The WKF have had those rules for years and years. So you don't need to put down the "Olympic" in it.

Also it is to prevent any favouritism due to rank. The real reason is to make things easier for the Referee + Judges to vote on who performed the better kata.

I know the US often doesn't use the WKF way of assigning AKA or AO for the competitors to use for each round.

The only tournament I HAVEN'T used the WKF Rules is when it is a small club hosted the tournament and we just used a small red piece of rope at the back of one competitors belt.

I was a judge/ref for over 25 years, and IMO if a judge scores higher because of the condition of a competitors belt, or his rank, and not his skill level, he has no business being a judge/ref.

My opinion of course.

Judging a karateka by the colour or condition of their belt is unsurprisingly common. Given that the belts system and culture of it is so strongly ingrained, it is probably not something that people do consciously. It is mostly unintentional.

Judges, karateka and the public alike tend to focus on the belt without thinking about doing it. Having all the same colour belt or no belt at all takes the attention away from biases and allows judges to focus on the practicioner in a more neutral way.

I judged a nationally ranked kata competitor once in a traditional kata competition that did back flips, splits and the like and out of 5 judges on the panel, I scored him a 7 out of 10. The other judges gave him much higher marks. His kata, as good as it was, was far from traditional. He gave quite the glare afterwards.

I judged a nationally ranked kata competitor once in a traditional kata competition that did back flips, splits and the like and out of 5 judges on the panel, I scored him a 7 out of 10. The other judges gave him much higher marks. His kata, as good as it was, was far from traditional. He gave quite the glare afterwards.

The glare is uncalled for, for certain. If I was a competitor, I would be interested in asking what it was that got me that score. Not in a disrespectful way, but asking in a way to get better.

I judged a nationally ranked kata competitor once in a traditional kata competition that did back flips, splits and the like and out of 5 judges on the panel, I scored him a 7 out of 10. The other judges gave him much higher marks. His kata, as good as it was, was far from traditional. He gave quite the glare afterwards.

The glare is uncalled for, for certain. If I was a competitor, I would be interested in asking what it was that got me that score. Not in a disrespectful way, but asking in a way to get better.

Solid post!!

And yeah, because I would've been required to give some score, I would've gave the lowest, although I'd rather of given a No Score. Why? Back flips and the like in a Traditional Division...ah...NO!! In a Non-Traditional Division...ah...YES!!