1. Creative Forms
Just like it sounds. Creative. No flips or crazy stuff that the average martial artist probably can’t do. Don’t try to jump in with extreme moves because you think you can sneak them in and make them look creative – that’s not cool. Summersaults and cartwheels are fine. No handed techniques, twists and super hard stuff should not show up in this division. If you can do great kicks, this is a great division for those!
2. Traditional Forms
Again, just like it sounds. Traditional. This does not mean go back to 987 AD to find a routine that has been passed down from Shaolin Monk to Japanese master to your grand master who taught it to his ninjas and then you learned it. We know that traditional is defined by the style and we are going to trust you to perform a truly traditional routine in this division as defined by your style. However, if your style’s traditional routines involve flips – it’s not traditional so don’t do it. If you are a soft stylist that does flips of any kind, we are going to ask you to do your routine in the creative or extreme divisions depending on the techniques you are going to use.
3. Musical Forms
Musical forms means you use music with your form. It would be cool if you could match your moves to the musical beats and will probably help you get better scores but if you don’t want to do that, it’s cool but could detract from your score. Note that even if a stream is blocked due to copyright, we are recording all of the competition.
You have to play your own music when you perform and provide your own music player. We suggest playing music on a separate player rather than through the device you are using to connect to the Zoom competition room. Make sure to be able to turn your music up so we can hear it!
4. Extreme Forms
Extreme means extreme – do whatever you want. Note that if you can’t do flips and stuff, you might not do great in this division if your competition is doing flips and stuff but don’t fret – this is a great event to try something new. But no music in extreme - only in musical.
5. Creative, Traditional, Musical, Extreme Weapons
Same as Creative, Traditional, Musical, Extreme Forms but with a weapon. If you drop a weapon, you should pick it up and keep going. Judges will be able to take a .5 point off or downgrade you in general for a dropped weapon depending on how spectacular the drop or the number of drops but you never know, everyone in the division might drop so you could still win!
6. First Timer Division
If you have never competed or are just getting started and feeling kind of shy – this is a great division. You can do whatever you want – your blocking routine, a form, a weapons routine, as many round kicks as you can, your best flying side kicks over some things, etc. Be creative and show us what you’ve got. You have 60 seconds to do your thing. And you get to meet a bunch of other people. We will coach you through introducing yourself to the judges and give performance tips. We’ll give you scores but this is not a competitive division and no one will be declared a winner.
7. Tricking Challenge and Weapons Battle
Each competitor has 45 seconds to perform the coolest tricking combos he/she can do.Make sure you have enough space to do whatever you plan to do and that you use a space where you won’t get hurt if you land wrong. We highly recommend that you don’t do this on concrete and instead use a grassy or padded area with no obstacles around. For the weapons trick battle, you have to use a weapon. Duh.