Hello,
i am a first kukkiwan and have never been really interested in the competetion part of tkd. A few weeks ago my master asked me to spar in tournaments so i said i would. I know how to train stamina and gain muscle and im learning the drills in class but how should i lay out the plan?

Hey whats up, welcome to the site.

What do you mean by "lay out the plan?"

I guess your talking about strategy but which aspect to you mean? DO you mean while sparring? Whether your gong to be aggressive, defensive or a counter kicker?

Can you elaborate more on what you mean by planning? We have a couple of competitors who have great advice. You might want to talk to Sushi and nonspoon_tkd they compete in open and olympic style tournaments.

Go with the flow and don't worry about things. The first time I went and competed in a tournament I had all of these ideas of what I was going to do and practiced them on a wave master prior to my turn. Then when actually competing it all went out the window. Each opponent will fight differently so move to their rythme or make them move to yours.

I am not sure how to be aggressive,defensive, or counter kicker. I've seen them but i cant tell what would be best for me. i saw a guy that had an excellent left leg back kick so when he was sparring and the common right leg rhk came he easily scored a point. what i've realized is that my master always was working with him on his l leg back kick, so that was the plan. Since i cant really just ask what my plan will be I'll give it some time to watch and figure out my stratedgy. Thanks for the help

I wouldn't suggest going out there with a specific plan/attack to use. I would just practice timing, distance, speed and power. Which IMHO are best trained by sparring.

However, i would say that aggressiveness defeats defensiveness more often than not. This is all IMHO of course

I always come out aggressivly, alot of times this will throw your challenger off guard, though some times it does backfire, but aggresive will always help in the points, judges like it

Well then for starters I say your work on your attacking techniques. Work your kicking combinations moving forward, dont rely on 1-2 combo's work on 4,5,6 kicking combinations. That way your percieved as aggressive. in reality you wont get a chnce to kick 6 times, because it is most likely by the time you kicked your 3rd or 4rth kick you've scored on your opponent but it's always good to have back up plans with that 5th and 6th kick.

LOater once you have become confortable moving forward, then practice counters, this is very important because you start to rely on strategy rather than just agressiveness, you must learn to read your opponents body movements so you can counter his attacks. Remember counter attacks are done immediately after an opponenet begins his attack, before his leg touches the floor again, you must already score on him. Otherwise your slow. Learn to read his body and learn the counters to all the kicks.