Hello all,
I used to post here a lot many, many moons ago, but haven't been around here for a while.
I'm just posting this for any enthusiasts of traditional Chinese swordsmanship---The TCSL is holding a beginnner's tournament this spring, for anyone who might be interested. Our league promotes hard-contact, Chinese-style, wooden sword fighting competition.
In a nutshell, here are the rules:
* Contestants can be from any school or style of Chinese martial arts, and can use any type of jian or dao, as long as it meets the specifcations detailed in the rules
* swords must have MINIMUM weight of 600 grams (1.33 lbs), bringing them in line with historical Chinese swords
* all techniques with the sword are allowed
* Every part of the body is a legal target
* blows must hit hard enough that they would have caused serious injury if they had been performed with real swords
* FULL power, bone-breaking blows are not allowed, partially for safety, and partially because we want to promote swordsmanship, and don't want people using their wooden swords as clubs.
* Different targets have different point values, but a solid blow delivered to head or torso will be considered a "kill" and will end the match.
* Punches, kicks and throws are allowed (although they don't count for much point-wise)
Full rules, and equipment requirements are here:
http://www.swordleague.com/rules.html
The next tournament will be a beginner's tournament (less than 2 years experience), and will take place on April 3, 2010, in Bladensburg, MD. See the official site at the link above for more info. Grand prize will be a custom made wooden jian made by Graham Cave:
http://www.tigers-den-swords.com/web_pages/products.htm
Here's our MySpace page with a video clip of our 2008 tournament:
http://www.myspace.com/chinese_sword_league
I've competed in both of our tournaments so far, so if anyone has any questions, comments or criticisms (perish the thought!) I'd be happy to answer them!
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