Its the practitioner and not the art
I dont know what its like at tournaments today.
But back in the 80's when I competed, we wanted to get into the sparring side of competition and sometimes did, (and sometimes lost) but mainly we did answer those who asked why we didnt that the rules didnt allow us the freedom to properly utilize our style. We would have had to conform to the karate styles at the time.
Our classroom sparring sessions was anything goes. Just dont seriously hurt the other guy. When your training is of that method, and you get into the square with another student at a tournament, and you are not allowed to do the things you were taught to do, when you are not allowed to even make contact sometimes, when you cant take them to the ground, or apply a solid joint lock to imobilize..... then the sparring aspect of competition becomes useless to you.
We often would take those aside who asked us such questions and do a little sparring to with them in an effort to help us all understand better. And most times it opened eyes. And there were a few rare times that in the tournament ring, we just decided we didnt care if we got disqualified. Those rare times showed those around us what we meant. One example from a long time ago: I was taught to get inside, to stick to the guy, to never leave his house, and to never stop or lower my guard even if he was down. Thats how I did at tournaments. The referee didnt like that. He literally told me one time "When I say stop, drop your hands!" So the next time I did exactly as he said, when he stopped us for the point decision. Then the opponent had the gall to try and hit me afterwards. I dont rightly remember all that happened, but my friends told me. They said, the guy punched at my face, and I hooked his leg and kicked it skyward while striking his shoulder real hard and slamming him to the ground. They also said I then proceeded to shake my finger at him and yell at him to dont do that again or I'll hurt you. It all happened in a flash. Something came at my face, I moved like I was taught, and he slammed to the ground and couldnt get up. Wether or not he won the match by points, the match was over at that point. My opponent knew that I was holding back on him.
In fact, my instructor used to tell his opponent that he was just going to play with him. Then he would go out there and make a fool of him without breaking a sweat. Another teacher of mine, broke a guys leg in a tournament match, and another teacher put one of the judges in the hospital when the judge told him the form he was demonstrating was useless. (my teacher told him to come out and he'd show it to him.)
My point of all this is that I am sure there are practitioners out there that can fight in tournaments, but the tournament rules as I understand them, dis-allow so many factors for safety that its almost pointless to do it. That plus the fact that its ultimately the practitioner and NOT the art that is the deciding factor of a fight.
In this I am sure there are many who agree
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