What Judges Look For At An Open Tournmanet (ex: NASKA)

[Toast]

Point of this thread is to let competitors know where to improve on, by listing things judges look for at an open tournament.

 

What Judges Look For:

• Deep Stances
   
  Eyes At The Target
   
  1/4 Second Moves
   
  Snap Your Moves
   
  Look Before Each Side
   
  Make Sure You Know Where Each Move Should Hit, And With What Part of The Body (ex: punch- aim w/ 1st knuckle so the punch will roll to the 2nd kunckle, in the end only the 1st 2 knuckles are used in the punch)
   
  Feel Your Form
  

 

You may think judges look for alot more...not really. Most judges look for these kinds of things...there are some things other judges look for, but they don't really penalize you for that. I'm sure you (members can input on this topic)

 

Please put in your input...this is to Help YOU!

[stl_karateka]

What division are you talking about -- traditional or open?

 

I agree with all of those things and I'll add a few:

 

STANCES --- I know you already said it, but its soooo important.

 

Posture --- back straight, head up

 

Focus - do you look like you are going thru the moves or are you living the kata. Do you look like you are fighting....I should be able to see the application of moves (traditional div)

 

Presentation - this should be the least of your worries, but does have some merit and is worth mentioning. Respectfully bow and introduce yourself to the judges. Personally I don't think they are impressed with all the yelling of the name....you can project power in your voice and show intensity without busting an eardrum!

 

Open / Music divisions judges look for:

 

-Creativity

 

-Choerography

 

-Complexity of moves

 

-If weapons - then releases get brownie points (I'm not making this up...I listen to the commentators from the US Open)

 

-Originality

[Toast]

Open or Traditional...Whatever You Can Offer...And Then Maybe We Can Make a Master List, That We Can Sticky...

 

Focus is very important....never let it slip out of your tournament practice...

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I've been a judge/referree of open tournaments since 1980 or so, so I'd like to add my comments to this.

Deep Stances -- Not necessarily. Not all systems (shorinryu for example) use deep stances. A good, solid stance, most definitely! I look for straight legs and mark down for it. Woobly stances also are marked down.

 

Eyes At The Target -- yes, if a competitor is klooking one way, and striking another that's sloppy.

 

1/4 Second Moves -- I don't know what this is.

 

Snap Your Moves -- Agreed. It goes along with power and speed. I've seen so many black belts that lack this in competiton.

 

Look Before Each Side -- Also agree. many judges don't even consider this in a kata. How do you know where to move to if you don't see your opponent?

 

Make Sure You Know Where Each Move Should Hit, And With What Part of The Body (ex: punch- aim w/ 1st knuckle so the punch will roll to the 2nd kunckle, in the end only the 1st 2 knuckles are used in the punch) --- well, unless you specifically know the kata that is being done, you wouldn't know this of every ssytem that is demonstrating in front of you. However, if I see someone punch and their wrist is turned back..that is poor technique and will be marked down. Same goe with kicks or blocks.

 

Feel Your Form -- yes..I like to see a competitor "get into" the kata. Make it come alive for me..make me feel like you are visualiazing you are fighting someone.

 

"You may think judges look for alot more...not really." -- Quite the contrary actually. Judges, if they have a clue as to what they are doing, look for overall fluidity and smoothness of the kata. Overall strength, confidence, timing, speed, concentration and intensity. There's probably other things, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

 

I also hate it when a competitor comes up to me and yells his name and style...sheesh! That does NOT impress me! But there again, I don't want to have to strain to hear over the background noise either.

 

In weapons competition the first thing I look at is .."Does he/she pronounce the name of the weapon correctly?" For example, if a competitor comes up to me and says they are going to do "Numchuk Kata #1", they won't get higher than a 7-8 from me because he doesn't even know the name of the weapon. Also, in bo competition, if they are using a lightweight broom stick bo, they will score low with me. I've seen black belts do this. I've seen sai kata done where the sai doesn't come down bast their elbow...meaning they are using a weapopn that is to short for their arm. Or kama kata where all they do is HACK, HACK AND THEN HACK SOME MORE!!! ARGH!!!

 

I could go on with weapons, but you get the idea.