From a Tournament Judge and Referee's Perspective

[Montana]

With Spring and tournament season just a few months away for a lot of you, I thought I'd bring this thread back up to the front in hopes it might help any of you that are planning on competing in tournaments. Enjoy.

This section often has tournament competitors asking what judges look for, or suggestions for improving their "performances" before a panel of tournament judges and referee's, so I thought it might be a good topic for discussion.

I've been a tournament judge and referee since 1978 for open, all style tournaments. I don't attend XMA-style tournaments, so my comments are for the traditional tournaments.

The tournaments I attend are light contact for lower belt adults and young children, and medium contact for middle to advanced belt adults. Legal target areas include the front and side torso and kidneys (the spine is a no-no), front and sides of the head and the groin. Sweeps are allowed, but not directly on the ankle/knee joints. Take downs are also allowed but must be controlled and no "slamming" your opponent to the floor. The reason for this is that we don't use mats at our tournaments. The floor is usually a wooden basketball court or tile over cement (such as a closed grocery store might have).

When I first started, the only gear required was a mouth piece, groin cup and hand pads, but it has progressed to require foot pads and head protection now. Personally, I'm not a fan of protective gear of any sort because you won't be wearing it in a street confrontation, but that's just me.

Depending on the tournament, competitors are lined up by age groups and belt/experience levels. Typically the sparring divisions are like this:

Beginning (under 1 year experience) Youth 6-8 years old

Beginning Youth 9-12 years old

Beginning Youth 13-15 years old

Children 16 and above go into the Adult Division.

Intermediate Youth (over 1 year of experience but under brown belt) 6-8 years old.

Intermediate Youth 9-12 years old

Intermediate Youth 13-15 years old

Children 16 and above go into the Adult Division.

Advanced Brown/Black Belt Youth 6-12 years old

Advanced Brown/Black Belt Youth 13-15 years old

Children 16 and above go into the Adult Division

The Adult Divisions are typically:

Beginning Adults (under 1 year of experience)

Intermediate Adults (over 1 year but under brown/black)

Intermediate Adults (Brown belts)

Advanced Adults (Brown and Black Belts)

Sometimes we will have a division for Advanced women, but typically the women I know that are that level choose to compete in the regular Advanced Adults Division also. Personally, I admire those women and give kudos to them for stepping up and recognizing that they are holding an advanced level belt rank and aren't afraid to get in there with the "guys". Referee's for the beginning and intermediate levels can be brown or black belts, but the center ref has to be a Dan level belt.

Depending on the tournament, sparring can be who gets the most points in 2 minutes with a maximum of 5 points, and the action stops when a point is called by any of the 3-5 (5 required for advanced sparring) judges. The clock only stops in case of an injury, so points are awarded fast and the action starts again immediately. The other way that sparring can run in our tournaments is 2 minutes of continuous fighting where the clock only stops if there's an injury or the action is gridlocked (basically, no action is going on. At the end of 2 minutes the 3-5 referee's all hold up their flags as to who they think won the match.

Very often referee's are bad mouthed because we didn't see your point/technique that you scored against your opponent.

You need to keep in mind that we are only human and can't see everything...or we see something that YOU don't see. Sometimes that great punch that you are sure scored, we see as being to far away from the opponent, or not strong enough in our opinion to be a legitimate scoring point, it was blocked, or you were so off balance that the technique wouldn't have landed with any power to actually do any good. That, and we have to have a majority (2 out of 3, or 3 out of 5) of the judges must see and agree that there was a point.

Angles of view are everything in a tournament. If we can't see it, we won't call it. ALWAYS kai when you do a point! But if you kai EVERYTIME you do anything, we will get used to hearing it and tend to ignore it. Kai ONLY when you have made what you think is a good point. It's not the length of the kai (ie: a 5 second kai is way overboard) that is important, it's the strength of the kai.

Now for empty handed kata judging.

Because this is an open, all styles tournament, judges can't base their scores on the accuracy of the kata that is being performed for them. Although I've seen kata from Okinawan, Korean, Japanese, American and all other styles of martial arts over the years, I don't know them well enough to say whether they are doing them correctly or not, so we have to base our opinions on certain criteria. Such as:

-speed

-control

-timing-

-power

-balance

-focus

-strength

I'm typically the center, or controlling judge, for kata, so I always have a short meeting prior to the start of the event with my fellow judges. For beginning levels the judges must have at least a brown belt, with the center ref being a ranking black belt judge. For intermediate levels all judges are black belt level, with the center judge being sometimes the highest rank (but not always), or most experienced judge. We have a few "masters" that show up for tournaments, but they are sometimes VERY biased towards their own students, or they are just not very good judges, and thus are not allowed to be center judge.

I also hold a short meeting before the contest with all of the competitors and give them a pep talk and wish them well.

When the competition begins, the competitor approaches the judges (usually at a run), stops before them and gives their "salute" or bow, is expected to announce their name, system practiced, name of their kata and then ask permission to begin. I the motion them to begin their kata.

We will typically watch 3 competitors, chosen at random representing different systems, by the score keeper sitting behind us before we give any scores. We use the 10 point system (10 being the highest) and can either score by the half point (ie: 8.5), or by the fraction (ie: 8.3, 9.1, etc) depending on the rules of the tournament.

After we have scored the first three competitors this way, then each remaining competitor is scored at the end of their kata.

Weapons kata can be a real challenge.

Judges are picked because of their knowledge of kobudo/weapons. Again, I am typically asked to be the center judge for this competition. I hold a short meeting with my fellow judges prior to the beginning of the event and state some basic rules.

First of all is the weapon of choice. Is it a real weapon, or something else? For example, I had a black belt woman enter the competition with a broomstick painted black. Man, could she whip that thing around FAST! However, because of the type of material and the weight of the weapon, she scored very low with the judges. The reason was because if she had actually hit somebody with it, as a kata represents her doing, the weapon would have snapped and caused little to no damage to them. Keep in mind, this is NOT an XMA tournament, but rather a traditional tournament.

We also look for good technique. I wouldn't want to even try to guess at the number of competitors over the year that didn't have a clue how to use nunchauku, sai, tonfa, etc other than to whip them around or poke at the air.

The best example I can give would be a 3rd dan black belt that laid out nunchauku, sai, bo, katana, and a few other weapons in a half circle in front of us and announced he wasn't going to do a kata, but rather demonstrate to us his expertise with each of the weapons.

Sadly, and I was very embarassed for him, he was nothing short of terrible! His technique was very weak with all of the weapons, but hey, he had good KAI's! Out of a possible 10 he scored a 7, which is the lowest score we will give a black belt.

My best advice, if you're going to enter a weapons division, is to use a REAL weapon, and really learn how to use it. The nunchauku, for example, isn't ONLY used as a swinging weapon. There are a multitude of blocks and parrys that can, and should be demonstrated. Under no circumstances is the nunchauku passed between the legs, around the back of the neck, twirled between your fingers like a baton, or held close to the rope/chain. Not in a traditional tournament anyway.

On the bo, it is a two handed weapon. Swinging it over your head by one hand is NOT good technique or control. Nor is your ability to twirl it with one hand using your fingers. There are a few one handed techniques used with the bo, but essentially it is a two handed weapon.

With the sai, kama and tonfa, learn the proper way to hold the weapon when doing a block. So many times I have seen a competitor do a high block and the "blade" of the weapon that is supposed to be blocking isn't where it should be and if the situation was real, the competitor would have their arm cut off or broken from the strike.

I hope this helps you understand a judges perspective to tournaments.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Montana

[sensei8]

A very solid post across the board!! As a retired competitor and arbitrator of many open traditional tournaments, I concur with each and everything that you spoke about; right on the money!!

[DWx]

Great post! Obvious you have a lot of insight.

Interesting to see how different styles conduct their tournaments. I've never really competed or umpired outside of my style (or very similar styles) so its interesting to see how its all done.

Very often referee's are bad mouthed because we didn't see your point/technique that you scored against your opponent.

You need to keep in mind that we are only human and can't see everything...or we see something that YOU don't see...

I like that point. When training for sport tournaments you not only have to train the point scoring techniques, you have to make sure that you are scoring a visual point; one that the judges can clearly see.

[joesteph]

I like your post, Montana, but have a question about one section in paragraph 12:

Sometimes that great punch that you are sure scored, we see as being to far away from the opponent, to strong enough in our opinion to be a legitimate scoring point, it was blocked, or you were so off balance that the technique wouldn't have landed with any power to actually do any good.

I'm not sure I understand what I've highlighted in bold. The strike is too strong to score a point? Is this a penalty by way of denying a point due to lack of control?

[Montana]

I like your post, Montana, but have a question about one section in paragraph 12:

Sometimes that great punch that you are sure scored, we see as being to far away from the opponent, to strong enough in our opinion to be a legitimate scoring point, it was blocked, or you were so off balance that the technique wouldn't have landed with any power to actually do any good.

I'm not sure I understand what I've highlighted in bold. The strike is too strong to score a point? Is this a penalty by way of denying a point due to lack of control?

OOPS! My mistake, it should be "not" instead of to. Fixed. Thanks.

[bushido_man96]

Great information. Thanks for putting in the time to make this available for everyone.

[Jeffrey]

Thank you. I read this now 3 times. And each time I get something new from it. I hope to apply some of your wisdom on the weeknd of the 13th of November. We shall see how it goes.

[jarule]

Great post.