I have just spent a full two days at the British Universities and Colleges or BUCS for short annual National Championships held in Sheffield along with a whole host of other sports. I was Tatami Manager on Area 3 all weekend with a great team of officials including Tony Dent (Joint TM and my Senior), Ben Brown, Billy Haggerty (he's from Scotland but I'll forgive him that since he is a quality ref), Penny Williams (England) & John Munden (also from Scotland).
We judged a lot of bouts both kata and kumite and a full report will hopefully follow. Suffice it to say that I am amazed at the lack of understanding of the rules by the competitors which must be entirely down to the coaches. The WKF Rules are freely available on the net to every competitor and coach yet we as officials see fundamental failings such as multiple bows from competitors in the kata yet this is explicitly stated in the rules as a foul. I really think that people are not aware of THE RULES for whatever reason. The snippets of information that we as refs get from EKF (England) Referee's courses and the Euro Briefings at the K1's and European Championships are superb and more coaches should make an effort to attend EKF Refs courses and get the Coaches Badge. If they cannot, then simple download and read of the rules would be a quantum step forward - as they say Knowledge is Power!
I had the real pleasure of watching Kate Kawacinsci current European u21 Bronze medallist up close in her elimination bouts on Tatami 3 and she stood out from the rest as a real class act. Her opponent in the Finals did a real good job to spoil her techniques and fought superbly well but was soundly beaten. The future is certainly bright for young Kate!
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