Last Sunday we had our first Training Day for the year. The focus for the day was on umpiring and refereeing for tournaments. There were more than 30 students from our school, ranging in age from primary school kids to adults.
We started with Chon-Ji, looking at how we perform each movement technically, and how our technical execution fits together within the pattern. We then watched individuals and teams performing a range of Gup patterns and discussed how we would score each performance based on the appropriate criteria for Technique, Power, Breath Control, Balance and Rhythm. We discussed the degree to which these things interact with each other (underpinning the importance of sine wave), and then all the students divided into teams to coreograph a team pattern to introduce the concept of coordination between the team members as yet another aspect to performance and to judging. It is so important to see the things we do from a range of perspectives so that we understand the bigger picture and can see both where we came from and where we have to go.
After lunch, we spent an hour on Power Breaking and Special Techniques, with detailed breakdown of how to perform each technique under tournament conditions. Then we learnt how to be corner judges and referees while we practiced our sparring. It was a really good learning exercise to be sparring with a view to scoring points and then immediately sitting as a corner judge and trying to award points fairly - the change in perspective reinforced lessons in both spheres and made the later part of the day pass surprisingly quickly.
The experience we gained during the Training Day will be reinforced in upcoming In-House tournaments, so that we will have plenty of confident and qualified referees and judges into the future and it will allow some of the adult club members an opportunity to participate actively in tournaments without having to compete themselves.
Posted by lzwise at May 17, 2005 10:08 PM