BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS AND RULES

In order to have a good experience in any competition, it is extremely important to be familiar with the rules. Every competition has its own rules, and the World Martial Arts Championships (WMAC) are no exception.

These following pages are NOT a detailed listing of all the rules and interpretation. A more detailed online version is available through the links in the left hand menu, but the full set of rules is available as a PDF from the links at the right, in the DOWNLOADS menu.

These pages will however provide brief summaries of the rules, which should give you a good idea of what will be expected of you and what you can expect from the tournament officials.

SPARRING

WMAC has three types of sparring. Points, Freestyle, and Full Contact. The first two are non-contact and light touch contact only methos of sparring, where all strikes must NOT hit their targets, but should be performed with balance and distance and control such that the attacker COULD make effective contact if so desired. Blocking of course, must have some contact to effectively invalidate an attack.

POINT SPARRING
Non-contact and contact

In Point Sparring, one, two, or three points can be awarded, depending on technique for a maximum of 12 points, and competition is stopped to award points, warnings, and penalties. A six point advantage also results in a win.

FREESTYLE SPARRING

In Freestyle Sparring, contact is light touch only i.e. just barely touching the uniform, but not making impact on the body. The emphasis is on ring craft, skill (both in attacking and blocking) and stamina. The bout is not stopped except to award warnings and penalties, or to bring competitors back into the ring, and the decision is determined by a show of judges hands or flags.

FULL CONTACT SPARRING

Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site This is knock-down, knock-out fighting, based on Kyokushin style knock-down rules. Bare knuckles, with only groin and mouth-guards. Women are also permitted breast guards. Essentially, no hand-techniques to the neck and up, no joint, groin, and spine attacks. No grabbing or takedowns, other than those effected using a leg sweep. You can score either 1 or 2 points. One point is a knockdown for less than 3 seconds, and 2 points is a TKO or KO (and win). Winner is based on points, and in cases of overwhelming superiority without points, it can be based on majority decision only.This type of fighting is not legal in some regions and will not be offered in those places.

LEVELS OF CONTACT

AMAC has defined six levels of contact. All but level 4 are used, as shown in the figure below. Points sparring should basically have NO contact for attacks. In 2009, Freestyle sparring will allow TOUCH contact only i.e. just touching the uniform. All the other requirements of balance, poise, and distance still remain as before. Points Contact uses levels 1-3, depending on the target area. The at the other end of the contact spectrum, we have full contact - knockout/knockdown.

Click on the figure if you'd like to download a larger version as a PDF, along with a bit more detail, or the link at the right hand side.