Refereeing

[TKD Scotland]

I debuted as a referee at a regional tournament this morning.

As many of you know I was promoted to first dan blackbelt in late March, In my federation you don't need to be blackbelt to referee and I did my ref training when I was a red belt. The only reason I hadn't refereed before is because there was a surplus of officials at the Scottish championships in early March.

I was part of a 3 person jury for the patterns(We use red and blue flags in a knockout as opposed to scoring patters) and then the corner judge in point & stop sparring(We use a head judge, a shadow and a corner). Also, at 16 years and 3 months I was the youngest active official in the tournament.

Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and I look forward to building on it at the next tournament in August.

So do you lot do a ton of refereeing?




-Dan.

 

[Thesemindz]

At our school we don't participate much in outside tournaments, but we do some in school refereed fighting and all the intermediate and above students are trained to ref properly.

I think there's a lot of personal honor required to ref properly. You have to be honest and objective and you can't be swayed by pleading or criticism. I always tell my students I'd rather see them make nil calls all day then guess at a point they aren't sure about.

How was the tournament?


-Rob

 

[shima]

I ref'ed at a tournament about a year after getting my first black belt, haven't really been to many tournaments since then, so haven't ref'ed in many years. Right now my goal is to get back into competing, but I'd like to help out ref'ing in the future as well again.

 

[Balrog]

I am a very active tournament judge, although I have to admit that it's nowhere near as much fun as it used to be.

 

[Miles]

I enjoy refereeing and encourage my black belts to take the refereeing course and assist at tournaments. We do perhaps 6 tournaments a year.

Congratulations on earning your black belt and starting your refereeing career.