My fisrth time with electronic hogu

[Manny]

This saturday I went to a local competition where ADIDAS offer two or thee sets of EBP electronic hogus. I was center and chair judge, they were 6 fighting areas 2 of them with the EBP hogus the rest used the regular personal hogus and the scoring sistem by adidas.Using the adidas regular sistem was no problem, you know every chair judge or referre had the push buttons box and points were awarded as follows: a) one point for every solid kick to the torso, b) two points for every solid spining/kick to the torso and c) three points for every kick to the head. Well nothing new here but when I change of area I was lucky to work with the EBP and these are my conclusions.

1.-Not every solid kick I saw scored as a point, this was disconcerting, not only for the judges/referees but for the competitors.
2.-I has one problem where the red fighter kicked the blue fighter with a solid kick that scored and the red fighter went to the floor and landed over his stomach and the hogu registered one point more for this!!!!! so the red fighter got two points!!???? one for the kick and one for the hit with the floor. The problem was thatthe red fighter won by this point that the system gave him for the floor smack.
3.-Another fight I saw now as a chair referee was a very tight match were one of the women won only by a point and this was the result of a crash/collide ot the two women where the system gave one point to one of the fighters, I was amazed there wehre no kici just to collision of the hogus!!!

Sure it was easy for us (referees) to use the EBP hugus because we only have to pay atention to the head to score the 3 points, and many of the fights were won by head shots.

I was central referee for a match I really enjoy where a 50-55 years man beat a 20 years guy with solid kicks to ten torso and some of them scored right using the EBP Hogu.

Conclusion.-The electronic hogus are miles away from be perfect, we had several malfuctions with the PC's and we have to reset the programs very ofthen, the only way to score a point is with a veru strong and solid kick and this is not guarantee, the e-gus are for very rich people, one hugu cost $35,000.00 mexican pesos, something around U$2,700.00!!!! this means U$5,400.00 if you want a set of red and a blue hogus!!! The high score I saw with this EPB Hogus was not more then 5 or 6 points average.

Manny

 

[bluekey88]

I've not seen or used the Adidas or daedo systme, but have seen the Lajust system at the York regional qualifier and Nationals. it's a little different from the adidas in that it won't score on contact (so that fall to the ground won't score), but you need the special socks to work the system.

Pros -- \
Since only certain parts of the foot score, it is forcing better tecfhnique...The fast rising roundhouse kick without the plant foot pivot will no longer score...this will save young knees. It makes scoring on sid and back kicks harder to do.

It leaves the refs scoring more punches.

head kicks are more meaningful...which means players are getting better at gaurding their heads.

The new hogus are devised to have a read/blue velcro patch on the front or back so you just flip that over to designate red and blue. No longer a need to buy two hogu's to compete...use one and just re-designate as necessary.

Cons--
A fair number of kicks don't score unless they are dead perfect. covering up is a very easy way to prevent body shot from scoring (keep your arm between yourself and the attacking foot).

Not all parts of the foot score (the heel and the sides) relegating a number of kicks to head shot only (axe, crescent and hook most notably) and some as pretty much useless (front snap...front push sometimes scores though if the heel makes solid contact).

The socks feel weird and are not fun to fight in (personal preference I suppose...it's like fighitng in poorly made bedroom slippers).

Head shots and punches are still subvjective and at the judges discretion. I saw a number of cases where on judge scored a shot then other judges quickly followed suit. In one case, our player got hosed out a victory when the judges awarded his head shot to the other player and the center ref refused to reverse the points (long, irritating story).

LaJust (or whoever) need to create a system that either allows for all kicks to score consistently (or more likely the rules will change to match the system...) and USAT/WTF need to adopt punch and head shot sensing systems as well. Get the corner judges out of the way more.

Peace,
Erik

 

[ATC]

That is why Adidas was not approved by WTF. The system has the most flaws as it is totally based on pressure. Anything can score a point, as you witnessed. Now the other systems have their flaws too but not as bad as the Adidas system.

 

[Gorilla]

Adidas Bad