would kill us!)...I'm looking at an event like one of the events used by Master Nishiyama in his Internat'l Traditional Karate Assn. It's freestyle one-step which is safer than freestyle sparring but much more difficult to do...we'd have to get the instructors who are interested in it to attend a special session to look at it and train for judging it.
It'd be a lot of fun but would require real skill...I'll be sending out some info on it to get everyone's thoughts.
Thanks!
Pete