Sparring

ITF competition sparring rounds are 2 minutes and in national and international levels of competition they hold two rounds each 2 minutes with a one minutes rest in between. Certain rules are no strikes below the belt, no hitting to the back of the head, no elbow strikes, no knee strikes, no out of control fighting, no falling down, no going outside of the ring. The ring is a 9 metre by 9 metre (8 x 8 metre optional) ring marked by square mats or tape instead of a traditional style kickboxing rings with ropes. It has no sides allowing the fighter to move out of bounds. Whenever a fighter creates an infraction of the rules the centre referee will issue a warning to the fighter who created the infraction. 3 warnings equals a minus point. If a fighter uses excessive contact, he or she will be given a foul, which is an automatic minus point ; three fouls in a bout results in disqualification. ITF taekwon-do is fought in continuous point sparring. Four judges score the fights in each of the corners in the square ring. After the fight, a judge votes for which ever fighter has the most points and a winner is declared. In the case of a draw the fighters go to a one minute overtime round. If there is another draw the fighters go to a sudden death round where the fighter who scores first is declared the winner.

Here is an example of ITF competition sparring from YouTube - ITF Irish Open, Cork, 2006: