Over 40 Tournament Sparring (??)

I was wondering if any of you encounter a common problem in tournaments in the over 30 divisions  ... which is a very small percentage of participants who enter. I have heard stories of males especially who find themselves in the best shape of their lives having less opportunites to compete.

Have you ever had to switch over to the 18-30 division instead ??

I know that for senior women there are even few participants!

 

What is your experience??  ....  share your story here! 

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Tae Kwon Do is practiced by 70 million people in 180 different countries. If everyone who studied Tae Kwon Do joined hands, they could form a line that would stretch around the globe 1.25 times!

I haven't sparred on the tournament circuit, but I do spar regularly in class and its always against guys in their late teens to mid twenties.  I don't mind, but it would be nice to spar some guys my own age.  In any case, I do my kumdo and taekwondo classes back to back and the young guys all ask me how I manage to spar in taekwondo after doing a full kumdo class and sparring in that one too.

Daniel

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교사 Yidan kumdo, Ildan taekwondo

With the ITA closed tournaments we have the VIP but I had planned on completing in the normal division just because I don't like the idea of being singled out bacause of my age.  True my chances go down but I like hanging out with the younger guys anyway.  The divisions are based on the number of people signed up so at the regional last year the VIP was mixed in with the other Black Belts and then divided by size anyway but at our national I'm required to go VIP.

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I'm only as old as I act!

I have been to competitions where there are as many as 6 ladies in my sparring group and I have been to competitions where there is no one in my sparring group.
I have done exhibition matches with ladies who rank lower than me, ladies who rank higher than me, ans ladies that are in the 18-32 year old group.

My husband (who is also 40 and a 2nd Dan) always has plenty of competitors for sparring at tournaments.  At the US Open in February he had 7 people in his group where I had none and no one was willing to do an exhibition with me.

ITF in Australia is unfortunately not as popular as WTF consequantly, no many participants and I think I am the only one of my age in Sydney so tournments are certainly out, I do spare however during training in my own Dojang.

This however isn't as bad as it seems, I just concentrate much more on my paterns and techniques and assist Master Tam as much as I can.

Taekwon
Andre

Normally, there are only two to three females that will spar.  At times, I've elected to spar with the men in my division since there were no other females.  The guys were great and I learned a lot from them.

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NEVER GIVE UP & learn one new thing each day!

KickChick wrote: I was wondering if any of you encounter a common problem in tournaments in the over 30 divisions  ... which is a very small percentage of participants who enter. I have heard stories of males especially who find themselves in the best shape of their lives having less opportunites to compete. Have you ever had to switch over to the 18-30 division instead ?? I know that for senior women there are even few participants!   What is your experience??  ....  share your story here!

When I was competeing as an underbelt, there were many tournaments where I was the only one in my division. AAU tournaments will combine divisions until they have competitors for everyone, so there were a few tournaments where I was a Bo-Dan facing a white or yellow belt.

In the local Virginia tournaments (USA-TKD) there was a group of about five of us who would spar each other at every tournament... It was usually for beer tab afterwards (winner bought).

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Raleigh NC, 1st Dan

I have found it to be as Deb and NCBlackBelt have described.  There are about 4 gentlemen that show up to the same tournaments.  Though we don't spar for the bar tab, I don't drink, we do have a great time seeing how each of us have improved. 

Though I would like to spar w/ more folks my age, I am never at a loss to find an eager young BB to spar with @ my Dojang. 

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Old enough to know better; Dumb enough to keep going!

Over 40!

As a 40+, 2x National Double Gold Medalist in TaeKwonDo I truely appreciate the thin division!  Especially in the Featherweight division!!!  Last year, my competition in sparring was 1.  In my training up to that I probably faced at least 40 members of our team.
In forms there were 6 of us in the plus 40 group.
I have fought younger and much heavier...My first fight ended up with 3 cracked ribs from a guy 35 pounds heavier.  I have also fought guys 70 pounds heavier than me and won by TKO.  For me to drop an age bracket is not worth the risk of injury...I know I can not jump wheel and most 20 something Black Belts can!
Let's face it the older we get the more injuries occur and the healing is not as quick.  There are issues with kids, work, spouses, etc, too.  Pacing ourselves is crucial in training!
For example, this last Friday night I was the only male over 45 and under 5'7".  The big boys were there and I am smart enough to not hold bag for step in side kick!!!! 
On Saturday we had a ground fighting seminar, for Black Belts only, there were 6 of us over 40!  I guarantee we are all bruised and everyone walked out on their own 2 legs....albiet kinda slow!
I will be in Detroit this summer going for my 3rd straight double gold victories...Black Belt, Featherweight, 41-50 division...I would not be surprised to have as many as 3 fights or none.  In forms I expect there will be as many as a dozen.

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Streetlaw -"It's all just common sense!"