Judged/Refereed my first TKD tournament

[Yamabushii]

Technically it wasn't just TKD, it was also Tang Soo Do, Karate, and Kung Fu, though the majority was TKD. I will admit that TKD isn't my core skill, however, one of my students is nearly a grandmaster in TKD and he finally convinced me to judge/ref a tournament. Surprisingly I enjoyed judging the armed and unarmed solo forms the most. Initially I thought I would have enjoyed the point sparring most. While I did see some solid foot work, I kept thinking to myself about some of the cons and I feel like they are pretty big. A lot of what I saw from both children and adults in point sparring, from beginner to advanced ranks, was a lot of forward lunges in hopes an attack would land to score the first point. Even though some people instinctively countered, the point system favored the one who struck first (assuming the attack landed). In many cases I also saw attacks that were clearly blocked but the attacker was still awarded a point. While I do see the benefit of many TKD moves, I feel like it must be hard to escape the muscle memory of throwing yourself almost completely into an attack - which are not always going to be enough to actually stop someone in reality and it personally seems dangerous to me.

Are there TKD schools out there that do not focus on point sparring at all or is it too deeply ingrained in the art's culture? Unfortunately in that tournament there was no continuous sparring which I was hoping to see. For the TKD practitioners here, what are your thoughts about training for point sparring vs fighting in reality? How do you separate the two? Not trying to knock anyone or any art by any means, but I am genuinely wondering.

TIA

 

[Earl Weiss]

ITF Has been continuous sparring since about 1974. WT is also continuous sparring. Pre 1974 when I started we were point sparring concept being if you get "Tagged" with an attack sufficient to score you will not be able to counter. This is not a bad concept. Unfortunately it did lead to people developing the habit of stopping because they thought they had scored such an attack. While continuous does not lead to that bad habit it leads to what may be a bad habit of thinking you are able to "Take one to get two."

 

[Dirty Dog]

Our MDK has always used continuous sparring, punches to the head, etc.

 

[J. Pickard]

This is an issue with stop/start point sparring in general, it develops a lot of bad habits. Continuous sparring rules are better but have a slightly larger margin for human error in my opinion. I've always thought it would be interesting to see unarmed sparring done the way some HEMA weapons circuits do it; if the opponent gets a point on you then you are expected to have enough integrity to call and acknowledge it. So in some HEMA tournaments you call the points scored on you. You would have to hope your opponent is super honest and this opens up a whole new set of issues, but when you are sparring you know when you were hit with a good shot so on paper this should work.

 

[Dirty Dog]

This is an issue with stop/start point sparring in general, it develops a lot of bad habits. Continuous sparring rules are better but have a slightly larger margin for human error in my opinion. I've always thought it would be interesting to see unarmed sparring done the way some HEMA weapons circuits do it; if the opponent gets a point on you then you are expected to have enough integrity to call and acknowledge it. So in some HEMA tournaments you call the points scored on you. You would have to hope your opponent is super honest and this opens up a whole new set of issues, but when you are sparring you know when you were hit with a good shot so on paper this should work.

The SCA has always done all of it's combat on the honor system. It works surprisingly well.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Here are some random thoughts on tournament judging:

TMA is one of the very few sports where the judges are advanced rank in it. Hopefully this means they have experience doing it and know what they are seeing. I hope this continues to be the practice. Although, having competed and officiated in a number of tournaments, this is sadly not always the case - poor judging is always an X factor.

Objectivity is necessary and favoring a competitor because they belong to your school or system requires no small amount of integrity. In the past, if you were judging where one of your students was involved, one was bound to let the other judges know. Still, there were cases where if one of the judges and competitor were both from a particular organization or school you knew you had little chance of winning unless you completely dominated him. I thought it was shameful.

In sparring, there are three main calls: Strike landed and point scored; strike missed or was blocked for no point; line of sight prevented seeing if strike landed or not for no point scored. In this last case there may be a tendency to guess. However, there are rare times the result can be inferred based on the judges own sparring experience, but these are far and few between. No shame to you say, "I didn't see it."

Traditional forms competition offers its own challenges, especially when it's open to other styles. There is no way to know if the competitor forgot or did the wrong move - no judge can know all traditional forms amongst the several styles - even a single style may have variations. So, it's not so much they do, but how they do it. A good judge, IMO, should know the basic concepts of the Japanese, Korean, Okinawan and even some Chinese styles: Are they flowing, focused or a mix, high stance or low, deep or shallow stance, single move or combo based.... There are some constants though such as balance, control, speed and power, and a sense that the performer knows what they are doing.

This is in an ideal world. The tournament director has to work with what he's got and attempt to do the best he can in getting officials who are capable of the job and do justice by the competitors who deserve good and fair judging.

Point vs Continuous sparring: Continuous more accurately portrays some elements of actual combat and requires a higher level of physical conditioning but can often degrade into a contest of raw aggressiveness and power. Point sparring, I think depends more on finesse and tactics. In contrast to the OP, I think it relies more on countering (when done correctly). Both types can include combinations and elements of the other.

I'm glad Yamabushii enjoyed officiating. It offers a good chance to expand your knowledge of MA.

 

[HighKick]

Technically it wasn't just TKD, it was also Tang Soo Do, Karate, and Kung Fu, though the majority was TKD. I will admit that TKD isn't my core skill, however, one of my students is nearly a grandmaster in TKD and he finally convinced me to judge/ref a tournament. Surprisingly I enjoyed judging the armed and unarmed solo forms the most. Initially I thought I would have enjoyed the point sparring most. While I did see some solid foot work, I kept thinking to myself about some of the cons and I feel like they are pretty big. A lot of what I saw from both children and adults in point sparring, from beginner to advanced ranks, was a lot of forward lunges in hopes an attack would land to score the first point. Even though some people instinctively countered, the point system favored the one who struck first (assuming the attack landed). In many cases I also saw attacks that were clearly blocked but the attacker was still awarded a point. While I do see the benefit of many TKD moves, I feel like it must be hard to escape the muscle memory of throwing yourself almost completely into an attack - which are not always going to be enough to actually stop someone in reality and it personally seems dangerous to me.

Are there TKD schools out there that do not focus on point sparring at all or is it too deeply ingrained in the art's culture? Unfortunately in that tournament there was no continuous sparring which I was hoping to see. For the TKD practitioners here, what are your thoughts about training for point sparring vs fighting in reality? How do you separate the two? Not trying to knock anyone or any art by any means, but I am genuinely wondering.

TIA

Research WT (World Taekwondo) sparring and the electronic scoring systems. It is a game-changer, for better or worse.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The SCA has always done all of it's combat on the honor system. It works surprisingly well.

It's definitely not perfect, but I'd have to say that it seems to work at least as well as scoring by outside judging.

 

[HighKick]

It's definitely not perfect, but I'd have to say that it seems to work at least as well as scoring by outside judging.

It has been years (decades?) but in the Kali tournaments I used to go to, we would gear up similar to your avatar, and use sharp blades. Both honor scoring and judges scores were counted.
Good times.

 

[HighKick]

Technically it wasn't just TKD, it was also Tang Soo Do, Karate, and Kung Fu, though the majority was TKD. I will admit that TKD isn't my core skill, however, one of my students is nearly a grandmaster in TKD and he finally convinced me to judge/ref a tournament. Surprisingly I enjoyed judging the armed and unarmed solo forms the most. Initially I thought I would have enjoyed the point sparring most. While I did see some solid foot work, I kept thinking to myself about some of the cons and I feel like they are pretty big. A lot of what I saw from both children and adults in point sparring, from beginner to advanced ranks, was a lot of forward lunges in hopes an attack would land to score the first point. Even though some people instinctively countered, the point system favored the one who struck first (assuming the attack landed). In many cases I also saw attacks that were clearly blocked but the attacker was still awarded a point. While I do see the benefit of many TKD moves, I feel like it must be hard to escape the muscle memory of throwing yourself almost completely into an attack - which are not always going to be enough to actually stop someone in reality and it personally seems dangerous to me.

Are there TKD schools out there that do not focus on point sparring at all or is it too deeply ingrained in the art's culture? Unfortunately in that tournament there was no continuous sparring which I was hoping to see. For the TKD practitioners here, what are your thoughts about training for point sparring vs fighting in reality? How do you separate the two? Not trying to knock anyone or any art by any means, but I am genuinely wondering.

TIA

What you describe is Exactly why I Loathe point-stop tournaments.