Tournament Politics ?

[white owl]

Those rules sound bunk to me. If you are going to drop the high and low, which I have seen, then don't add them back to break ties. For tie breakers, each competitor does the same form again. Then, the winner is chosen. If one guy messes it up, then he is stuck with 2nd place. That's the way I see it. I would not return to that tourney.

I actually just competed in a tourny this fall and tied another competitor they do drop the high and low scores and if you tied you may do the same form or choose another one and then after we were done we had to turn around and the judges choose who one.

My experience is that, that is the correct way to score(dropping high and low and then averaging) but when you get a tie the two competitors tied do their forms side by side and get scored again. that's just one way i've seen it done though. there are many many ways of course.

I never saw this in the tournaments that I have compete in and when it happen to me I did my kata by myself.

[bushido_man96]

Yep. We hit around 20 tournaments a year and see significant bias in some circuits. Sometimes it's black belts judging competitors from their own schools. Sometimes it's based on regions within a circuit (e.g. folks in the northwest region favoring competitors from the northwest over those from the southeast), and sometimes it even breaks down on racial lines.

In addition, there are just a lot of bad judges out there. Some circuits grab any black belt and let him judge - without regard to whether he has judged tournament karate in the past, what style he is judging, etc.

On the other hand, every parent feels like their kid gets the short end of the call a lot of time. After you've seen as many tournaments as I have you come to realize that EVERYONE thinks the judging is bad - which means it must be going in your favor at least HALF of the time. As much as it pains me to say it - bad judging for one is bad judging for all - and in some sort of sad, sick way that is somehow . . . well . . . fair.

Ugh.

I think you nailed it here. Nobody likes to lose, but more and more, I think we see less accountability on the part of parents or the competitors. Instead of being good sports, they focus more on how "my kid got screwed..."

[bushido_man96]

Those rules sound bunk to me. If you are going to drop the high and low, which I have seen, then don't add them back to break ties. For tie breakers, each competitor does the same form again. Then, the winner is chosen. If one guy messes it up, then he is stuck with 2nd place. That's the way I see it. I would not return to that tourney.

I actually just competed in a tourny this fall and tied another competitor they do drop the high and low scores and if you tied you may do the same form or choose another one and then after we were done we had to turn around and the judges choose who one.

When we did tiebreakers, the two would go at the same time again, but we would have to stick with our first form. Then, instead of a score, the judges just pointed in the direction of the winner. I don't mind this method at all.

[Alex86]

I have also seen my share of tournament politics. I've seen instructors judging their own students, bias for the tournament promoters students, even a lady who was score keeping for her own son's division, and changed the scores so he could win!! This is part of the reason I stopped compeating myself, not because I couldn't handle it, but because I hated seeing the kids getting ripped off because of adult politics.

The parents are getting bad too; it's almost as bad as little league baseball.

[white owl]

The parents are getting bad too; it's almost as bad as little league baseball.

I was at a tournament over the weekend and I definitely agree with you on this.

As for your sensei judging in your ring well my sensei has had to do that and he was very fair if not harder on his students.

[Alex86]

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As for your sensei judging in your ring well my sensei has had to do that and he was very fair if not harder on his students.

I did not mean to imply that nobody can judge their own students without bias; I have also had to judge my own students before, and I also tend to be harder on them. I have just seen some obvious favoritism in these circumstances before.

[bushido_man96]

The parents are getting bad too; it's almost as bad as little league baseball.

I was at a tournament over the weekend and I definitely agree with you on this.

As for your sensei judging in your ring well my sensei has had to do that and he was very fair if not harder on his students.

Seeing as we are discussing politics in tournaments and all that, isn't this a bit of a problem, as well? I think that as an instructor, it is important to not be harsher on your students when judging, but to be just as fair with them as you are with the rest of the competition.

Now, if you do score your students well, because they do well, then be prepared to answer any questions as to why you scored the way you did. In the end, by being harsher on your own students, I don't think it solves any problems; it just compounds them.

[Ozpunker]

The parents are getting bad too; it's almost as bad as little league baseball.

I was at a tournament over the weekend and I definitely agree with you on this.

As for your sensei judging in your ring well my sensei has had to do that and he was very fair if not harder on his students.

Seeing as we are discussing politics in tournaments and all that, isn't this a bit of a problem, as well? I think that as an instructor, it is important to not be harsher on your students when judging, but to be just as fair with them as you are with the rest of the competition.

Now, if you do score your students well, because they do well, then be prepared to answer any questions as to why you scored the way you did. In the end, by being harsher on your own students, I don't think it solves any problems; it just compounds them.

On the topic of judging your own students harder. I'm not sure how other tournaments are run but the ones that I attend are made up of many different styles. Each style has their own katas and such and there is no way that each judge can be 100% familiar with every other style. If one of your judges is your instructor as well, they will know your routine inside out and can pick up on the tiniest mistakes you make where as if you don't make it obvious the other judges won't be able to tell.

[sensei8]

Nobody's surprised that politics have raised its ugly head in tournaments! No matter where one might look in the martial arts, politics are evident.

No instructor should EVER judge their own student, no matter the division! This destroys the integrity of the tournament. If one of my students were in a ring that I was one of the judges, I'd excuse myself to conserve the integrity of the tournament!

[bushido_man96]

No instructor should EVER judge their own student, no matter the division! This destroys the integrity of the tournament. If one of my students were in a ring that I was one of the judges, I'd excuse myself to conserve the integrity of the tournament!

I don't know about that, Bob. Does it destroy the integrity of the tournament, or is it a chance to show integrity by not being biased when it comes to judging your own students?

After all, isn't integrity one of those tenets that many MA instructors preach in their moral ethics portion of the classes?