Floor area size in wushu tournament?

[zhugeliang]

Going to my first competition this month in Texas. What floor area size do I expect for a wushu competition?

[Lucas]

I dont have deminsions for you but from the large competitions ive seen id say roughly 40x40 or so...but i dont know for sure. it may depends on the competition too. for instance if its a karate tournement that has wushu invite you probably wont have as much space lol if it is strictly cma you can probably expect international standard which i think is around the 40 ft mark.

[zhugeliang]

Ok, that helps. I was looking at the tournament site and was trying to find floor dimensions but could not find the information.

[Lucas]

Good luck at the competition!!

[GLW]

Given the time frame, I am assuming you are talking about the Chin Woo event in Temple. That, Johnny Lee's in I think May, and then the big Chin Woo Legends in July or so...

In the events in Texas, they play pretty loose with the size of the performance area. Typically, for training, you will need to follow the IWuF rules for Taolu if you are doing Contemporary Wushu. For other routines, the ring size is not really specific.

So, how it goes is that you train using the IWuF sized ring and know how much room you need. Then, if they have the ring at regulation size, you are covered. This is sort of unlikely since there are not that many people in Texas that do Contemporary Wushu.

What is more likely is that the ring will be a bit too small..and if you know you need more, you tell the head judge before you start. I have seen some events where the ring that was set up was not even large enough for me to do 24 Posture Taijiquan much less a changquan routine. So, you train for what you need but be aware of what you need and how you might be able to adjust.

If you go to an event like the one at Berkley, the ring will be regulation IWuF size, though.

[GeneChing]

That's about 27 ft x 46 ft. Wushu carpets are very expensive and hard to move, so most tournaments will only have one rugged wushu ring. As GLW says, few tournaments abide by the official wushu rules as it is very hard to meet IWuF standards. Currently, there are only two tournaments in the U.S. that fully abide by official IWuF rules, USAWKF Nationals and UC Berkeley's Chinese Martial Arts Tournament.

We have two official rugs at TCKFMCIII. They are really bothersome to move, but we couldn't run decent modern wushu without them. We don't meet IWuF standards because we don't bring in enough officially certified IWuF judges, nor do we use the IWuF scoring equipment. But we still throw a decent wushu tournament.

[Lucas]

Shows what I know!

[zhugeliang]

Given the time frame, I am assuming you are talking about the Chin Woo event in Temple.

Yes, I am going to that one. And if I survive that one, then on to the Plano tournament in late July. Yes, contemporary wushu for me. I was trying to map out the floor area by watching some Youtube vides of the previous tournaments in Texas and those taped off floor areas are so small, and the judges tables so pushed close together that it has to be unsafe for those observing the weapons events. So I am wondering, at the Temple event, would I be fined points for accidentally stepping out of bounds during the routine?

[kristcaldwell]

you shouldn't be deducted for points so long as you let the judges know the amount of floor-space you plan to use in advance. i used to compete, regularly, at the chin woo hosted events and they usually have a larger carpeted area for wushu.

[GeneChing]

aka Taiji Legacy. See you gentlemen there.

You must join us for our annual Friday night KFM forum gathering. Last year, we had a whopping four members attend. If you two (zhugeliang & kristcaldwell) show, we'll increase our Twin Peaks membership by 50%! Seriously, it's really chill - we just eat, drink and hang out - sort of like the forum here except face-to-face. The waitresses are even like sanjuro's pic posts.

[GLW]

I have a problem with the way a lot of events set up their rings. Often, they are so eager to get more rings running that they end up with ring sizes that are too small, have no space around them for the competitors to warm up, watch, be on deck, get from ring to ring, and so on.

Then, as a judge, you have to stop the action in the your ring to wait for the adjacent ring to finish when you need to run a competitor with a full ring use set. Then, the adjacent ring has to stop too.

And on top of all that, the events often have trouble getting a full contingent of judges anyway. There should be 5 scoring judges and 1 head judge per ring. At best, you end up with 4 and the head judge scoring. At worst, you often end up with 3 scoring or even 2 and the head judge scoring. And all of this with rings that are too small to work and the number of competitors is often too small to really warrant the corners that are being cut.

If, on the outside chance, you are competing in a ring that actually has a full set of contemporary wushu judges AND a correctly sized rug and ring, I would expect the standard deductions for going out of bounds to apply. However, should the ring not be correct, there would be no grounds on which to base the penalty. And, if the judges are not fully versed in the contemporary rules, the deductions would not be applied anyway.

Often, even the time limit rules are not enforced until you hit the advanced levels...if then.

[zhugeliang]

Yes, well, I'm competing as a beginner and this my first tournament so that was what I was wondering about ring size. And the time minimum, that's not a problem for me since my changquan is thirty seconds long and daoshu is forty five seconds long. Thanks for the invite, Gene, but let's see first if I survive Temple.