Kai Feng Chang – Sports Director of the KCAO, Secretary General of the Kurash Federation of Chinese Taipei
I believe that the introduction of an international belt grading for athletes and the international licensing of coaches at all official competitions will be the right decision.
You know, kurash has been developed and, accordingly, the number and quality of competitions held are also growing.
However, it also happens that the experience of some athletes is insufficient or simply does not meet the requirements at the athlete’s level.
This may be the incompetence of some national kurash federations or the inability to work on themselves. Based on everything we do, every time when there is a love for kurash, I think our effort will be positive.
You know, I never spoke English until 2005. One day Mr. Ray (Mokhammad Reza Nassiri) and Mr. David invited me to kurash. At that time I had no idea about kurash. I also didn’t understand the rules. Then the rules were explained to me, we spent months and time on training. Then I took part in the competition, though I achieved less result. I fell in love with kurash and I liked it. In order to study kurash even more, as well as teach my friends, I started working hard on myself. I tried to speak English. It was then that Mr. Umid Yakubov and Mr. Ziyovuddin Khodjiniyazov helped me with the opening of the National federation in Taiwan. Despite all the difficulties, the federation officially received a status in Chinese Taipei.
Then Mr. Chang Han-Tung became the President of the federation. Thanks to his support, kurash in Taipei is getting stronger every day. The Chinese Taipei national team also has achieved many medals and high results in international competitions.
In Taiwan, kurash is a new sport and its appearance is similar to judo, but we don’t like the fact that people call it the second judo or one of the similar martial arts. The name of this new sport is kurash. We work hard for kurash. We want to make kurash more popular in Taiwan. Even at the Taiwan Sports University, I defended my master’s thesis on the topic of kurash for the first time. We have opened special sports schools for children 3-4 years old, as well as kurash clubs at universities. We provide athletes with yaktaks ourselves. Now in all competitions and seminars of our federation official names and terms on kurash are used and all competitions take place in yaktaks.
IKA announced the rating system in 2018, and the IKA E-Kurash project has been launched since 2019. I am proud that I also participated in this group under the leadership of the Technical Director of IKA in the preparation of the program and contributed. I consider the E-Kurash program and the belt grading to be evidence that this sport, its methods, techniques have existed for thousands of years.
The Kurash Federation of Chinese Taipei has officially authorized the use of 7 groups of techniques and belts within the framework of IKA E-Kurash.
I believe that the use of an international system of licensing coaches and referees will be useful for the development of kurash and increase the effectiveness of the systemand will unify kurash world wide. This helps us to be real professional athletes, coaches and referees in our ranks. But, unfortunately, we have not seen this system used in some countries so far. Thus, as a rule, we have witnessed that most coaches and athletes use the names or rules of other martial arts in kurash competitions. In the future, for the proper development of kurash, I think that the adopted decision that an athlete who wants to register for international championships must have at least 2 lines in the belt, and the coach has an international license B, was executed at the right time.
I also believe that in order to participate in seminars and exams of international kurash referees, it is necessary to present a requirement of at least 3 lines in the belts, even for those who register.
We believe that this system and international coaching licenses of category B can effectively improve the accuracy and professionalism of the kurash. This will demonstrate the accuracy of the technique and value of kurash and thereby inspire more people to love kurash even more.
Today I tried to share my experience in English with my dear friends. I think setting boundaries is the best way to promote kurash to develop and become popular.
So my friends, please, let’s continue to develop our favorite kurash together. I believe that together we can achieve all this. I am happy to see that IKA is doing so much to unify this beautiful sport of Kurash.