41st Euros - Competition Day 1 Friday 7th Feb – Cadets 14/15 years

Day 1 started for me with Female Cadet (14-15yrs) Kata.  I was picked to judge the third and fourth bouts as Judge 1 (lead Judge), both of which were fairly straight forward affairs to adjudicate.  The first was Gojushiho Sho v Kanku Sho which went 0-5 and then Suparimpei v Kanku Sho which went 4-1 to Spain.   

A Cadet competitor from England was on my area, which meant that I could not be involved in any bouts that might affect her either her main bouts or even the bouts in the same half of the draw since this could affect the repechage.  England came out and performed Chatanyara Kushanku against a Spanish Paiku.  The Hikite effect here on the Shutos (mentioned in the Ref briefing) was noticeable along with fairly noisy breathing and England was soundly beaten 5-0.   The English competitor came back in on the repechage against a Turkish opponent and she performed Anan which to my mind was again a little too noisy, not as sharp as her opponent and also used heel lift on the Shotei Uchi to try to create a powerful effect.  However, I did think that she was a good deal stronger than her opponent who took the decision 3-2 despite two minor losses of balance.  Overall a sound platform from young Team England on which to progress.

The morning ended with selection for the second Bronze Final with Bunkai which comfortably went 5-0. 

The key thing in judging these bouts is to use the WKF Criteria – Conformance, Technical Performance, Athletic Performance and Degree of Difficulty and the sub-criteria within to determine who complies with the criteria the best.  The criteria have changed in 2013 and possibly some coaches and competitors are not aware what we are looking for when judging kata – certainly this is the case in England.  All went well for me and I got to judge six bouts before the categories ended which all went the right way for me i.e. no 3-2’s or more importantly 4-1’s against which indicates that you are possibly out of kilter with your refereeing colleagues. 

At this level and also at the Senior Europeans, the difference between winning and going out can be as subtle as a minor momentary loss of balance so it is vital that coaches and competitor work on the tiny details.

This completed the Kata section and I then moved across to Tatami 1 for commencement of the Cadet (14-15yrs) Kumite.  I had been assigned to this tatami along with England Chief Referee Dale Gamble so I assumed that I would have few bouts to judge as the relative new boy on the block.  However, much to my delight, I was involved in six bouts plus scorekeeping on 2 bouts, which was much better than I anticipated.  The debriefing highlighted that Mubobi was missed on a number of occasions by the panel and also the difficulty of punches touching the face mask which by definition must be a penalty.  This is a really difficult area for officials to judge when under formal assessment since what seems like a perfect point from one angle can been seen to have hit the face mask from another angle.  To add to this is the difficulty of competitors giving the impression that the facemask has been touched by adjusting the mask on any return to the line, even if the punch was correct distance - a very difficult area to judge.

Dale was selected to officiate in two of the finals that evening which was a good fillip to the refereeing team, given the high standard of the officials on duty.

So concluded a most enjoyable day boosted by the news of two England Kumite Cadet Bronze Medals from Cadets Thorpe Mitchell and Francesca Hardcastle.