Organise Karate Tournaments

Many of us have seen the movie ‘Karate Kid’ or at-least the fights in the last part of the movie. The fight sequence is part of a Kung-fu tournament is the highlight of the movie.

Even though Karate and Kung-fu are different in many ways. The tournaments, events and winner selections are all very similar. Organising Tournaments in Karate is most likely doing it for other Sports. Only the rules of declaring the winner differs. The rules are set the sports authority of the the specific games and they constantly change it to make the sport better. In this post we will discuss mostly about the organising portion not the winning portion of tournament.

Before we begin

Karate tournaments mainly have 2 major events in different categories.

• Kata Event (Individual or Team)
• Kumite Event (Individual or Team)

More details on these can be found in the previous post. In this post we will see how typically karate tournaments are organised

Step 1: Plan for Tournament

The tournament starts with a planning and it involves

1. Finalising the type of tournament (District, State, National, InterNational)
2. Approval from your grand master or style representative
3. Getting chief guest date
4. Availability and Booking of Hall/Stadium — Tournament venue
5. Finalising the list of karate schools (single/multiple styles) to invite

Step 2: Get Entries

Once the date and venue is finalised, prepare invitation and invite other karate classes. This can be a physical invitation or digital invite through your website, email, whatsapp etc.

It is very important to give the deadline for entires. Mostly it will be 1 week to 1 day before tournament date. The entries can be collected physically or digitally.

Step 3: Order for Trophies and Certificates

After inviting other karate classes, you might have a rough estimation on the total participants and hence do the math on trophies and certificates needed.

Step 4: Prepare for the Tournament — Checklist

1. Work on Banners and Flyers
2. All the table work materials — from score sheets, whistle to stop watch
3. Finalise the no.of bouts and Arrange for Mats and Flags accordingly
4. Ensure adequate Judge panel is available to match no.of bouts
5. Arrange for the catering refreshment services during tournament

Step 5: Split the Participants

Once the deadline for entries is over, decide on the various categories for both events and split the entries into them. You might want to balance the categories for a proper distribution of students.

You may want to use some software or excel to make your life easier. This can be done manually also.

Step 5: Tournament Day

On the tournament day,

1. Call all the Referees/Judges give them instructions on the tournament rules and regulations tailored for Tournament
2. Split the Judge, Arbitrator, Score keeping team for each bouts
3. Handover them a set of lists prepared earlier for conducting in their bouts
4. Make either the score keepers or Arbitrator responsible for the lists
5. On a regular basis visit all the bouts and collect the winners list
6. Prepare the trophies and certificates accordingly
7. Plan the distribution ceremony in 2 or more phases. This will ensure less agitated parents, who don’t have to wait for more time to collect prizes.

I might have missed few things especially things involved with money right from fees collection, sponsorships to payments of various services. The idea of this blog is to convey the amount of work involved in organising a tournament. Hopefully, I conveyed it !

Next time when you or your kids attend a tournament — you are having some tough time. Be patient and before loosing your temper, try to be on the shoes of tournament organisers :-)