Over the weekend of the 25th & 26th of October I had the very real pleasure of attending the above tournament in Denmark, hosted by the Danish Karate Federation and superbly organised by husband and wife team Henrik Katborg and Merete Katborg.
I, along with refereeing colleagues Billy Brennan (World Referee), Tracey Archer (British Referee) and Andy Cornish (British Referee) travelled out from Stansted airport on the Friday at 7.35am which meant a 3am start to get there from Loughborough and park up.
Henrik had invited me to the tournament whilst we were at the British International Open in Glasgow in late September. Billy had already been invited and was telling me about it over lunch at the British, so I was pleasantly surprised when Henrik, whilst still sitting in a judges chair, invited me along as well as I was walking out of the tournament near the end.
Tracey has aspirations to get a Euro badge so was quick to contact both Henrik and Dale Gamble (England Chief Referee) to see if it would be ok for her to go along and get her first taste of open international tournaments. She has of course officiated many times at the single style Kofukan International tournaments in places as varied as Japan, South Africa, Denmark, Portugal, Slovenia, & Russia so is no stranger to international tournaments.
Andy is a student of Billy and has similar aspirations so this competition was ideal as a starter for both Tracey & Andy on the open international circuit which may ultimately lead to Euro Judge qualifications for both of them in the future.
All was going spiffingly well despite the early start until I got to the other side of airport security and realised I’d left my phone on the car seat so for the full weekend was completely Marillion! (Incommunicado for all you non-rockers)
Henrik kindly agreed to pick us up at the airport and ferry us around which was brilliant of him. After checking in and playing a quick game of ten pin bowling (at which Andy was supreme) the first port of call was the castle in Kolding (pronounced Kolling) – apparently ‘d’s’ within a word are silent in Danish. Henrik dropped us off in the city centre and we spent a good couple of hours walking around the castle which was magnificent and well worth the 10 Kroner (about £11) entry fee.
After completing the castle tour and taking many photos, we headed off to central Kolding for food at a café recommended by Henrik – the Blue Café where we succumbed to the temptations of huge burgers.
Back to the hotel and another game of bowls at which Andy was again supreme – he really is a dark horse(!) followed by meeting up with one of our Kofukan colleagues from Denmark Sensei Lars Sorensen who is based in Copenhagen. Lars is a superb referee having officiated with him on many Kofukan International tournaments and it was really good to catch up with him again. The setting up of the tatami was completed by Henrik and his team of parent helpers and all was ready for Sat morning.
Saturday dawned and we assembled post Breakfast for the Referees meeting conducted by Henrik and Lars. Lars was appointed Chief Referee by the DKF for the tournament. Rules were as current WKF with a couple of points stressed to the TM’s briefing that no hard contact would be allowed, scorpion kick would be allowed to score, not to support colleagues on penalties (only points) and C2 for dangerous techniques would be ok signalled by judges (eg for punches past the head).
I was assigned as Tatami Manager (TM) to Tatami 3 along with Lars as TMA, Sven Ferner (Germany National Ref), Dina Kjong (Denmark National Ref), Katrine Voigt (Denmark National Ref B), Jutte Heinrich (Germany National Ref) and Phillip & Linda as table officials. Henrik took Tatami 1 and Nilgun Springer an excellent Euro Referee from Germany took Tatami 2. I had previously seen Nilgun on the Euro circuit (Cadet, Senior & Regional Champs) but never had an opportunity to work with her or socialise.
The main issue for me as TM certainly for the Senior Competition (all WKF categories) was to try and preserve neutrality. The vast majority of the entrants to the tournament were either German or Danish. Hence for a large number of the bouts I had to have two Danish and two German officials and either myself (or Billy if available) as the fifth official. This kept me extremely busy in refereeing kumite bouts and judging kata bouts.
One pleasantly new experience was to be exposed to Shinen Gensei Ryu a school of kata that I had never seen before, let alone judged. Again this proved a challenge as TM since I could not determine whether the kata they had given in to the table was the same as the one performed. The table officials helped as best they could as did Katrine as a Gensei ryu practioner and Lars as a previous exponent of this style. I therefore made a resolution to try to find out more about this style and in particular the katas to a point that I could at least tell the difference between a Chi-I, a Jen-I and an Ten-I (more of this later).
All senior bouts passed off without incident with Freja Katborg (Henrik’s daughter) taking Silver in the U21 Kata and the Senior Kata losing out each time to the very strong Rikka Lincke from Itosukai Karate in Denmark who represented Denmark in the 22nd World Karate Championships at kata. Freja also took Bronze in the Senior Female Kumite so this was a good day at the office for Henrik’s daughter.
After the tournament all of the officials were treated to a marvellous evening meal in the restaurant of the Tre-For sports centre. The buffet food was excellent with smoked salmon & steak amongst the delicacies on offer.
For evening entertainment a group of us travelled by car into the centre of Kolding to the ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ bar an excellent English pub started some ten or so years ago by an English geezer. The pub offered a selection of beers from around the world and was very popular. Here I met Steen Mundos a senior of the JKS (Japan Shotoremnei of Kagawa Sensei). Steen had spent many years in Japan and regaled us with his stories of the JKA hierarchy and the numerous requirements to do the same gradings with different groups. We were also exposed to a game of ‘Mayer’ a dice game of fibs taught to us by Nadine one of the Danish officials who worked on tatami 2.
The clocks went backward this weekend meaning we had an extra hour of sleep time. However, this almost backfired on us. I was up immediately at the sound of Andy’s air raid warning alarm, jumped in the shower and then got dressed. When we finally worked out it was only 6am, the other two went back to sleep and I sat by the wardrobe for half an hour or so until I got cheesed off with it and climbed back on to the top bunk-bed. The next we knew was when Trace knocked on the door in full refs garb to say everyone had gone down and we collectively said she was an hour early. Needless to say when Billy checked his world clock, it then became something of a mad rush to get ready in time for breakfast and the refs briefing.
The ref’s briefing clarified a few bits – specifically contact rules for children and neutrality requirements. Billy also rotated the TM’s and TMA’s as done at Euro championships. This kept everyone on the toes and stopped complacency setting in – a good initiative by Billy.
I was rotated to Tatami 1 with Andreas Kjong (Denmark National Ref), Jan Hesse (Germany National Ref), Tracey, Ingrid Heinrich (Germany National Judge), and joining us later for the kumite Jan Martin and without the requirement to maintain neutrality meant I could give all the other officials a good run-out at judging, reffing and Kansa-ing (if that’s a proper word?).
One puzzling issue was that the Table Officials did not have score sheets to manually record the scores as inputted into the electronic scoreboards. Apparently, these have never been used in Denmark even at their Nationals Championships but are mandatory in England as a permanent record of the scores and also used at Euro championships where the qualified Judges are assigned to keep score. Needless to say these were implemented for the Sunday competition courtesy of Tracey who had the files with her and to Marete for printing them out.
Sunday was the Non-WKF categories i.e. the 10 to 13 years. Again we were exposed to Gensei Ryu kata and immediately from the outset it was clear that they would feature heavily in the junior sections with some superb examples of this style of kata presented particularly by Stefanie Pederson of Gladsaxe Gensei Ryu karate club who eventually took Silver.
Again as TM I had the same problem again with these kata and with Katrine, my only source of Gensei ryu now on T3 and me on T1 I had a problem. Moreover, the runners who were getting the kata entrants ready were not recording the name of the katas to be performed. Needless to say this soon changed. I also managed to collar Katrine and she gave me the correct spellings of the kata and also pointed out the Gensei Ryu squad coach a 2nd dan Thomas Benzon. At a convenient break I went over to him and picked his brains about his style and got a full listing of the kata. These are all based on Shotokan and are:
Jen-I, Teni-I, Chi-I, Sansai, Naihanchin, Bassai Dai, Bassai Sho, Shokumine Bassai Dai, Seienchin, Kosokun Sho, Kosokun Dai, Chinto & Wankan
One notable competitor to watch was the winner of the 12 to 13 Male Kata – Veselov Hermann from Germany who performed Shotokan kata extremely capably. He is from Jan Hesse’s club who was an official on my tatami.
An interesting point that cropped up was on the kata. Billy had asked us to try to reduce the number of 4-1’s in kata judging (eg 4 red flags to one blue flag at Hantei). As TM he had asked me to keep a note of the number of 4-1’s on my area which I had done the previous day. As it was one of the judges was involved in a 4-1 so at a convenient break in proceedings I asked why they had gone for the other competitor. The reply was that the wrong flag was put up! I was then asked what should the judge do if they put the wrong flag up. My immediate view was that they should stay with the flag since it looks decidedly ‘iffy’ if they change to follow the other four. However, I decided to defer this question to Billy Brennan who said that you must change it immediately since if it was a 3-2 situation then it would send the wrong competitor through if the judge did not change the flag. Either way the judge is in for a hard time from the TM since he will get grilled for the 4-1 and also for the change of flag! I have only ever seen a judge change their flag once and that was the Chief Judge in the finals at the Karate England 2005 Championships and it did look ‘iffy’ at the time.
The tournament went on to finish with a cracking final of the boys 12-13 -45kg kumite. This was ref’d by Billy with judges Nilgun, Tracey, Henrik and Lars as Kansa and myself as Scorekeeper. Three times Aka looked to have scored with very fast jodan kizami’s with three flags shooting out but each time Billy correctly over-ruling them for the glove having touched the face and awarded Aka a Cat1 penalty instead. Aka then immediately went to Chudan and scored. The exciting and very fast bout went to a 2-2 draw and then 3-2 to Aka on Hantei – this was a fitting finale to the tournament.
Group Referee photos were taken and once again, the DKF treated all the officials to a buffet meal and we then said our Sayonara’s to everyone.
Henrik, Marete, Billy, Tracey Andy and myself went back to the centre of Kolding to the Irish bar and had a very sociable evening putting the world to rights over a beer or two.
Monday was departure day for Team England Refs but first we were treated by Henrik to a terrific visit to the historic Jelling Stones in the town of Jelling. This was preceded by a second visit to the Blue café for more burgers for Billy and Andy and for those whose bodies are temples - a mere chicken salad!
Just prior to leaving for the airport in Billung for our Ryanair flight we visited Henrik’s dojo in Kolding where we saw the start of the session. This was well attended by children whose behaviour was exemplary with Freja as sempai and Henrik as Sensei. We said our goodbyes and set off on the 45 minute journey to the airport with Merete.
The rest of the trip was routine at least Ryanair now allow two bags per person as hand luggage which is a welcome initiative.
At Stansted we said our goodbyes and journeyed back home.
Thanks you to Henrik, Merete and the Danish Karate Federation for a fabulous weekend of Danish hospitality and great karate – Sayonara - arigato gozaimashita.
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