Moving Taekwondo forward

It's called Kixsports and its an exciting new prospect in Taekwondo.
On the weekend I traveled to Evolution Taekwondo to participate in the trial event and to see what it was all about.

Kixsports is a team Taekwondo event, were you have 5 players per team competing against an opposition team. One player per team (equally matched in weight and ability) compete on the mats at one time for the length of the round (In this case it was two minutes but this could vary). At the end of the round they stop and the next two players walk onto the mat to begin their round. This continues until each player has sparred their opponent multiple times. The difference in this game is the points are not reset after each pair compete, they continue to add up accumulatively so by the end of the entire match you can have up to 50 or more points scored.

A little example is shown below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di-m-ZvLqEU

The two really interesting factors that caught my attention about this new type of competition were:
A. They will be using the Daedo electronic scoring system. This means more opportunities to gain valuable experience using this equipment.
B. Being a "league" sport the aim will be to compete every fortnight for 12 weeks. That means competing 6 more times a year on top of our regular state and national competitions.
The thought of getting so much more time competing is really exciting and can only be a benefit. With all the additional exposure to electronic scoring as well as becoming really comfortable with "competition day", hopefully Taekwondo in Australia can move forward in a similar manner to countries like Iran and Turkey were athletes have been competing on a regular basis for some time now.

Perhaps an additional benefit of having a league will be to help grow the sport. With regular competitions, longer matches and plenty of entertainment this will have the potential to attract new interest from the public.

If you are interested and would like further information check out the following links:

http://kixsport.com/

https://www.facebook.com/#!/KixSport