HBD: Skip

[Lucas]

Posting this here cuz i know your a taiji guy.

Happy Birthday. Have a good one young man!

[Lucas]

Good luck Skip! I'm sure you will do great.

Thats a nice birthday present :)

[Lucas]

Thanks Lucas;

I appreciate it!

By the way, I sure would love to be enjoying some of that cool Portland air right now...

hehe. its nice out over here. i think this is our hottest day this year though, its 96 at the moment. :eek:

[Lucas]

its a pretty small window for that kind of heat around here. we get a few weeks of that kind of weather a year. on average our summers, excepting the hot parts, range from 70-85.

how was the competition?

[GLW]

Taijiquan and the time limit thing :

Using the example from this past weekend :

ALL Taijiquan routines INCLUDING the 42 Posture international routine were run at 3 to 3.5 minutes with a 3 minute warning (Granted, some or the warnings were harder to hear due to the guy on the intercom being loud and talking WAY TOO MUCH...) but the strategy is:

(1) First, recognize that unless you are doing 24 posture Taijiquan, none of the Taijiquan sets can be done in 3.5 minutes.
(2) Now, decide if you are going to do the routine in order and just stop when you hit time or if you are going to take the routine and pick and choose what you do.

For things like 24, 42, 48, etc... You pretty much have to go until you run out of time. All others, it is more common to create your own competition set.

(3) if going until you run out of time, simply do your thing and listen for the 3 minute warning. When you hear it, you have 30 seconds. Do a normal close up and end in an orderly fashion....that is all there is to it. The hard part is to hear the warning....so train that.

(4) if doing a subset of a longer routine - your own 'creation', put things in as near the order as you can. Choose the pieces you do well and that show principles, and level of difficulty...do NOT include pieces you do NOT do weil...that is sort of like point gun at foot, pull trigger.

(5) Recognize that in demo and competition, the adrenaline will flow. This means that you will experience time dilation - you WILL most likely do the routine faster than you do in practice....it is natural.

So, for 3.5 minutes, if you have a 3.5 minute set, you will probably end very close to 3 minutes or maybe a little less. So, do a 3.75 minute routine...and have two endings...on at about 30 seconds from the end and one at the end...just in case.

Then note where you should be at 3 minutes and listen for it. Then, you can tell if you need to speed up or slow down..but if you hit the 3 minute mark, you just have to end in the next 30 seconds to be OK.

It is really not that big of a deal if you think about it first.

To be honest, most judges who know what they are doing have your score within 0.1 or 0.2 points withing the first 20 seconds of your routine.

[GLW]

I must admit to being a bit puzzled. If you competed in 24 Posture in the 24 Posture division, you would have been in my ring.

We did not use the extra 1/2 papers for anyone. Also, since I was the head judge for 24, 42, 48 Taijiquan and 42 Taijijian, I can tell you that there were NO deductions for over or under time. There was one tie for 3rd place for 24.

So, I guess there must have been another ring, like Other Taijiquan, where you performed. However, that points out an error on the part of the Head Judge for that other ring if you did perform in a ring doing 24 and it was not mine.

That error is that if there is a specific division for a routine (like 24) and you perform it in Other Taijiquan or in Yang (quite common but 24 is NOT Yang Style - it is derived from Yang but has Sun and Wu influences in it as well), the head judge is supposed to point out that you are performing in the wrong division, tell you what division to go get registered in, and then give a no score.

There is always a problem with people not knowing that 24 Posture is NOT Yang Style. The routine was created in the early/mid 1950's - part of New China Taijiquan...and differs in flavor - for example, Wave hands is more like Sun and Wu style than Yang. The rock step is borrowed from Sun and applied to Gong Bu et al. The Grasp Sparrow's tail is simplified and stylistically changed....etc...

We held all of the people to 3.5 minutes. The biggest issue I had was that the ring behind me was overly loud in their head judge's calling out the 3 minute warning and my timekeeper's voice did not carry as loud as it should have all the time.

[GLW]

One thing that always surprises me is the lack of people who come up to ask about the justifications for their score...or for tips.

Now, if I am still judging, I will tell them I can't really talk about improvements but will mention the reasons for scores. To go into things to do better blurs the ethical line if I am still judging. If they take that info and then come up in front of me again, it might look like conflict of interest.

After the judging is done, I am personally happy to share anything with someone who comes up and asks...but almost never offer info unasked.

This weekend was a single time I broke that rule. The competitor did not ask...but I DID offer a critique. Basically, the guy had performed his Jian with his index finger in front of the guard...a good way to get your finger chopped off. I let him know that since he was doing a modern set, it had not really been deducted for...but I WAS tempted. I added that there were plenty of judges who WOULD have scored him down greatly for it....

[GLW]

Still puzzled...

By your own ring, you mean Jimmy Wong's Chin Woo group?

24 and other Taijiquan sets are not Chin Woo...they have been incorporated into many curricula. I even ran into one Korean group who tried to claim that 24 Taijiquan was created by the Koreans...go figure.

But in reality, if you are competing in the Chin Woo forms, you should by all means do the Chin Woo division.

However, there are a number of those forms that can and should be done in other divisions as well.

By doing that, you get to come up against not only your own schools (and you probably know where you stand with them anyway), but also against the big ocean of people that have nothing to do with your system. It can be a broadening experience...and sometimes an eye-opening one as well.

I am always a bit surprised at where I get placed judging.

I have a background in a couple of southern styles ages ago. Then a long time studying northern long fist, Chaquan, and several systems of Taijiquan. I learned a few of the modern routines and also trained in the contemporary methods for scoring...mainly to be well rounded as a judge and also to try to bring the structured approach to scoring to traditional and Taijiquan divisions.

After all, if you can't support the why of your score and be fairly consistent in the score, it is all just hocus pocus.

But, for some reason, I find myself being a head judge in Contemporary divisions...or like this year, the 24, 42, 48 Taijiquan divisions. Part of it is I am a stickler for the rules. If it is not written down, you can't apply it. For example, there was a rule forgotten - weight of the weapons for traditional. In principle, I agree that traditional divisions should NOT use the tinfoil swords and such. The weapon should be able to support its own weight. But, the rule is not in there so to apply it the day of the event is unfair. Someone may have practiced with the light weapon because they could...then show up and have to change to something they are not familiar with. That is an arbitrariness I have trouble with.

But then again, I have been fighting for all competition's rules no matter who does them to be final and available to the competitors at least 1 month before the event....and by final, I MEAN final - no changes the day of the event.

And, on the whole, Jimmy Wong's event is one of the better ones out there...and the one with the longest history...He organizes it well and has a good core group of people who back him up.

[Skip J.]

Hey Lucas; would you delete this thread?

Please?

Hello GLW;

Trust me, I have taken all of your words to heart!

Thanks for everything guys!