Proper Challenge Protocol

[cathal]

What is the proper method to challenge a judge's decision during competition?

 

Do you immediately request a time out and confer with your sensei/coach or wait until the end of competition? Do you challenge this yourself? Any and all input is appreciated.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

Different tournaments have different procedures, so that will vary.

 

In the tournaments that I attend and judge/referree, the competitor (unless he/she is the instructor) isn't allowed to challenge the judges with a call/decision. They have to have their instructor, or one of their assistant instructors talk to the judge/ref. You do NOT want to wait until the end of competition, as the judges/ref's may not remember the specific event. After a full day of watching sparring or kata, they tend to blend one into the other.

 

However, and again, this will depend on the tournament, I would think that if you approached the judge/ref respectively and asked them for a time out and an explanation of the point awarded (orwhatever you want to know)...I would think they would be willing to do so as long as it didn't happen often, and didn't slow down the competition process much.

[cathal]

I tend to agree that your sensei should be the one making the compaint. What if I am watching a colleague spar, for example, and my sensei isn't watching...and I see a bag call or favouritism-based call? How does one challenge this?

[Shorinryu Sensei]

I tend to agree that your sensei should be the one making the compaint. What if I am watching a colleague spar, for example, and my sensei isn't watching...and I see a bag call or favouritism-based call? How does one challenge this?

 

If you are a senior student...at least a black belt from the same club, I think you may be able to ask NICELY to confer with the judges. However, if you are under a black belt in rank, I'd suggest keeping quiet. Personally, if a lower belt came up to me...even nice and respectful, and told me I was missing points...it would, IMO, provide possible cause to have your team mate disqulified.

[brickman]

In the AAU all protests are to be filed with "the person in charge". I say that because sometimes at local tournaments they will not have a set rules person. If someone's teacher....or black belt student addresses the head referee, they are warned to not speak to the officials...on the second time...his/her student starts giving points to the opponent. I will also say each table should have an arbitrator you can speak to also. But never address the referee....alot of people are experts at what they think is a point.

[cathal]

Thank you

[chiflow]

this is a good question

I have heard several thoughts on this and i have spent years in tournaments.

And i have been the victim of many bad calls (like everyone) some that cost me a first place

my general thoughts on arguments on calls is that it can disrespectful to your Dojo and Sensei depending on how it is done. Also to the host of the tournament.. in most cases its is best to let it go and move on..

Unless you see favortism or cheating

There are some exceptions but to me the bottom line is whats the big deal?

This is not a World Title you are fighting for

So you had a bad call and you lost

did you have fun? Did you learn anything?

I blame myself for most of my bad calls, as i was apparently not paying enough attention to proper angles and distance.

My advice for bad calls: keep your mouth shut and if possible in a respecful manner have it addressed by your Sensei. And keep your dissapointment to yourself and do not express it by throwing your gloves and yelling as i have seen many people do..

Under black belts should never challenge a judge in my book

Real life example: At a point tournament one of my judges was a TKD instructor and he was not scoring correctly, he was only counting the four corner judges and not allowing himself imput. so we kept going back and forth with not enough\tie, Well i caught this right off the bat.. after my matches had ended i asked one of my buddys to go get Doshu (my Sensei)

I whispered to him what was going on and after the devision was over he pulled him aside and reminded him of the proper way to score.. It did not help me out but the matches after my devision were a little more acurate.

I had recorded these matches and as it turned out i had scored more times than i had remembered.. but the points where never acknowledged

I ended up losing this one which was very upsetting.

[CrippledFingers]

I tend to agree that your sensei should be the one making the compaint. What if I am watching a colleague spar, for example, and my sensei isn't watching...and I see a bag call or favouritism-based call? How does one challenge this?

If you are a senior student...at least a black belt from the same club, I think you may be able to ask NICELY to confer with the judges. However, if you are under a black belt in rank, I'd suggest keeping quiet. Personally, if a lower belt came up to me...even nice and respectful, and told me I was missing points...it would, IMO, provide possible cause to have your team mate disqulified.

Man, why would you do that? I've been in MA over 5 years and I'm no blackbelt. You shouldn't take lower belts questioning your desicion as a sign of disrespect worth dissqualifying over.

All competitions I've seen judges are prone to call on points that just shouldn't have been. That's just the way it is. IE. two guys comming out of an equal clash but one getting the point just because. Or a kick just below the belt and with good technique (rules are rules, no below belt contact here) but still a point.

If you get questioned, chalk one up for learning experience, don't disqualify the poor guy.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

You shouldn't take lower belts questioning your desicion as a sign of disrespect worth dissqualifying over.

If you get questioned, chalk one up for learning experience, don't disqualify the poor guy.

OK, look at it this way. Say you have a tournament with 100+ competitors in it. There are 3-5 rings going at the same time,with 3-5 judges/ref's in each one. Our tournaments start at 10am sharp, and get over when they're done. This can be as late as 9:00 at night, or as early as 3:00 in the afternoon.

Now, let's say we allow anybody to challenge a call. A sensei, any black belt or colored belt. Heck, why not let parents or even interested spectators challenge a call made by any referree or judge.

What would you have? Total chaos, and a tournament that wouldn't finish before sometime the next day. Take for an example, if a friend of yours from your dojo is sparring and you feel that he didn't get a point that you felt he should have. You yell "STOP" or something and go to the center judge/ref and challenge the point. It would stop the action in that ring for probably at least 5 minutes. So, the contest continues. Again, you think your friend didn't get the next point fairly, so you yell "STOP" again. Another 5 minutes goes by, and off we go again. The next time it might be the other guys friends yelling "STOP", and yet another 5 minutes goes by.

What I'm getting at here is that if you allow anybody to challenge a ruling, you're wasting a heck of a lot of time, and you're going to get the ref's pretty PO'd about the situation, and I personally wouldn't like it and would stop going to a tournament like that.

I seldom take students to tournaments. It's purely elective and optional. I travel at my own expense and judge/ref tournaments without payment because the people that put them on are my friends. In the situation you are describing where lower belts (or anybody) can stop the action in a ring and challenge the ref's, I would...as a judge/ref...stop attending that sort of tournament. If my fellow inbstructors who also judge/ref felt thesame way,they would stop going also...and what sort of tournament are you going to have if nobody comes?

[Kieran-Lilith]

Okay, I have a somewhat related question. How do you get out of the rest of the match early? Before you get three, or something? I just went to my first tournament a few weeks ago, and I got nailed hard in the head, twice. I could barely stand up, and I didn't know how to get out of the match. My friend so "wisely" told me I should have. Well, it helps if someone would have told me how. I felt dizzy, could barely stand, let alone fight, and felt sick, and I still think I'm lucky I didn't end up falling on the floor after the match. How do you bow out early in these situations, where there was no call of excessive contact, no penalty, but you can't keep going?