Parent’s Corner
by Sije Veronica Sas
Fu For You Spring 2025
Even though winter seems to be never ending this year, spring is just around the corner. With spring comes WKFA’s annual Spring Invitational Tournament or “SIT”. This tournament is held at the Academy and for the last few years, students from Kitchener Kicks have also been invited. Kitchener Kicks is the school where our founder Sigung Bob received his black sash and there is still a close relationship between our schools. If your child is new to competitions, this tournament is a great place to start. Your child would compete against students of similar rank and will know many of them as they are in the same class.
If you’ve never seen competitions at WKFA, you might be afraid that the matches can be overly aggressive, like some of the tournaments shown on tv shows. This is not the case! Sparring in WKFA tournaments is like the “Chop Stick Sparring” that the Youth and Junior classes did before Christmas. This is called “Point Sparring” where the match is stopped after each point is earned and goes to a maximum time or point total, whichever comes first. There is also very limited head contact, and no face contact.
Not all students like to compete, and that’s okay. My daughter competed once and didn’t like it. I’m proud of her for trying and won’t force her to do it again, although I still ask each year. Competitions are not a mandatory part of your child’s Kung Fu training, but if your child has never competed before, there are many reasons to encourage them to try it. They won’t truly know what competitions are like until they’ve competed at least once. One big benefit of tournaments is that it helps build self-confidence and teaches your child how to overcome nerves. It is scary to present a form in front of a panel of black sashes, some of which they might not even know. They might not win a medal, and that’s okay too. Everyone can learn from a loss; it is a natural part of life that we do not get to win every time. Tournaments also teach good sportsmanship. Your child might be happy that their friend won instead, or be inspired when they watch older students congratulating each other after their division.
Your child might decide after their first tournament that they love competing. If so, you might consider signing them up for the Competition Team next year. Sign-ups are usually after Christmas, and normally there are three tournaments they compete in. In addition to the WKFA tournament, members can also compete at Kitchener Kicks Karate Maynia and the CKKA tournament. These last two tournaments are bigger and have both Kung Fu and Karate students competing. If your child is interested in tournaments, I recommend taking them to Karate Maynia to watch. It is on May 3, 2025, at the Aud and they can go cheer on our Academy students that are competing!
Get more details and register for the WKFA Spring Invitational Tournament >