ComBATON the Martial Arts Team Sport will be a discipline at the 2008 Disney Martial Arts Festival in Orlando, Fl on October 24 at 7 pm at the Disney Wide World of Sports. The Friday night game will be the final game of the 2008 season. Additional information is available at http://disneymartialartsfestival.com.
ComBATON is a unique new martial art team sport that is played on a rectangular field slightly larger than an Arena Football League field. ComBATON is a demanding full contact martial arts team sport. Players may be experienced in Tae kwon do, Kung fu, Mixed Martial Arts, Kickboxing and so on. There is an MMA aspect to comBATON so grappling skills are helpful.
There are two teams each with three players that defend their goal at each end of the field. The baton, a flexible cylinder tube 14 inches in length and 2 inches in diameter, is the focus of the game as would a basketball, football, hockey puck, etc. would be for their games. The team with possession of the baton is the offense. The objective of the offense is to get down field and score on their opponent?s goal. The objective of the defense is to stop them and/or force a turnover.
The offensive team gets three attacks (plays) in which to get down field and score on their opponent's goal. During each attack the baton can be thrown only one time to a teammate, but can be handed off as many times as necessary. Going down the field the game has similarities to American football, but instead of blocking and tackling, the players are kicking each other. In order to stop the player holding the baton, also known as the "shooter," a defensive player or players must kick with sufficient power to either impede, alter their course or knock the shooter off his or her feet.
If the offense makes it down field and crosses over the 12 meter line (12 meters or 39 feet from the end boundary line) into that area known as the strike zone, they will receive a full clip. A full clip is 3 attacks in which to score on their opponent?s goal pole.
Once the offensive team makes it into the strike zone area they may throw the baton to each other as many times as necessary. This is where the game takes on a different strategy. In this respect it is similar to basketball, in that players can throw the baton around in order to loosen up the defense to create a path to the goal. The baton carrier can then shoot to the goal and attempt to score, thus the name shooter. The shooter can kick the goal (the same size and shape of the baton) and dislodge it from its mount to score points. Standing kicks are 3 points, jumping kicks are 4 points and 360 degree spin kicks are 5 points.
The target areas for striking an opponent are the front and sides of the torso and front and sides of the head for kicking, and punching can only be to the torso areas.
Players must be ready to defend themselves at all times while on the field because any player can attack any opponent at any time. There will be situations that will arise where one player might be fighting two or more players at the same time.
ComBATON is signing up new teams for the 2009 season. Additional information is available at http://www.combaton.
