By: Steve Schwettman

Throughout 2020 and 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many long-standing events to either move to a virtual format or be scrapped entirely. I saw this as an opportunity to participate in activities that I wouldn’t normally be able to travel to. When I stumbled upon information that the Amateur Athletic Union was holding a Taekwondo tournament over Zoom, I felt like I just had to investigate.

What I found was that the AAU was holding virtual competitions in many different categories, basically every event they would normally have at a tourney, except for sparring. There were several different breaking events, many different forms competitions, weapons forms, and creative divisions. I studied the requirements and instructions for each event. I finally decided that I would participate in two events that align with our training here at the Mountain Academy: Tang Soo Do Traditional Forms and Open Traditional Forms.

I’m writing this account of my experience so that others in the Mountain Academy might gain an understanding of what it takes to compete in a national tournament. It’s not as difficult as it first may seem. And if I can do it, I guarantee that any student or black belt who was taken the first step of reading this document is fully capable of competing in a Nationals too!

What Tournaments Can We Compete In?

Participating in a national’s competition can be a confusing experience, because either you or your coach/instructor need to understand the particular set of rules that apply to each tournament sanctioning body. There are two primary national sanctioning bodies in the U.S.:

Team USA Taekwondo

Team USA competitions are strictly reserved for schools in the Kukkiwon or World Taekwondo Federation. They use different forms than our school, and their sparring looks very different. For these reasons, students from the Mountain Academy are generally not eligible to participate in Team USA competitions.

AAU Taekwondo

The Amateur Athletic Union has taken a very different approach, allowing students from any association or federation to participate. Some events, such as forms competitions, are broken into specific Taekwondo styles so that you only compete against students with a similar background to yours. This means that not only are we eligible for AAU competition, but our training aligns with many of the events.
Since I was interested in competing in the forms events, I found that the AAU has four categories of traditional form competition:

• WT Traditional Forms
• ITF Traditional Forms
• TSD Traditional Forms
• Open Traditional Forms

The WT category is for schools in the World Taekwondo Federation, just like Team USA Taekwondo. So, that event is not for us. The ITF category is for schools in the International Taekwondo Federation, again that’s not a fit. But, the TSD Traditional Forms competition is open to students from any school with a Moo Duk Kwan or Tang Soo Do background. JACKPOT!

The final event is Open Traditional Forms. This event pits competitors from all the above styles against each other. If you know a form from one of the previous styles, you can enter Open Traditional Forms.

What Forms Are We Allowed to Do?

Competitors are broken into competition groups according to age, gender, and rank. Your rank determines what forms you are allowed to perform. For color belts, there are only three ranks:

• Beginner. This is for White and Yellow belts.
• Intermediate. For Green and Blue belts.
• Advanced. For Red belts.

Black belt divisions are divided similarly, so that you only compete with others of your approximate experience level.

The AAU publishes a rule book which explains which forms you are allowed to perform at your rank. All of the color belt groups align with our forms, so if you know the highest form for your belt, you are already qualified to compete! You are also allowed to use the form from your previous belt rank. So if you just recently became a Blue belt with Stripe, you can choose to perform Pyong Ee Dan instead of Pyong Sam Dan if you aren’t comfortable with it yet.

The complete list of acceptable forms is available in the AAU Handbook. You can find the most recent handbook by going to aautaekwondo.org Once there, click on the ‘Resources’ tab, and select ‘Rules Handbook’. Skip forward to ‘Recognized Forms/Patterns’, which is on page 36 of the 2021 handbook.

If you watch any of the national tournaments either in-person or from videos, you might notice some differences in how each school does a particular form. As far as I can tell, judges do not pay attention to minor differences in how a form is performed. The rule book states that forms are judged according to “beauty, grace, rhythm, focus, power, and technique.”

A Word About Nomenclature

When you browse the list of forms in the rule book, you may find that you don’t recognize any of the forms on the list. But not to worry, that’s only because every school has their own way of naming the forms. In order to understand the list, I had to break down AAU’s designation of each form and align it with our own:

• Ech Chan Cho Bu = Ki Cho 1
• Ech Chan Ee Bu = Ki Cho 2
• Ech Chan Shim Bu = Ki Cho 3
• Pyong Cho Dan = Pyung-An 1
• Pyong Ee Dan = Pyung-An 2
• Pyong Sam Dan = Pyung-An 3

And so on, you get the idea. Unfortunately, things get very complicated for black belts, because the AAU does not allow the Naihanchi forms. But that’s another story for another time.

Once I had figured out that I could perform either Bassai or Pyong O Dan, I decided I was ready to sign up! I decided that I was going to go with Bassai, because I wanted to compete with the form that was most difficult for me, so that I could really challenge myself. I went to their online registration system, became an AAU member, and signed up for both the TSD and Open Traditional Forms competitions. The process was simple, even though there were some bugs in their system. Time to practice!

Preparation and Dealing with Anxiety

I contacted my primary instructors, sent them a video of my Bassai, and asked if they could help me tweak my form to perfection. I received a huge amount of amazing feedback, a tribute to how helpful our instructors are. I started rehearsing my form by focusing on one piece of advice at a time until I had each one down. I practiced at least 10 times a day for around 3 weeks, only occasionally taking a day off.

My challenge in competition isn’t knowing the form, my problem is ANXIETY. I become gripped with a generalized fear and panic whenever it’s time to perform. I personally feel that this is the single biggest obstacle that I need to deal with in my martial arts training. If the moment arises that I need to use what I’ve learned, the stress of the moment could easily cause me to forget parts of my training or go completely blank. I feel that I need to push through the stress so that I become comfortable with it, and competition allows me to do that.

This is also why I like to perform in martial arts demonstrations. Being up on a stage, with an audience watching, is a major fear-factor moment for me. But when I push through it and accomplish my task, it makes it less stressful the next time, because I’m more accustomed to performing under that stress. Performing in tournaments and demos has been a huge help to my training, so if you have problems with anxiety, I highly suggest pushing your limits so that they become comfortable, then push them some more!

So, the reason I practiced so much wasn’t necessarily to perfect all of the little tweaks, it was to become so comfortable with Bassai that I could perform it without thought or effort, it would just flow. That way, even if I went completely blank due to anxiety, as long as I could pull of my Choon-bi and first move, the rest would just happen.

Performing in a ‘Virtual’ Tournament

For those of us that have been dealing with Zoom for many months, the virtual process was extremely simple. Two days before the tournament, I received an email containing a Zoom link with a date and time to report. All I needed to do was sign on with that link at the listed time, and I would be put in a virtual waiting room until it was my turn.

The AAU also simulcast the event on Youtube. My particular Zoom link refers to a virtual competition ‘Ring’. I think there were 9 rings in total. So, in order to watch my ring during event day, I just brought up the Youtube livestream of my ring. Attached to the email was a list of every event and competitor scheduled into that ring, so I could follow along and tell when my events were coming up.

While watching the livestream and warming up, it became clear that the ring was going through events much faster than scheduled, and that my times to perform were going to be early. So I signed into the Zoom waiting room early, but my competitors were not so savvy, and this created delays. We ended up waiting 25 minutes for one of my competitors to show up. I highly suggest that if any of you try this, don’t be THAT guy. Watch the live stream so you know when it’s time to sign in.

Just like any Zoom meeting, you need to have a strong Internet connection (use a cable rather than wifi if you are able, and avoid cellular Internet). Use a device with a good camera, with clear lighting and sound. Make sure you have a large enough area in your home to perform, or if the weather is nice you might set up outside. Throughout the tournament I saw several examples of competitors not following these basic guidelines. They didn’t score as well as they probably could have.

When it was time to compete, I was moved from the waiting room to the ring, and my video appeared in Zoom alongside the announcer and my competitor. My Zoom video didn’t turn on automatically for some reason, so I had to click a couple things to get everything moving. Also, many competitors forget to turn their microphone on. You need to have your microphone on so that judges can hear your Kihaps.

Once you’re on video, the process moves along exactly like any tournament. The announcer calls Charyut, Kyungrae, Choon-bi, Shijack (which means begin). After you perform, the judges appear on the video and they each hold up a card showing who they chose as the winner. There are 3 judges and majority rules. You can click the links at the end of this document to see one of my performances.

So How Did I Do?

As I said before, I competed in Tang Soo Do Traditional Forms and Open Traditional Forms. To my amazement, I WON both events! The AAU mails out the medals after the event, so I have two gold medals on their way.

As far as my stress levels, I was in full panic mode for both events right up until “Shijack”. But once I completed that first Bassai move, the stress disappeared and I said to myself, “I got this”. I was confident that I would get through the form without stumbling and do the best that I was capable of at that moment. Apparently, it was enough!

If I can do it, so can you. It’s never too late or too early, since there are divisions for every age group and skill level. I’m strongly considering travelling to an in-person AAU tournament in the future to test my abilities in person. And if you choose to give competition a shot, best of luck, I know you can do it!

Links

Recording of my Open Traditional Forms competition: youtu.be/xfx3Wn8S_kU
AAU Taekwondo home page: aautaekwondo.org/
Livestream Youtube channel: youtube.com/channel/UCbVsyjEwbyNulXgDiFHKD_Q
Facebook: facebook.com/AAUTaekwondo/