Tournament Politics ?

[DWx]

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!

For all the tournaments I attend, if this happened they would be virtually impossible to run because you'd have no judges. Most of the larger schools will enter students into every category and this would mean their instructors couldn't judge in any of the categories.

[white owl]

I agree with DWx. Most tournaments are short on Black Belt judges and it would be very difficult to get out of judging your own students.

[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!

For all the tournaments I attend, if this happened they would be virtually impossible to run because you'd have no judges. Most of the larger schools will enter students into every category and this would mean their instructors couldn't judge in any of the categories.

white owl Posted:

I agree with DWx. Most tournaments are short on Black Belt judges and it would be very difficult to get out of judging your own students.

No matter how large or how small a tournament might be, integrity must be upheld. There's no tournament so small that an instructor, for the sake of upholding the tournament integrity, can't bow out of that "ring" for the time being!!!! Don't judge your own student at any tournament...I won't!

[DWx]

No matter how large or how small a tournament might be, integrity must be upheld. There's no tournament so small that an instructor, for the sake of upholding the tournament integrity, can't bow out of that "ring" for the time being!!!! Don't judge your own student at any tournament...I won't!

I would argue that that would compromise the integrity of the tournament. If someone is going to judge a division then they must judge the whole division to keep it fair to the competitors. Any particular bias they have, whether they demand from the competitors perfect stances in forms or maybe they want to see a certain technique done a certain way, it will apply to all the competitors in that division. Besides which, I was at the English ITF TKD champs last weekend and looking around I think it would be near impossible to have instructors step out due to integrity, as out of the 5 judges and 2 table refs, there was always at least one person related to the competitors in some way whether it was a direct student-instructor relationship or they were friends with the student's instructor etc.

[sensei8]

No matter how large or how small a tournament might be, integrity must be upheld. There's no tournament so small that an instructor, for the sake of upholding the tournament integrity, can't bow out of that "ring" for the time being!!!! Don't judge your own student at any tournament...I won't!

I would argue that that would compromise the integrity of the tournament. If someone is going to judge a division then they must judge the whole division to keep it fair to the competitors. Any particular bias they have, whether they demand from the competitors perfect stances in forms or maybe they want to see a certain technique done a certain way, it will apply to all the competitors in that division. Besides which, I was at the English ITF TKD champs last weekend and looking around I think it would be near impossible to have instructors step out due to integrity, as out of the 5 judges and 2 table refs, there was always at least one person related to the competitors in some way whether it was a direct student-instructor relationship or they were friends with the student's instructor etc.

Then don't judge, go as a spectator! I'm extremely adamant about judging ones own student(s) at any tournament. I've seen my share of fights at tournaments because one of the judges was a competitors instructor.

If someone is going to judge a division then they must judge the whole division to keep it fair to the competitors. Any particular bias they have, whether they demand from the competitors perfect stances in forms or maybe they want to see a certain technique done a certain way, it will apply to all the competitors in that division.

I concur wholeheartedly! Still, don't judge ones own student!

[DWx]

Then don't judge, go as a spectator! I'm extremely adamant about judging ones own student(s) at any tournament. I've seen my share of fights at tournaments because one of the judges was a competitors instructor.

Takes you back to the problem of not having enough officials to keep the tournament running.

[white owl]

Going to the tournaments that we go to it is hard to be just a spectator when people know that you are a black belt, even out of gi you are ask to judge. My husband has tried and so has my Sensei's.

[sensei8]

Going to the tournaments that we go to it is hard to be just a spectator when people know that you are a black belt, even out of gi you are ask to judge. My husband has tried and so has my Sensei's.

A "Thank you, but, I'm here to just watch!" might work.

Takes you back to the problem of not having enough officials to keep the tournament running.

If one doesn't have more than enough judges to run, then don't run one. Only problems might occur when a tournament is under staffed.

[Okami]

I dont think a Kata Board should change if as this would compromise the score trend, the high and low are gnerally dropped so there shouldn't be a problem here. Myself I have a proclivity of grading my own students a bit lower.

As far a free fighting I want to watch my students not judge my students.

But to test the politics of a certain area (Louisiana) while judging black belt free sparring I noted the big hero that I didn't even know and he went up against a very good challenger.

I waited for the right moment after some real all day politically correct calls from the other judges and when the challenger scored a perfect reverse punch on the hero I called it for the hero who was caught dead to rights. All four flags went up and they all saw what I really didn't see. I went to the challenger later and appologised, but I just had to know the deal, he understood, but still I promised never to referee again. This was in fact the worst refing I eversaw in the world. It goes however with Louisiana politics.

[Tiger1962]

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 agree with your reasoning 100%, but at the tournaments I've attended, this reasoning is not observed. I understand that sometimes it can't be avoided due to lack of available judges from different schools --- but sometimes I'd see it regardless of that.