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2001 Collegiate Wushu Championship Rules

These are the rules for the Collegiate Championship, which is held once a year (Usually in February). It started in 1997 and has been hosted by four different wushu clubs along the west coast so far. These rules explain the format and guidelines for the competition.

Summary of Competition Format (please be sure to read the entire rules):

This is the most recent revision of the rules for collegiates, prepared for the 2001 Collegiates at Cal State Fullerton. Please read through them thoroughly. I've added comments, examples and explanations of the motivation behind some of the rules at the end of some of the sections. These comments are marked with the [Comments appear here] icon, I strongly encourage everyone to read these comments, as they explain the rational and history behind these rules. If you are using Internet Explorer, simply hold your mouse over the icon and the comments will pop up. At present I don't believe that it works with Netscape though (for those 5% of you). If you have any questions, comments or need clarification, please email me at raffi@uclink.berkeley.edu.

Collegiate Wushu Competition Rules:
v 3.11, 12/18/00 - Combination of 1998 rules with 1999 & 2000 updates

In additional to normal medals awarded for placing in seperate divisions, awards will be given for the following categories: Male All-Around Champion, Female All-Around Champion and Team Champion. Any qualified full-time student can compete for the Individual titles, but only full groups can compete for the team title.(see eligibility rules below for definitions). Standard IWuF criterion, rules and arbitration procedures will be followed for all judging. [The idea behind collegiates was to make a fun, fair event to promote collegiate wushu. The key is inclusion of all people who are in college who do Chinese Martial Arts (Internal, External, Contemporary or Traditional). Also it was designed so that beginners as well as intermediate and advanced level competitors all have equal value.] [Hopefully it will encourage people to start clubs and promote wushu competitions amongst college students. A model for us is Taekwondo. They've had collegiates for like 25 years. We've TRIED to keep things as simple as possible. A lot of tweaking and conditional rules could be added, but these would most likely add to more confusion/abuse than they fix. But because of past experience, more strict and complicated rules have been added in some cases to try and curb dishonesty]

The choice has been made to keep the Collegiates free from any outside influence from governing bodies or other political wushu organizations. Therefore the collegiates shall have no permanent political affiliation with any political organization. A particular year's host can affiliate that year's tournament with an organization, but they may not bar any teams or individuals from participating, nor they can require membership in their organization to participate. [This is to prevent collegiates from getting ensnared in any of the political fights that exist in the wushu world. We do not want collegiates to become the pawn of any other organizations, nor become splintered because of politics. Actually this choice has actually been supported by members of several different governing bodies]

  1. Divisions:
    The actual divisions offered from year to year is chosen by that year's host. It is important for the competition to not only have at least the standard divisions, but also to accommodate internal and traditional competitors by having sufficient divisions in those areas. One event that MUST be included is the group set division, which is a required part of the team competition (see below for description).

    Click here to go directly to the registration form for this year's competition.

    Due to the nature of the team competition, combining of divisions (and skill levels within them) can have a *substantial* impact on the team competition, therefore a very clear policy on the combination of events due to lack of participation is required. [Unlike a 'normal' competition (who's motive is generating profit) for the collegiates, the motive is to promote wushu and create the best possible competition. The schools prepare for the team competition by choosing team members based on what events they will be competing in and their likelihood to place in those divisions. Combining divisions potentially hurts a team based on what /other/ teams enter in. (Its not your fault if other schools don't enter in certain divisions, its unfair to penalize you for it by combining your division with another). But as collegiates is still small, there are a number of divisions with only a few competitors, so combining of these divisions is called for. But for the sake of fairness it is imperative that a *clear*, *strict* rule on how divisions are to be combined be followed to the letter] [Also the logistics of combining different styles or weapons into one division can lead to problems - for example its unfair to combine straight sword and broadsword if someone is registered for both, since you are removing their ability to medal if you combine them (can't compete twice in the same division, right?). What do you combine something like internal weapons with? This is why if any combining must be done, it should be by skill level, not by style. In an ideal world, we will have so many competitors that combining divisions will be a non-issue]

    Events may ONLY be combined when an event contains only 1 competitor. Divisions will ONLY be combined by skill level; beginner and intermediate divisions can be combined into a single division, as can the intermediate and advanced divisions. Intermediate and Advanced will be combined before Beginner and Intermediate, and then only if necessary, advanced and beginner. Divisions will not be combined by gender or between events (ie different weapons or emptyhand styles) under ANY circumstances.[An example of this rule in action: Men's broadsword has two beginners, 2 intermediates and 1 advanced. The intermediate and advanced would be combined, but not the beginner division. Furthermore if all three only have one competitor, then they would all be combined.]

  2. Skill Level:
    Skill levels will include three divisions, based on the number of years of Wushu training and experience:
    1) Beginner (0 to 1 year)
    2) Intermediate (1 to 3 years)
    3) Advanced (>3 years) [These also can be redefined as collegiate wushu matures. But its important to remember that as we are dealing with college students, at this point in time, the vast majority of competitors have started wushu in college, so there won't be many people past 3 or 4 years in experience. In the future as more kids and teens practicing wushu enter college, this might change. The beginner level is also important, we want to foster competition amongst newer students (so they'll be eager to return in the future), so putting them in with much more advanced people, doing much more advanced sets is not a good idea. Also judges should be sure to value good basics and clean techniques over more difficult, 'flashier' sets]

    Competitors must compete at a consistent skill level throughout the course of the entire tournament. (i.e. one cannot compete in intermediate changquan and beginner's broadsword) the skill level of a competitor is determined by total years since they began practicing Chinese Wushu (of any type), not by time spent learning a particular event. Breaks taken from training (semesters off, etc) are not subtracted from years of experience (ie if you started 3 years ago, you are intermediate even if you've taken a year off of wushu). Violation of this rule is grounds for disqualification (see Disqualification, below) [This is to keep the level definition simple, and prevent any confusion about the definition of skill level and/or abuse or cheating]

  3. Individual Competition:
    There are two classes of eligibility for individual competitors - current students (class 1) and 1 year alumnus (class 2):

    Class 1 Eligibility:
    -Must be a currently enrolled full-time student in a degree-earning program. Proof of current enrollment is required and must be brought in person to the event. The proof may consist of an approved study list, transcript, or research curriculum for the present semester or quarter at the student's university. The study list must include the student's name and a date or time period for which it applies, in order to prove present enrollment. A student ID is *not* sufficient proof. The study list or transcript should also indicate that the student is taking at least the minimum number of units or credits at his or her university to qualify as a full-time student. "Currently enrolled" is defined as having the status of full-time student at the university on the day of competition. Violation of this rule is grounds for disqualification (see Disqualification, below) [This is another case where stricter rules were included to prevent abuse]
    -Advanced level competitors class 1 competitors, regardless of whether or not they are members of a Collegiate Team, are eligible to compete for the All-Around Champion title.
    -Note that an individual competitor does not have to be a member of a collegiate team in order to represent his or her college or university. [Anyone who does Chinese Martial Arts, of any kind can compete, they don't have to be a member of their school's wushu club. There are two reasons for this - 1) so that people who go to school at places that don't have a wushu, kungfu or taiji club can participate, and 2) people who practice at somewhere besides from their school's 'official' club can also participate (ie they train in traditional or taiji, but their school only has a contemporary club)]
    -Members of a team are also eligible for the individual awards.

    Class 2 Eligibility:
    -Class 2 competitors are one-year university alumnus. One year alumnus is defined as having been a full-time student at a university (see Class 1 qualifications for a definition) one year or less from the date of the competition.
    Documentation is also required for Class II competitors, in the form of a photocopy of the competitor's diploma. Both the name and date should be visible on any such documentation, and the printed date of enrollment or graduation will be the date used for determining eligibility.
    -Class 2 competitors are eligible to compete as individuals, but not as members of any collegiate teams. They can place in their divisions and receive medals, but are not eligible to compete for the All-Around titles.

  4. Division Results:
    Individual and Team competitors will be compete together in the same divisions. Scores for all competitors will be given as in any normal competition but there will be *no* ties awarded. Once the competition in that division is complete, there will be two separate sets of results listed on the scoring sheet:
    1) "Individual Places" - First through third of ALL competitors. Medals will be given out based on these results.
    2) "Team Places" - First through third of ONLY competitors competing in team competition. [This is so team members only compete against other team members for team points. In sports like gymnastics the individual and team competitions are done on seperate days. But in order to make collegiates less expensive and more practical, we run both simultaneously]
    These scores are awarded a point value for use in the team competition, points will be awarded as follows:
    First Place - 3 points
    Second Place - 2 points
    Third Place - 1 points
    4th and Below - 0 points

  5. All-Around Champion Scoring:
    -The All-Around champions will be determined by summing the best four scores (not places) from the following events -
    1) Handset (Changquan, Nanquan, Taiji, Traditional handset, etc)
    2) Short Weapon(Broadsword, Straightsword, etc)
    3) Long Weapon(Staff, Spear, etc)
    4) Other (Other Contemporary Handset, Other Internal Handset, Other Contemporary Weapon, Other Traditional Weapon, Other Internal Weapon, etc) [With the current set of divisions we've been using in the past, this formulation inherently means that people only doing internal or only doing traditional weapons can't win all-around, something that needs to be considered in future years when the host is choosing divisions]

    -Male and Female competitors with highest score sum will be Men's and Women's All-Around Champion.
    -It is important to note that each category only counts once. For example, even if a competitor does more than one short weapon, only their best short weapon score counts towards the All-Around sum. Also any result from an 'other' division only counts for the fourth category. For example if a competitor does drunken straightsword in Other Weapons, it does not count as their short weapon score.
    -If no competitor competes in each of the four groupings, then the sum will be made from all competitors who competed in any three of the four groupings. [In the past, this has been a problem. If no one competes in all four events at the advanced level, we should give people 'zeros' for groupings they're not in and see who of the people competing in three of the four events then has the highest score. If for some reason no one competes in three, look at two, etc]
    -Tie Breaker - Should more than one athlete have the highest sum, the award will be given to the athlete who earns more 1st, 2nd, 3rd "Individual Places", in that order. First condition satisfied settles the award. If a tie remains even beyond those comparisons, the award is given to all the athletes with the highest sum from ALL the divisions the competitor competed in.

  6. Team Competition:
    Team Definition:
    -6 competitors, determined before the beginning of the tournament.
    -ALL team members must be eligible class 1 competitors (see Individual Competition Section for definition) at the SAME University or College. [ie no people from other schools, no alumni, etc. But it is important to note that any six people from the same school can form their own team. It doesn't matter if they are an 'official club' for their school or not. For example if a private traditional school has six people who all go to the same college, they can form a team for that school]
    -There is no limit on the number of teams from a university [larger clubs can field as many teams as they want, also a taiji club can field a team, a traditional club can field a team and/or a contemporary club can field a team all from the same university]
    -At least one female per team [this is to promote gender equity]
    -Team MUST compete in group set division. [A key feature of the team competition. Truly the centerpiece of the whole event]
    Scoring:
    -Best two "Team Places" (not including group set) for each competitor will be summed. [This way people are encouraged to compete in multiple events, but beginners who might only know two or three sets still have as much impact as an advanced competitor who can enter in 5 or 6 divisions]
    -Sum of all six competitor's places will be summed (12 places total).
    -Group Set place will be DOUBLED and added to team sum.
    -Team with highest team sum will be the winning team.
    -Tie-Breaker - In the event of a tie in the Team score, the team with the most first "Team Places" (of all events competed by the team members) will win. If the tie still remains, the team with the most second "Team Places" will win. [A distinct possibility. The highest score possible is 3*12+6 = 42]
    Rules for Group Set Competition:
    -Only open to valid, full teams. [Not a regular division individuals can enter in]
    -All participants must be from the same team.
    -Minimum of 5 team members must perform set. [This number was originally 4, for 2000 it was changed to 6. Its /nice/ to have the entire team doing the group set, but to do so has serious drawbacks. The rules are flexible enough to allow any six people of any skill level, who practice any style to form a team. An example is 2 contemporary people, 3 traditionalist and a person who only does taiji can form a team. BUT if you require all six people to do the group set, this means that the taiji person would have to participate in an external group set or everyone else would have to try doing an internal group set. Another problem is that requiring everyone to do the group set together discourages teams from including beginners, since this limits the difficulty of the group set that team can perform. A FURTHER problem is that if 6 people are required, but one of the team members gets hurt during the course of the day (a very probably occurrence) and can't participate in the group set. This would mean the team would be disqualified. If its only 4 or 5, then someone can drop out or sub in for an injured person. PS - in China, the entire team isn't required to do the group set either]
    -Minimum time limit: 1 minute.
    -Maximum time limit: 4 minutes. [just to make sure teams keep group sets from turning into entire 10 minute 'mini-demos']
    -Can not be the same set that any team members competed with in individual competition.
    -Due to the fact that the score for group set counts double in the team competition, points for this division are awarded as follows:
    First Place - 6 points
    Second Place - 4 points
    Third Place - 2 points
    4th and Below - 1 point

  7. Disqualification:
    To encourage a fair tournament, a strict disqualification policy is in effect. Failure to bring valid documents to prove eligibility will result in that competitor's disqualification from the tournament. Dishonesty reporting of years of training (skill level) will result in disqualification. A disqualified team member causes his or her entire team to be disqualified from the team competition (non-disqualified team members are still eligible to compete in individual competition). A competitor can also be disqualified for cheating, unsportsmanlike behavior, or a failure to accord proper respect and courtesy towards the judges, tournament staff, fellow competitors, or instructors present at the competition. Disqualifications will be made official by the tournament's judge general. [Again, added because of abuses in the past. Ideally should never need to be invoked]

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