The Spirit of Competition (Again)

This is not my first post on the spirit of competition. But it is something that is important enough to talk about.

Recently, the National Wushu and Taiji Competition 2008 took place. Besides the post on www.xin.sg, there is also a forum post at SgWutan.com as well. Reading all the comments and posts, it seems that this year's competition wasn't that well organised, and wasn't that fair too.

The main complaints?
1. The judges were too young.
2. The judges don't seem to know how to differentiate between traditional and competitive forms.
3. The judges seem to give higher points to their own students to help them win.

If we are going to have a national competition to spur people on to greater heights in their practice of martial arts, then the competition must be fair. And that will depend greatly on the judges. If the judges are out to help their students win the competition, even if they don't deserve to, then they are not fair. If the judges are giving points to those who perform impressive moves such as jumps (something which is usually not found in traditional forms), then they may not be qualified to judge traditional forms. If the judges are too young, they may lack experience in judging, and knowledge in what is good and what is average.

And most of all, by not having a proper competition, it is the students, the competitors, who suffer the most. They go away with the wrong lessons. The average ones who win medals go away thinking they are good, which may make them proud when they should be humble. The good ones who went away losing may become disheartened, which is contrary to the competition's aim of spurring the level of wushu/taiji in Singapore to greater heights.

In the end, if a competition cannot be open and fair, then maybe it is time a watchdog steps in to correct the situation. If there is no checks and balances, eventually, the organising committee will run things their way, get away with it, and all at the expense of the wushu/taiji circle in Singapore.