Isolation Invitational – The SMA Virtual Tour Finals!

Isolation Invitational Event Information

Registration is by invitation only.

Zoom links with division start times will be sent out on November 14th. Competition is live on November 15th starting at 9 AM CST.

Get your collector’s item event t-shirt, face mask and hat HERE! SMA Virtual Tour gear representing the entire season is almost ready for release!

Who is invited to this event?

1. Competitors rated #1, #2, or #3 in select SMA Virtual Tour Divisions following the final regular season event, Fumigation Feud (held October 24-25, 2020)
2. One Wild Card competitor for each division – the Wild Card competitor is the person who places highest in the division at the Fumigation Feud and is not rated #1, #2 or #3 in that division after Fumigation Feud.

Which Divisions are included in the Finals:

1. All Traditional, Creative, Musical and Extreme Forms and Weapons Divisions, Round Kick Challenge, Pull Up Challenge, Breaking, Toilet Paper Kick Challenge, Tricking Challenge, Weapons Trick Battle, Super Forms, Pet Trick Challenge and Synchronized Forms/Weapons are included.
2. First Timer, Halloween Costume Challenge and Dad Tricks Challenge are not included.
3. There will also be 8 Grand Championships as follows:
   1. 18+ Black Belt Forms Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 18+ Black Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Forms divisions can compete)
   2. 18+Under Black Belt Forms Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 18+ Under Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Forms divisions can compete)
   3. 17 & Under Black Belt Forms Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 17 & Under Black Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Forms divisions can compete)
   4. 17 & Under Under Black Belt Forms Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 17 & Under Under Black Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Forms divisions can compete)
   5. 18+ Black Belt Weapons Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 18+ Black Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Weapons divisions can compete)
   6. 18+ Under Black Belt Weapons Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 18+ Under Black Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Weapons divisions can compete)
   7. 17 & Under Black Belt Weapons Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 17 & Under Black Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Weapons divisions can compete)
   8. 17 & Under Under Black Belt Weapons Grand Championships (Isolation Invitational Winners of all 17 & Under Under Black Belt Traditional, Creative, Extreme, Musical Weapons divisions can compete)

What will the schedule/format be for the Isolation Invitational?

1. The event will be a one-day event and each division will have 4 or less competitors in it.
2. We will run challenges and non-forms/weapons divisions first and then run forms/weapons in sessions based on age and rank (for instance, all Adult Black Belt divisions will run followed immediately by the grand championships round, all Youth Under Black Belts followed by their grand championship, etc)
3. Competitors that qualify will receive an invite after the final seasonal event (Fumigation Feud) and an opportunity to register to participate.
4. The competition order for each division will run as follows: 1st Competitor = Wild Card, 2nd Competitor = #3 rated in division, 3rd Competitor = #2 rated in division, 4th Competitor = #1 rated in division
5. The competition order for the grand championships will be random shuffle.

How Will This Affect the SMA Virtual Tour Ratings?

1. Don’t worry, if you are rated, you are still going to be recognized. There will be two types of awards/recognition for the season – SMA Virtual Tour Rated Champions and SMA Virtual Tour Finals Champions.
2. What do we get? Well, besides the pride and joy of doing awesome as well as the fun from competition and the learning and improvement in your martial arts skills, and staying in shape during a pandemic and the entertainment you brought us as we watched people get jumped on by dogs, get video bombed by brothers and sisters and all the great skill and enthusiasm…we area also working on getting some of our tour sponsors and supporters to provide prizes. PLUS, we are working on some cool SMA Virtual Tour gear that you can get to show off your accomplishments for the year! Stay tuned!

This is supposed to be fun so come and chill out with us. The free, live, virtual tournaments being hosted by SportMartialArts.com are designed to allow competitors to perform in a fun, non-stressful situation that is kind of like being at a tournament but with the social distancing required by the COVID19 crisis. The events will be held live on Zoom so that you will be able to interact with other competitors in real life and watch other performances while they are happening and be watched and get scores immediately from judges. This means you do not have to film, upload, or submit anything to participate. Just be available on the date and time for your division(s). Go ahead and practice and get ready because we want you to put on your best performance and the competition is being broadcast live on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Periscope. However, chill out and don’t be too serious about this because we want you to have a great time and experience without feeling overwhelmed or stressed.

Location and space issues are fine – don’t worry but stay safe and don’t ruin your house. We understand that everyone has a different environment in which to try and perform and that is okay. We only ask that you find a location where you can perform whatever division you signed up for without hurting yourself or others. So don’t sign up for the tricking challenge and expect to throw flips in your 5×5 living room! You can perform outside on the grass, inside your garage, in the basement, or wherever you like as long as you have enough space and permission to use the location. Also, try not to damage your home or the area you are performing in.

General rules of etiquette, being a nice person and we know bloopers are coming. Since this will be live, we ask that everyone watch yo’ mouth and not swear or say mean things while in the competition room. We also ask that you cheer on your competition and try to make some new sport karate friends during the competition. Be a good sport no matter the outcome, laugh if you fall on your behind in the middle of your performance, or fall over your couch or your dog jumps in. We’re going to laugh and find it to be hilarious and pretty awesome to see the reality of everyone’s current pandemic world.

Be nice to our judges. Our judges will be all volunteers and are going to do their best to be fair and impartial. They will be told not to downgrade anyone based on not wearing a full uniform or having to perform in a small space. There will be 3 judges for all the divisions. We are not going to vet the judges to be sure they are not from the same schools or teams as competitors – we are going to trust the judges to be fair and impartial regardless of who they are judging! The judges will use a 9.91-10.0 scoring system. If there is a tie, we will compare the scores to see which competitor got the highest scores from at least two of the judges and that competitor will win the tie. If a judge gave two competitors the same score and caused the tie, that judge will need to select which competitor should advance to break the tie.

The format is going to be like an in-person tournament – kind of. The day prior to each event, we will send you the division schedule that shows the time grouping for divisions so you can determine when your division is likely to start and your Zoom links for each Zoom Room of competition. Approximately 5-10 minutes prior to your estimated division start time, please join your Zoom competition room where you will be placed in the waiting room. We will be checking people in to make sure only registered competitors are allowed into the live competition room. This will allow us to assure that only registered competitors are allowed into Zoom competition rooms and to keep everyone safe from zoom-bombing or strangers entering the competition room. The judges will also be in the Zoom competition room. Remember that you should have video and audio turned on when you get to the Zoom Room or we won’t be able to see you and won’t let you in. Your Zoom account must use the first and last name of the registered competitor(s) (if more than one using the same account, use all the names somehow). If you use something like “iPhone” or a nickname, we won’t let you into the Zoom Room from the Waiting Room.

When it is your turn to compete, your Zoom video will be spotlighted so you are the only one the judges and public are watching. The announcer will tell the judges who you are so you do not need to do an introduction. Once we have told the judges who you are and that you are spotlighted and unmuted, you can perform. When you are finished, the next person will be announced and perform. Once all competitors have performed, the judges will give scores to competitors in the order they competed and we will call out the scores and then call out the order placed at the end of the scoring.

There will be judge shift changes approximately every three hours. When this happens, we will remove everyone from the main Zoom Room and place everyone in the Waiting Room other than the judges so that we can set the judges up, allow our Zoom Room operators to take a break, and get ready for the next group of divisions.

Routines should be kept to 2 minutes or less for forms and weapons if possible.

After the event is completed, we will be putting up the final results, updating the SMA Virtual Tour ratings points, and sending out digital awards via the MATAction platform. 

I Divisional Rules

1. Creative Forms

Just like it sounds. Creative. No flips or crazy stuff that the average martial artist probably can’t do. Don’t try to jump in with extreme moves because you think you can sneak them in and make them look creative – that’s not cool. Summersaults and cartwheels are fine. No handed techniques, twists and super hard stuff should not show up in this division. If you can do great kicks, this is a great division for those!

2. Traditional Forms

Again, just like it sounds. Traditional. This does not mean go back to 987 AD to find a routine that has been passed down from Shaolin Monk to Japanese master to your grand master who taught it to his ninjas and then you learned it. We know that traditional is defined by the style and we are going to trust you to perform a truly traditional routine in this division as defined by your style. However, if your style’s traditional routines involve flips – it’s not traditional so don’t do it. If you are a soft stylist that does flips of any kind, we are going to ask you to do your routine in the creative or extreme divisions depending on the techniques you are going to use.

3. Musical Forms

Musical forms means you use music with your form. It would be cool if you could match your moves to the musical beats and will probably help you get better scores but if you don’t want to do that, it’s cool – but don’t expect those brownie points from the judges for actually choreographing your form to the music. Note that the musical forms and musical weapons divisions will be lived streamed in their own separate streams because YouTube and Facebook hate it when you play music that has a copyright attached. Note that even if a stream is blocked due to copyright, we are recording all of the competition.

You have to play your own music when you perform and provide your own music player. We suggest playing music on a separate player rather than through the device you are using to connect to the Zoom competition room. Make sure to be able to turn your music up so we can hear it!

4. Extreme Forms

Extreme means extreme – do whatever you want. Note that if you can’t do flips and stuff, you might not do great in this division if your competition is doing flips and stuff but don’t fret – this is a great event to try something new.

5. Creative, Traditional, Musical, Extreme Weapons

Same as Creative, Traditional, Musical, Extreme Forms but with a weapon. If you drop a weapon, you should pick it up and keep going. Judges will be able to take a .5 point off or downgrade you in general for a dropped weapon depending on how spectacular the drop or the number of drops but you never know, everyone in the division might drop so you could still win!

6. Super Forms

We will have a cool online spin wheel with various styles of forms and weapons  (creative, traditional, musical, extreme and soft style). We will spin the wheel, share the screen to show what it lands on and whatever it lands on, the competitor must do that type of routine. We are also adding weapons options to the wheel and if you land on musical, we will choose the music for you to make sure it is even more fun! Note: in the name of total fun and because it makes us laugh, we have added break dancing, human beat box, free style rapping and other such options to the Super forms wheel. We reserve the right to add whatever option we feel will stump competitors the most and make us and the audience laugh the hardest – be prepared for anything!

7. Round Kick Challenge (60 seconds)

This one is pretty straightforward. You have 60 seconds to do as many round kicks as you can. Sounds easy right? Well, 60 seconds of round kicks turns out to really burn if you haven’t been working out so make sure you prepare. The judges will each do their own count of your kicks and then enter how many they consider to be good quality kicks. The judges’ counts will be added and the competitor with the most kicks wins! Unless you are not really flexible (we assume this with our older competitors), your round kicks should be waist level or above. For under black belt, you can touch the floor and switch legs while doing your kicks. For black belts, if your kicking foot touches the floor before 60 seconds, you cannot do more kicks and only kicks up to that point will count.

For the para divisions, you may hold onto a chair or wall for support if needed but no switching legs!

8. Pull Up Challenge (60 seconds)

Just like the Round Kick Challenge but with pull ups/chin ups. You must have your own pull up bar. Your video must show your entire body so we can make sure you don’t touch the ground. Only pull ups where your chin clears the bar count and you must straighten out your arms in between pull ups. You may touch the ground during your 60 seconds but when you start doing more pull ups, you must start from straight arm hang position with feet off the floor. 

9.    Toilet Paper Kick Challenge

Competitor takes a roll of toilet paper, balances it on his/her foot and extends the foot while not dropping the toilet paper. (A side kick works well for this). At full extension, competitor uses foot to throw roll of toilet paper into the air and then kicks the roll out of the air with a kick of his/her choice (can be with either leg). Competitors will be judged on success and creativity. You get 3 tries to give your best performance. As soon as you start your leg extension, your try begins so if the roll falls off while extending your leg, that counts as an attempt. You will not be judged on brand of toilet paper. Judges will each give a score for your routine and the competitor with the highest scores wins. We suggest that you have three rolls of toilet paper on hand in case you boot a roll a long distance so you don’t have to run off camera to find it for your next attempt!

Note that in the Germ Games competition, we had a lot of new competitors enter this division and did some really creative things to kick their toilet paper rolls. We enjoyed it so much that we are opening up this division to whatever you want to do to kick the toilet paper rolls. The more creative and hilarious, the better!!

For the para divisions, you may hold onto a chair or wall for support if needed!

10.  Tricking Challenge and Weapons Trick Battle

Each competitor has 45 seconds to perform the coolest tricking combos he/she can do.Make sure you have enough space to do whatever you plan to do and that you use a space where you won’t get hurt if you land wrong. We highly recommend that you don’t do this on concrete and instead use a grassy or padded area with no obstacles around. For the weapons trick battle, you have to use a weapon. Duh.

11. Pet Trick Challenge

You must have a pet for this one. Any kind of pet will do. You will have 45 seconds to have your pet demonstrate the coolest trick(s) your pet can do. Pets cannot be of the human species. Judges will give scores for creativity, uniqueness of pet, cuteness, hilarity and coolness. Your certificate for this division can be made out in your pet’s name if requested.

12. Para Divisions

These divisions are for para (disabled) athletes. You must have a physical or intellectual disability to participate in these divisions. If you have a qualifying disability and are capable of participating in the non-para divisions and doing pretty well in those divisions, the para divisions are not for you. If you are a para-athlete, you can participate in both the para divisions and non-para divisions of your choice.

13. Social Distanced Synchronized Forms/Weapons

Get together and perform with your friends – but make sure to stay socially distant. You can perform with up to four people doing synchronized forms or weapons or a combo of forms and weapons. Make sure that you stay at least six feet apart, put your camera on wide angle so you will all show up and wash your hands.

14. Breaking Divisions

There are two levels for breaking divisions – Basic and Extreme. For the Basic level, you can break up to four boards with any type of combo you want. You can use any type of technique that you would like provided it is a basic level kick or hand/arm strike with no spinning or jumping element (other than flying side kick or skip up kicks). No head breaks, no advanced hand or kick techniques for the basic division. Yes, you can break all four boards at the same time to show your ultimate power! For the Extreme division, you can use spinning, flipping, jumping, and other advanced techniques to break up to four boards or bricks or whatever you want to break in any type of combo you want. Yes, you can break all the boards/bricks/items at once to demonstrate your board domination!

You must provide your own boards or breaking materials and your own board holders (you can use stationary objects to set your boards on for breaking if you have no humans to hold the boards).

You can use any size and thickness of boards but remember, if you are a full-grown adult and you break paper-thin balsa wood with a crazy triple jump spinning thing, the judges will likely downgrade you if your pint-sized competitors are breaking 12×12 0ne-inch thick boards with their more basic tornado kicks. You may also use rebreakable boards in good condition.

If you need boards, our friends at Asian World of Martial Arts have got them!

One-Inch Thick Boards: https://www.awma.com/productdetail/2212-wooden-breakable-boards-1-thick.asp?childskumatch=877614

1/2 Inch Thick Boards: https://www.awma.com/productdetail/2213-wooden-breakable-boards-1-2-thick.asp?childskumatch=877624

Rebreakable Boards: https://www.awma.com/productdetail/1957-proforce-rebreakable-boards.asp?childskumatch=8498

Rebreakable Bricks: https://www.awma.com/productdetail/2604-proforce-plastic-rebreakable-brick.asp?childskumatch=

15. Grand Championships. If you win a division and move on to the grand championships round, you must compete using the same style of forms or weapons routine from the division you won. For instance, if you won a traditional division, you must use a traditional routine. You can use a different pattern but not a different type (i.e. a different traditional form that you know but it still has to be traditional). If you win in multiple divisions to get into the grand championships (for instance if you win your traditional and creative forms division), you may only select one routine to perform in the grand championships. You also are NOT required to compete in the grand championships if you win your division – this is just for fun so don’t feel pressured.

II. Equipment, Weapons, and Uniforms

1. Equipment/Location

For the pull up challenge and toilet paper kick division, competitor must provide own pull-up bar or rolls of toilet paper.  For breaking divisions you must provide your own boards and board holders (human or non-human).

For all divisions, competitor may perform in whatever area/location he/she chooses (provided it is legal for you to be there). If in a smaller space, you can modify your form/weapon routine to account for space. 

Competitor must provide his/her own device to connect to Zoom (phone, tablet or laptop will work) and own internet connection that is of sufficient speed to live stream your performance from whatever location you are performing. 

Competitor must provide his/her own music for musical forms/weapons and music player that has sufficient volume so competitor can hear the music while performing and preferably so the judges can hear the music through the competitor’s stream. Note that for Super Forms, we will now play whatever music we choose for you if you land on the Musical option when we spin the wheel. Get ready to potentially have to perform to Baby Shark.

Please make sure your broadcast device (phone, tablet, laptop) is set up to show your entire performance area so judges can see your whole routine. You may have someone hold the device for you to change angles or positioning as you perform. Please have that person stand as still as possible so we do not get motion sickness from their filming technique.

2. Weapons

You can use whatever weapon you want for the weapons divisions provided it is not so dangerous that you could harm yourself if you make a mistake in your routine (i.e. no butcher knives, open flames, etc). If you do not have a weapon or only have a practice version of a weapon, a substitute will be allowed (i.e. broom stick instead of bo, stick instead of sword) provided the substitute or practice weapon will not lead to self-injury. Competitor is solely responsible for any damage done to surrounding area and self during a performance! Based on a request from the Sanitizer Showdown – light sabers are most definitely allowed in the weapons divisions! We are open to any other creative weapons requests.

3. Uniforms

Karate pants or tricking/work out pants and t-shirt are acceptable. Belts are cool but optional. Note that for traditional performances, it is suggested and encouraged that you wear a full uniform and belt because it just looks more traditional. If you don’t have a full uniform, your uniform is dirty and unable to be used, you are performing in a location that could cause your uniform to get really dirty and you don’t want to deal with the stains (i.e. grass on a white uniform), don’t worry about it, wear something else and have fun! You are responsible for your own cleaning bill if you decide to wear your pristine white uniform on a grassy field.

4. Zoom Room Rules

All competitors must use their first and last name for their Zoom account. Please create an account that uses the competitor name (if there are two or more competitors using the same account, use all names (i.e. John & Jane Smith). We will not allow people into the competition arena unless the Zoom account name matches a registered competitor.

We will be muting everyone during competition except the person performing and the zoom room operators!

If you have questions during the competition, we will be providing a number you can text during the competition. Please do not interrupt the competition to ask the zoom room operators questions during the competition – remember, EVERYONE can hear you and we are not always that great at multi-tasking!

Overall, have fun, be a good sport, have fun, cheer each other on, learn some new stuff, try to improve your techniques and try new things,  have fun, be nice and HAVE A LOT OF FUN AND LAUGHS!! Thanks for being a part of the sport karate community and letting us make your pandemic be a little easier to tolerate.