Biass in competitions

[isshinryu5toforever]

I always get criticized for scoring my students or those associated with my school on a harder system than the other competitors. That's why I generally try to back out of judging competitors from my school.

[Whitefeather]

You'll never lose a street fight because of a judge's prejudice.

Hmm, I have never heard it put that way before. Well said. I have only been to two tournaments, but both times I was subject to bias when I did my kata. Once by a Kung-Fu person, and the other time by a TKD person. The way that you can deal with that is to be so insanely good that there is no way whatsoever that a judge can say that you were not the absolute best. That is what I tell myself when I start getting ticked at biased judges.

David

[jaymac]

I once attended a very small tournament (it was pretty nice by the way), and I was in kata competition with only one other individual. Instead of scoring the two of us, they had us turn our backs away from the judges and they pointed to whom they thought was better. I did win. I thought this was such an odd way of judging us, but later my friend told me that out of the 3 judges, 2 pointed to me and one pointed to the other. This judge was his instructor. By the way, my fellow competetor forgot his kata and had to start over.

[RichardHangHong]

Funnily enough I was in a tournament on Saturday and one of the judges was always marking down people who weren't his and marking up people that were just so they could stay in a get a trophy. It was so blatantly obvious but nobody said anything to him.

I ended up getting 5th in the kata just because he was trying to keep his guys in the event. I was told I probably would have got 2nd or 3rd place. Oh well, I'll kick his butt next time. LOL!

There was even an incident where 3 teams had tied in the team kata and he was watching me and the other judge to see what score we were giving on his team and increasing his to make sure they stayed in. Not just once, but 4 times as we had to repeat the finals that many times just to get a winner.

There's a word that descibes him but I know my post will be deleted if I say it. Damn!

[lordtariel]

I haven't had that one, but I just recently experienced the "everyone is using the bo, oh hey, this guy's not, let's give him more points" thing.

[Smitty]

Yeah man, that just reminded me of something that happened at one about a month ago.

I decided to perform Seipai at a tourney.There were alot of kids from one school, so I knew I was in for it. I was last up and made sure to be very circular, snappy, and hard, with lotsa spirit. I remember I got 8.5, 6.0, 6.1, 6.5, and 7.3.

I was like "What the heck?"

I remember getting 3rd, and when we dispersed, I looked at the judges. 3 of them where from the school with all the kids. I was tweaked, but hey, you win some, you lose some.

[patusai]

this happens even in world cup, for example Japan should win one of three medals in Kata no matter what, while there are some karate-kas better than them and everybody knows. Just wait and watch the world cup in Mexico.

Politics happens even in real life, the work environment and even in your neighborhood. Too many things are subjective when judging happens. My wife is a diving coach and there are judges who don't see good portions of a dive but rather see the bad portion and judge based on that. It depends on what the judge is looking for. There is bias in pretty much everthing in life....sorry to say. Those that win are not always the best.

[granmasterchen]

I judged not too long ago in an all pacific ma tourney where schools from hawaii, cali, korea and japan competed. I judged very fairly.....BUT....when it was all over there were many parents,students, instructors, and "martial artists" that were very upset with me BECAUSE i didn't give favoratism to their schools b/c they new me. Funny how some people react when you DON'T cheat, lol.

[patusai]

I judged not too long ago in an all pacific ma tourney where schools from hawaii, cali, korea and japan competed. I judged very fairly.....BUT....when it was all over there were many parents,students, instructors, and "martial artists" that were very upset with me BECAUSE i didn't give favoratism to their schools b/c they new me. Funny how some people react when you DON'T cheat, lol.

Parents can be the worst. Pretty much every sport I watch I see parents out of control at some point. Either that or they are controlling things to the point where others have difficulties with them. They want to smooth lifes path in competition for their kids. Sometimes it's because they live their own youth over again through their children. In the end some of the kids get all messed up because their expectation of themselves and of the way that they eventually expect the world to treat them is not the way it is.