How ATA Tournament Points Work (2026-27)

You're in the car after a regional. There's a 2nd place medal in the back seat, and a voice attached to it asking, "How many points is that?"

Here's the answer. Each ATA tournament event earns its own points, and the tournament's class sets how many: a win pays 20 at the Super 20 and 3 at an in-school tournament. Only your best results in each class count, up to 123 points per event in the 2026-27 season.

(That 2nd place? 5 points at a Class A regional, 3 at a Class B.)

The rest is detail. But it's the detail that decides who makes the top ten, so let's go through it.

Think of each event as a medal rack

Picture a medal rack for each event an athlete competes in. Every rack has exactly 13 spots, and each spot is saved for one class of tournament:

• 1 spot for AAA, the Super 20
• 2 spots for AA
• 2 spots for A+
• 5 spots for regionals (Class A and Class B share them)
• 3 spots for in-school tournaments, Class C

Every time an athlete places 1st, 2nd or 3rd, the result tries to get onto the rack. If there's an empty spot for its class, it goes up. If the spots are full, it only goes up by knocking off a smaller result.

Your season total is whatever hangs on the rack.

That's the whole system. The rules below just say how big each medal is, and which rack it goes on.

Rule 1: The tournament's class sets the size of the medal

The bigger the tournament, the more a placement is worth.

At every class except C, a placement earns full points no matter how many people are in the ring. Class C shrinks with the ring. It needs 5 or more competitors for full points. With 4, it pays 2, 1 and 0. With 3, it pays 1, 0 and 0. With fewer than 3, nobody gets points.

Rule 2: Only your best results count

Fill every spot on the rack with a win and you get the most any event can hold:

If you've seen 99 as the maximum, that number is from older seasons, before the A+ class existed. For 2026-27, ATA sets the maximum at 123.

This is also why a sixth regional doesn't always raise your total. The five regional spots are already full. A new result only counts if it's bigger than the smallest one up there.

Rule 3: The bottom row needs support from above

No more than half of your total can come from Class C. On the rack, that means the in-school spots can never hold more points than all the other spots put together.

Say an athlete wins three in-school tournaments for 9 points. All 9 count only once they also have at least 9 points from Class B or higher. With 5 points from one regional, only 5 of the Class C points count for now. The rest wait until a bigger tournament adds more above them.

(This is the rule behind most "why aren't our points showing?" moments. The points aren't lost. They're waiting.)

Rule 4: Every event gets its own rack

ATA has eight events: Traditional Forms, Traditional Weapons, Sparring and One-Steps, Combat Weapons, Creative Forms, Creative Weapons, Xtreme Forms and Xtreme Weapons. Each one has its own points, its own total and its own ranking.

So a 1st in Traditional Forms and a 3rd in Sparring at the same regional go on two different racks. They never add together.

One small exception: white, orange and yellow belts who do both sparring and one-steps get the higher of the two placements, not both.

Rule 5: Recreational rings put nothing on the rack

ATA has two different divisions, and only one of them puts anything on the rack.

• Champion divisions are the higher competitive level. To earn points there, the athlete must be enrolled in an official ATA Leadership or Legacy program.
• Recreational divisions (they used to be called Novice) award no points, whatever the age, rank or program. All Tiger divisions are Recreational.

You choose Recreational or Champion with your instructor, one tournament at a time, and it covers every event at that tournament. If an athlete competes in a Recreational ring by mistake, the points are still gone.

Check the registration before the tournament, not after.

An example rack

Here's a made-up season, to show how it all fits together. Picture one color belt who competes in Traditional Forms, in a Champion division. They didn't go to the Super 20 or to any A+ tournament this season, so those three spots on their rack stay empty.

• AA spots: 2nd at Fall Nationals (10) and 1st at Spring Nationals (15). Both fit: 25.
• Regional spots: six results for five spots. Class A 1st (8), Class A 2nd (5), Class A 3rd (2), Class B 1st (5), Class B 2nd (3) and Class B 3rd (1). The 1 gets knocked off: 23.
• In-school spots: three wins at 3 points each, in rings of 5 or more. With 48 points above them, all of it counts: 9.

Traditional Forms rack: 25 + 23 + 9 = 57. Their Sparring rack is counted on its own, the same way.

The rack decides the top ten

ATA ranks competitors in each event by what hangs on that event's rack.

• State top ten is open to color belts and black belts in an official Leadership program. Points count from the date on the welcome letter from ATA headquarters. A State Top Ten competitor in an event can compete in that event at the District Championships.
• World top ten is for black belts only. The final World top ten in an event, and black belts who win a District Champion title, can go on to the Tournament of Champions.

Our guide to the ATA state and world top ten covers who can make each list, where it leads, and how team points work.

The 2026-27 season ends on Saturday, April 24, 2027. Whatever is on the rack that day is the season.

Check the rack within 30 days

ATA usually updates the standings twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays. Checking that the points are right is your job, not ATA's. (Yes, one more thing for the to-do list.)

• Something missing or wrong? Send it through ATA's official point correction form. Other ways of asking are no longer accepted.
• The clock is 30 days. It starts the day the tournament is posted to the standings. After that, ATA takes no corrections for any reason.
• Membership expired? Then none of the points post. Renew, and send a correction within the same 30 days.

The easy way to check is to keep your own record of every placement: the event, the tournament's class and how many were in the ring. Then hold it up against the standings the week after each tournament.

So the next time the back seat asks, "How many points is that?", you'll have an answer before the next exit.

ATA's standings are the official record, and the rules can change from season to season. This guide follows the 2026-27 ATA tournament rules.