Martial Arts Festival - WWOS - Oct 28th

[ehagerty]

 

[OhMari]

Who is in the pictures? Tell us a little about the Martial Arts Festival at Wide World of Sports.

 

[summersfam4]

Please tell more about the Martial Arts Festival. I only heard about it this year but hope to participate next year! Is there a large turn out? Is the competition tough? Did you compete? If so what style of Martial Arts do you do? Please fill us is

Kelly

 

[ehagerty]

We attended for the first time this year - although I've been thinking about it since it was started. My husband owns and is a master instructor for a traditional, non-competition, strictly-the-art-of-self-defense style (basically, the same style studied by Chuck Norris, as he was a student with Tom's instructor's instructor). 16 yr old son and myself are both black belts, as well - although I am not in sufficient condition to compete. Might give me something to strive for though - didn't see any other gray-haired ladies competing!!

The facility - the Milkhouse at WWOS - is a wonderful venue. There were about 24 mats on the main floor - with good seating. There were about another 10 off to the side.

There was always at least 3-4 events worth watching at any one time. The had traditional martial arts, kata to music (very acrobatic - movie-style - very talented, but more acrobatic than martial - not that they are mutually exclusive, but, without going into a large digression, fancy moves leave you vulnerable....)

The level of talent was VERY high - especially the Chinese, with weapons - Wu su, tai chi, kung fu. Not surprising, the Peking opera/acrobats had open try-outs in Orlando the day after the festival ended.

The only events that were not that interesting to us were the sparring events. There are specific fighting styles/rules, tae kwon do related. We spar full speed, no contact (you score a point by extending the punch / kick as close to the target as possible - like half an inch - without touching). The sparring events in competitions count points relative to contact. Eighty percent of the time, they look more like wrestlers (to me) than martial artists. We saw many points scored (by our standards - and, apparently, the contender's) that were not called. Not a bad thing, just not something that was as interesting to us as the kata competitions.

As you can see from the pictures, these people had beautiful form!!

Will definitely consider going again - maybe staying longer, seeing more.

 

[OhMari]

Thanks for explaining the event with us.

Did WDW give you any discounts for going to the meet?

 

[summersfam4]

Thanks so much for describing the event! The pictures are impressive! I love the good deep stances! My daughter and I practice tae kwon do (I also lead the beginning of the classes (meditation and stretching), and teach some of the lower level katas. Katas are my favorite part, but I enjoying the light contact sparring that we practice as being hit occasionally has greatly helped me improve my blocking. We also do musical katas and musical weapon katas, but they are strictly for show (there isn't any music during a real fight lol)

Thanks for sharing!
Kelly

 

[ehagerty]

Thanks for explaining the event with us.

Did WDW give you any discounts for going to the meet?

We didn't ask about discounts. I had originally tried to get tickets and WWOS park passes ahead of time, but since the 800 no longer works, and the web site doesn't seem to work very well, I gave up.

 

[ehagerty]

Thanks so much for describing the event! The pictures are impressive! I love the good deep stances! My daughter and I practice tae kwon do (I also lead the beginning of the classes (meditation and stretching), and teach some of the lower level katas. Katas are my favorite part, but I enjoying the light contact sparring that we practice as being hit occasionally has greatly helped me improve my blocking. We also do musical katas and musical weapon katas, but they are strictly for show (there isn't any music during a real fight lol)

Thanks for sharing!
Kelly

The had exhibitions, competitions, etc. of the types of arts you describe. Always enjoyable to watch "the best" do their thing.