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judging open tournaments!

judging....empty hand forms! Hyungs and katas

Ok your asked to judge empty hand forms!
your a tang Soo Do stylist...the person performing the form is not from Tang Soo Do approaches you..states his name style and ask permission to perform a kata not a hyung that you have no idea how it goes or the movements, breathing, speed...nothing...You are not familure with the kata.
some of the judges are from his style and know the kata....you and another judge are cluless!
HOW DO YOU FAIRLY JUDGE THE KATA?
hummm looks good! to bad you didnt know he totally screwed up the kata, forgot the high block in the 5th movement... adlibed the last 4 movements...but hey it looked good so you gave him a decent score just enough to knock the competitor whos kata was flawless out of the running for first place..
lets gets some views on this topic....its time bernard this board gets rockin!!!!
Judging Open kata
G.M. Zacker
Tang Soo Do Martial Arts Society

Martial Art Style www.michigantsd.com

Re: judging open tournaments!

I do this all the time. You ALWAYS judge EVERY competitor on his balance, breathing, speed, focus, transition, coordination, power and artistic expression only. It makes no difference how long or how short the form is...what the Kata or Hyung is....what system it is from or what style he is. You are judging HIM...the competitor...and HIS performance at that moment...not the form...and not the style.

JH

Re: judging open tournaments!

I'm with JH on this one,and what about judging Tang Soo Do competitors from different orgs, same thing, orgs do the same forms different, breathing, frame, rythm,so you must judge by the crispness of the form the focus of the competitor, and the overall technical aspect.

b

Martial Art Style Tang Soo Do

Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

I can almost agree but I need one clarification. If another student was doing a form that you knew well and they made a mistake in a sequence or a stance that would not be caught unless you knew the form - would you ignore that error to be fair to all competitors since this was not a judging criteria you used with forms you are not familiar with?

Tang Soo,
Dave

Re: Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

Excellent point Mr Doty!
How about it gentlemen????
MD

Martial Art Style www.michigantsd.com

Re: Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

Yes...you ignore the error....provided the competitor is able to immediately recover and continue smoothly as if the mistake was not made. I actually train my people from day one to not get caught up on mistakes. If you make one...continue as if you meant to do it....and try to get back into the proper position or sequence with some appropriate movement. This is actually a skill of adaptivity that should be rewarded...thus why you should not penalize when it occurs because had you not had an intimate knowledge of the form, the school and the student...you would not have known from the preformance that the movement was incorrect.

JH

Re: Re: Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

I agree that the mistake must be unnoticeable and thereinby Teacher Hancock is at least being consistent and treating everyone equally, but it still maybe questionable that ignoring a known fault is really being fair, no matter how well the performer covers it up. I think the most important point is that the Tournament have clear guidelines on such issues.

Tang Soo!
Dave

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

That's nonsense. How can you have clear guidelines on every single form possible from every style possible that may or may not show up at an OPEN tournament. It is this type of rigid narrow thinking that has been unfair to more than one competitor who had the misfortune of having on his judging pannel a black belt in the same style but from a different school, who imposes HIS own bias and judgment of how the style should be performed on the competitor unknowingly.

To judge...one has to be fair....to ALL the competitors. If the competitor was from a different style performing a form you were completely unfamiliar with, you would have to judge him solely one the criteria I outlined. Thus...if you place value judgements on style mistake on a practitioner whom you THINK is from your style is to do an injustice to him and the spirit of the competition.

JH

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

I never said guidelines on each form. I was only saying that the guidelines for Judging, not each form, be consistent. If I went to a Teacher Hancock run open Tournament you would have a guideline that says, "


"You ALWAYS judge EVERY competitor on his balance, breathing, speed, focus, transition, coordination, power and artistic expression only. Ignore errors in the sequence (order and type of move)....provided the competitor is able to immediately recover and continue smoothly as if the mistake was not made."

This way all Judges would be applying equal rules. I still have an issue if you know a mistake was made that you must ignore it but if were Your tournament, I would certainly follow your rules.

Tang Soo!
Dave

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

The ONLY time you could KNOW it was a mistake...is when it is YOUR student.

So are you saying you should be harder on your own students than the rest of the field of competition?

JH

Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

No need to shout, be cool, we understand the point.

Tang Soo!
Dave

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: judging open tournaments!

No need to shout, we understand the point.

Tang Soo!
Dave

Re: judging open tournaments!

Thought this thread meshed nicely with the current topic!


b

Re: judging open tournaments!

I can remember a tournament that I attended in South Carolina in 1979. I was a 1st gup and there were 65 competitors in my division. The hyung that I chose for that competition was Jinto.
At the end of the hyung, I took an extra step. I recovered it very well (I thought). The judges scores were (from right to left) 8-8-8-5-5. I placed 4th.
When the competition was over the two judges that gave me the 5’s ran over to me. They were both had these weird smiles and one asked me; what was the mistake that you made at the end of your form? This caught me by surprise. I had, with the exception of the extra step, done a super job, as stated by the 8’s awarded to me by the other 3 judges. Before answering, I asked them; do either of you know my form? They said NO, but we saw the expression on your face change when you did what ever it was that you did wrong, so we had to knock down your score…

I must tell you that I wasn’t angry at them for not giving me the 8’s that the other judges had awarded me, but I felt that a 3 point penalty was severe, especially when they weren’t familiar with the form in the first place.

If I am at an open tournament and a student does a hyung that I am familiar with, and he takes an extra step, or does a hand or foot technique that I am not use to, it could (in this day and age) be that his/her instructor, organization, association, federation, etc. has made a change that I am not aware of. I can’t penalize the student for doing the hyung differently, if it is executed with good balance, focus, timing, etc.

Many of us are saying the same thing; the bottom line is that the only way for you to be able to hold a competitor to a standard regarding specific movements is in a closed tournament where EVERYONE is held to the same identical structure of movements. In an open tournament, you can’t penalize anyone for a different movement, only their execution.

Have a great day,

TANG SOO!!!

Master Penfil

Martial Art Style Tang Soo Do

Re: judging open tournaments!

The only thing you should or can judge on is the execution of the techniques based off of the foundations that we all have in common...in other words speed, sharpness of technique, control of body, power, timing, flow of technique, intensity, balance, etc.

Nothing makes me hotter than to see 9.98, 9.98, 9.97, 9.99, 9.83 and when you ask him or her why they say..well we don't do Bassai like that....we don't throw kicks above the knees...and so on

Schools under my instructor have tiny little quirks in the way they do the forms despite the fact we (his students and now instructors) were all trained by the same man... There is no way in heck of fairly judging at an open Tourney even if Tang Soo Do schools and only Tang Soo Do schools showed up if you were to judge based solely on this section of that hyung has this many steps and blah blah blah... I have studied under more than one tang soo do instructor and worked out with a great many tang soo do artists and none do the forms identically, except when they belong to the same school or organization.

So even if you brought together only Tang Soo Do schools in a closed tournament opening it up to different offshoots you would not be able to judge the forms in any way but by those other intangibles... The only exception would be if you held a tournament that was closed to only one organization that was tight knit and standardized.

Martial Art Style Tang Soo Do