Tai Chi and Competition: Team Tournament & CACMA (Part 1)
By Rachel Prevost
Columbia Tai Chi Center student Rachel Prevost in the “Crane Spreads its Wings” posture while practicing the Tai Chi form.
Team Tourney is an inter-lineage contest between The Peaceful Dragon, Lake Norman Tai Chi Center, Columbia Tai Chi Center, and The Phoenix and Dragon that takes place every year. It’s held in The Peaceful Dragon’s main studio in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Everyone who enters in Team Tourney is divided into one of 4 teams, Crane, Tiger, Little Dragon, and Panther. As a last minute entrant I got to pick which team I was on, I chose Crane team. I thought it’d be appropriate considering I study at The Hall of the Snake and Crane. The teams have adults and children, men and women and each team has a colored arm band they wear for the day so everyone can recognize who is on which team.
There are three team contests at the beginning, middle, and end of the tournament. All three team events are less about how strong or skilled someone may be and more about people working together as a team. The first was a three legged race, the second a hot potato contest using beach balls, and the third, a pass-the-basketball contest.
During the first team event – the three legged race – one of the teams had a very unique strategy. They paired each child with an adult and when it came time for them to run the adult picked up the child and ran with them. May have to try that next year…
After the first team event was over they had three areas set up for competitions. The first area had small kids competing doing stances and basic kung-fu blocks and kicks. I found myself feeling very old seeing a 5 year old doing a very deep horse stance and not having problems with their knees.
The second area had older kids doing the same competitions as the younger children. The older kids did show a higher level of skill than the younger ones and were just as flexible.
Most of the children’s competitions seemed to focus on the basics of forms in kung-fu, tai chi, and weapons. While I did watch some of the other competitions now and then, I was mostly focused on the tai chi area. This was my first tai chi tourney ever and I wanted to get as much of an idea as I could before it was my time to compete.
The third area had adult qigong competition going on at the same time. Since I arrived the previous year, I wasn’t certain what adult qigong would be like as there are many qigong techniques we do in class. As I watched I realized that the adult chi gong competition is the same “Push the Mountain” exercise we do. As I watched I had some regret not entering last year since qigong is only for beginners and having over a year of experience I had to enter at the intermediate level.
Immediately after the qigong came the beginner’s solo form. I watched the set of beginners go through Part One of the solo form, most of them were pretty good but unfortunately some didn’t know all of the first part. While they didn’t announce the scores to the entire room, I focused on what the judges were saying and I heard them say they had to deduct points on some because they didn’t use the full length of their time.
When they announced the intermediate solo form, we all went to the third ring to check in. There were four of us, me and three guys (you’ll see where this becomes a running theme throughout the day for my events). One of the things I learned before it was my time to compete was that when an event has more than three entrants, they judge the first three and compile their scores before anyone else competes. I freely admit I was nervous already but knowing I had to wait until the first three was over made me even more nervous.