What do I see as the biggest challenges for taekwondo competitions?

[Markku P]

What do I see as the biggest challenges for taekwondo competitions?

I think there are three major ones. First of all, it is important to get electric vests to work correctly, because they are not working probably yet and are too expensive for the schools. The second problem is scoring with punches; judges are too inconsistent with the scoring.

As a coach you never know when you will get a point and that makes things more difficult, furthermore you are not allowed to use video replay to correct clear mistakes by judges. In the last few tournaments I saw some fights in which one opponent punched to the shoulder and still scored!

The third problem is the competitions themselves. For the audience competitions are sometimes a real torture, you don't get any information about fighters, schedule changes and often you don't know if you are watching semi finals or finals.

It looks as if we don't really care about the spectators at all, announcements are poor and sound systems are of same level. We are not working with the crowd and we are not making a show!

Yours,

Markku P.

 

[msmitht]

Maybe someone should put together a group that throws tourneys. Announcer, director, security, QUALIFIED JUDGES, gear (ebp) and vendors could all be a part of it. Grappling x does it.
Oh, that's right. The promoters would have to spend money on that...lol. what was I thinking?

 

[StudentCarl]

IMO the biggest challenge is the electronics. Big sleeves helping to keep kicks from scoring...come on! In the long run I think we're going all electronic, but the current systems don't do it. I'd like a system with sensors on gloves and a better array on the socks, along with sensors on the arms, hogu, and helmet. If the inside-of-the-arm sensor is touching the hogu and a scoring shot hits the outside-of-the-arm sensor with power and sensor contact, it should still score. Let the hand sensors decide if punches have enough force to score. Let the head sensors score the head shots.

To me the problems are really engineering and product development, along with the reality that there isn't enough profit for a company with the knowledge to do the work-up. Look at what the common home gaming systems can do now. I know technology doesn't solve everything, but how much of the current problem is because the electronics don't meet the need? If Nintendo or Sony wanted do, I think they could do this...it's just not in their interest.

Better run tournaments? We'll never get rid of the human element, which is the problem. It's still enough of a sellers market that people are too often stuck with what's available as opposed to having it done right. It's not always easy to have enough people to staff a tournament, much less train them and/or have people with enough experience to do it right.