Although not a big fan of "Tippy-Tap-Crap Tournaments" I and several students and friends went to an Annual Tournament held on May 7th in Tokyo. It was fun but it was also what I have come to know and dislike about tournaments. The fun part of course was getting to see some of my freinds and students stomp some butt. (I could not fight in this tournament because I broke my ankle in 2 places during training)
The rules for this tournament were a bit odd. Each person could have as many as 4 fights.
Each person got to choose the type of rules they wanted to use for their fight.
For example:
Type 1 Beginners:
Basically kicks and punches only. (Using cheap plastic bogu gear)
TYPE 2:
Kicks, punches, elbows, knees, & throws are allowed. (Using cheap plastic bogu gear..No chokes or submissions allowed though)
TYPE 3:
Kicks, Punches, knees and throws. Using leather boxing head gear.
TYPE 4:
Kicks, punches, throws. Using leather boxing head gear.
The first person to score 5 points won a match or the most points at the end of time won a match.
So if that wasn't strange enough some of the things you could get points for were "pushing" your opponent out of the ring sumo style......ya, whatever (you got 2 points for that).
Originally the rounds were to be 3 minutes then at the last second they were changed to 2 minutes. The reason for that was never clearly explained to anyone.
As with most amateur tornaments the scoring was often flawed. Sometimes fighters judged matches they weren't in. It also seemed in some bouts that the foreigners had to hit their opponent 4~5 times to score a point where as the Japanese just needed to hit them once. (some of the mpegs show this pretty clearly)
Despite all that and the weird rules and poor judging our guys won Over All Champion (Skip "The Foot" Taylor....nice KO) and Best Fighters.(There were no 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place type awards)
All things considered they (freinds and students) did a good job given the fact that in our dojo we normally do 3 minute rounds with no stopping and re-starting after a "point" is scored.
Tokyo Tournament May 2006
Kevin's Pro Fight!
This is one of my freind's pro fights in Tokyo.
My friend & sparring partner