A Call to Healing the Sport of Judo

Introduction: For several years now, the leadership of the IJF has been introducing farreaching changes in contest Judo. During the same time, several similar activities so-called martial arts have appeared, and will/do compete with Judo for the attention of the general public on one hand, and for the participation of athletes on the other. It is my opinion that both of these matters are detrimental to the status and health of Judo, both as a competitive sport and as a means of physical education. The changes which the IJF's DC has introduced will remain in force up to the Olympic Games of 2012 in London. One may assume that the other activities, such as BJJ and the FILA Grappling, will correct their present faults, which impede their development. Therefore I consider it important to set up a comprehensive plan to free Judo from mishaps, some of which have plagued it for dozens of years, while others are recent developments, to be implemented after the 2012 Olympic Games. A major component of those developments concerns technique what is permitted in contest, what is forbidden, and why. Another matter is the contest procedure repechage etc. A third component is the structure of the IJF competition calendar. Technique: The main difference between the various kinds of grappling is the extent of techniques permitted in the various sports. First, let us consider the submission techniques. Sport wrestling, whether Graeco-Roman or freestyle, do not have them and see supination as the only way to overcome the opponent. They differ in the extent of the techniques permitted to bring down the opponent: GR permits only hip, shoulder and body throws, while freestyle permits leg/foot throws as well. Judo adds pins (osae-waza) in which the contestant has to show the ability to control the supine opponent for an appreciable time (in contrast to the wrestling styles, in which already a short touching of the opponent's shoulders to the mat finishes the contest), enables the use of the so-called sacrifice techniques and adds submission techniques chokes/strangles and joint techniques (originally acting on elbow, wrist, knee, ankle and spine, later limited to the elbow only). Sambo, developed from Judo, has jettisoned the strangles but retained foot-joint techniques (and downgraded the importance of pins, without abandoning them outright). Thus we may order these disciplines by the extent and variety of techniques as follows (from the limited to the extensive): GR wrestling; Freestyle wrestling; Sambo/Judo. Success in sports contest depends on 4 factors: Physical fitness, Technique, Tactics and Mental ability. Therefore, in sports, which have a less variegated technical repertoire, require a more intense development of the other 3 factors. This is why the ordering of sports by their technical content does not entail a judgment as to their intrinsic quality, but is to be understood as a characterization: Athletes who prefer an emphasis of variegated technique will choose Judo or Sambo as their sport, while those which want to be judged by their level of fitness will prefer wrestling GR or FS. The same consideration is also valid for the interest of the public at large. A necessary corollary from the above consideration is, that it is sensible for Judo to include as varied as possible scope of techniques in its activity, and to restrict only those which are unequivocally detrimental. To be specific Reasons to forbid techniques: Safety: The foremost reason to forbid specific techniques is the safety of the competitors. When there is a high probability of injury in a specific technique, that technique should be forbidden. A well-known example is kani-basami, which, although an impressive technique, had caused an inordinate number of serious injuries. Another example is that of waki-gatame with the attacker dropping his bodyweight on the attacked elbow. But not all techniques which have been forbidden fulfill this criterion. A clear example are the two strangling techniques developed by Kashiwazaki: Obi-jime and suso-jime. The only possible reason for forbidding these techniques is the desire to restrict any initiative of innovating techniques a really reprehensible desire. This is by far not the only example. A thorough and full review of all forbidden techniques should be made, including leg-joint techniques (does Sambo really suffer from many injuries in this area?), kawazu-gake etc., and have serious reasons of anatomy and physiology for any decisions taken.

Fairness: This is another possible reason. But here we do not deal with specific techniques, but rather with fighting styles. The most obvious example is the prohibition of "excessive defensive posture". This should be strengthened, and be applied much more strictly. There can be no doubt that a great part of what caused the present leaders of the IJF to initiate the latest changes of the contest rules was the result of non-application of the existing rules, mainly because of the weakness of character of the international referees. But not only a weakness of character: Let us recall the attempt of the refereeing committee of the IJF to abolish the judges. The reason given was and I am surprised that nobody has pointed this out that there are not enough competent referees available. But this is actually an admission of this committee that it failed to meet its obligation. No wonder: Instead of concentrating on its job, which is to educate and improve referees, it was engaged in inventing rule changes (which are neither part of its job nor of its purview). A new style of contest has appeared lately, characterized by leg grabs (imported from freestyle wrestling). In this style the attacker, having failed in the initial attempt, flops to the mat, and crawling tries to keep snatching at the opponent's ankles, either until he finally succeeds or until the referee stops it and credits the attacker for initiating an attack, while the opponent was only defensive. This style could only be maintained because the referees did their best to prevent any groundwork activity: The prone "attacker" could easily have been strangled by the defender (or turned into a pin, or been attacked by an armlock) but practically all referees would nip such a counter in the bud. This attitude of the refereeing community is connected to the next reason for forbidding techniques: Maintaining the attractiveness of the contest: Usually this is understood to mean to maintain the interest of the public at large, because a large number of viewers increases both the prestige of the sport and its financial base; but one should not overlook the importance of the attractiveness of the sport for the participants, because without athletes there will be no competitions. Attractiveness of Groundwork: Some 30 years ago, the leadership of the IJF decided to restrict groundwork as far as possible. The reasoning was, that spectators couldn't see what was going on, in contrast to big and high throwing techniques and therefore one should minimize the time "wasted" on "uninteresting" parts of the competition. I have dealt with this before (in German: Judo SportJournal 12/1997, p.20) including the negative results brought about by this procedure, including on the quality of the upright part of the contest. I am appending the English translation of a flow-diagram (Newaza.pdf) from my website, which summarizes the argument. The mat-crawler style would have vanished too, if the other contestant would have been given a free hand to counter with groundwork techniques! Competition Calendar: Beginning in 2009, far-reaching changes have been made in the calendar of events. It is obvious that the idea of constructing a series of competitions of varying quality, to serve as the basis of an international rank-list, and which is to serve, at the close of the olympian cycle, as the determining factor for admission to the Olympic Games, is to be welcomed. It transfers the responsibility for attaining the right to compete at the OG to the athletes and his performance during the whole extent of the Olympic quadrennial cycle; this in contrast to the old system, in which one single event the World Championships at the year preceding the Games - was the main factor (and then the national association could transfer this right to another athlete). This is decidedly a system which is more fair towards the competitor and therefore increase his motivation. But, again, the details of the new calendar inflict serious damage on the competitor, and thereby to the sport of Judo. The calendar has been built up in a manner which prevents the construction of a sensible periodization (which would have been a twin-peaked annual cycle). A competitor who takes care not to lose his place on the rank-list, cannot afford to have a proper preparatory period, much less a transition period. This must cause an increased attrition of the athlete, including prevalence of injuries. The calendar as a whole looks as if it was conceived as a copy of the Tennis calendar, a sport which imposes totally different demands on the participant, in particular in the value attached to the Olympic Games.

Competition System: The old system was a compromise between that what was really desirable: The double elimination system and the difficulties of the organizers. My opinion is that it would have been preferable to go to the double elimination system, and possibly "pay" for this change by shortening the contest duration (say, to 4 minutes). What was done was to drop the repechage in several tournaments altogether and truncate it ("emasculate" may be a better word) in the rest. This increases the influence of the luck of the draw , making the rank-list based on these tournaments unconvincing, and weakening the motivation of the weaker national associations. Here, again, it seems that the wish to copy the tennis has come at the expense of the needs of the Judo competitors! Golden Score and abolition of the Koka: Some years ago the "Golden Score" was introduced. Apparently somebody was dissatisfied with referees deciding, when the scoreboard showed no advantage, the outcome of the contest. We were treated to statistics purporting to sow that tournaments would not be appreciably lengthened as a result. In the meantime the number of contests ending in a Golden Score increased more and more. Something had to be done! Logically, one should have researched to find the cause for this increase. Research seems to be difficult. Moreover, it might have been found that the cause was faulty functioning of international referees (for example, that they refrained from penalizing excessive defensive posture and other "negative Judo" which, BTW, was the main cause for the excessive leggrabs and mat crawling mentioned above or that the unjustified restriction of newaza protracted contests). So, one took the easy way out and shortened the duration of the Golden Score to 3 minutes. But (1) most GS ended anyway in less than 3 minutes and (2) this shortening would mean that many more contests would require a "Hantei" decision by the referees, which the GS should have rendered superfluous! Another point: The decision of the referees should have been based on counting Kinsa; but as referees expected the GS to make the Hantei superfluous, this "skill" (silently counting Kinsas) has been lost by many referees. As an example: I have watched the finals of the u78 at the Beijing OG. The Cuban fighter had unequivocally collected more Kinsa in the 5 minutes GS (perhaps even one koka!) but the Chinese got the nod. In addition, fighters have less opportunity to collect kinsa in 3 minutes than they had when the GS lasted 5 minutes; of course, when the referees don't count kinsa anyway, who cares And now the final straw: The abolition of the koka. Some moves which would have been marked as koka will now be rated yuko. This fits well into the general tendency of devaluating contest scores inflation is not restricted to currencies what would have been rated yuko 25 years ago will now be rated ippon. Other moves which had been rated koka will now be ignored. That means, that some fights which would have ended with a koka score, will now be undecided and require a GS and possibly a Hantei decision. So, isn't that a "own goal"?

It may happen, in the present system, that the 2nd and 2 3rd places are fighters whose only loss was to eventual gold medalist; but one of them receives, say, 180 points, while the two others only 120 each (in a Grand Slam event). 60 points, for example in the 60kg category make the difference between place 13 and 25! See "Newaza.pdf" on the next page.

Newaza.pdf