Rule changes

still learning wrote:

tafftaz wrote:Ben I meant mate being called when uke stands up and is trying to lift tori off the floor while tori is attacking.
Trying to write an explanation is a nightmare. As for the standing katame/shimewaza the senior ijf referee taking the course stated that as long as tori is in a good attacking position and a submission could be gained fairly quickly, then standing up from guard while lifting the attacker will not get a mate called.

Do you mean that when tori attacks with a jujigatame from underneath and uke stands up lifting tori from the mat?

Yes.

tafftaz wrote:Ben I meant mate being called when uke stands up and is trying to lift tori off the floor while tori is attacking.
Trying to write an explanation is a nightmare. As for the standing katame/shimewaza the senior ijf referee taking the course stated that as long as tori is in a good attacking position and a submission could be gained fairly quickly, then standing up from guard while lifting the attacker will not get a mate called.

To be clear, if tori is lifted up off the mat, it can continue if a submission appears to be imminent ?

Just standing up was never an automatic mate (in my book at least), but lifting tori off the mat was.

Interesting, have to wait how this plays out over here.

Ben Reinhardt wrote:

tafftaz wrote:Ben I meant mate being called when uke stands up and is trying to lift tori off the floor while tori is attacking.
Trying to write an explanation is a nightmare. As for the standing katame/shimewaza the senior ijf referee taking the course stated that as long as tori is in a good attacking position and a submission could be gained fairly quickly, then standing up from guard while lifting the attacker will not get a mate called.

To be clear, if tori is lifted up off the mat, it can continue if a submission appears to be imminent ?

Just standing up was never an automatic mate (in my book at least), but lifting tori off the mat was.

Interesting, have to wait how this plays out over here.

This is really how it used to be, but over time the interpretations shifted. It's a bit like with the flying armbars. The first time my elbow was ripped was in the final of the nationals an I got into jûji-gatame that was effective. Still I finally managed to get on my knees and finally standing up and the ref. did not give matte initially. He was right, in fact, because my opponent has full control and the armlocks was effective, but I refused to tap out, and gave it all I got, and somehow tori no matter what he tried he was unable to actually dislocate it. When an armlock is effective, but uke refuses to tap out, and tori does not succeed in dislocating, the conclusion has to be that there is insufficient control even it tori has full control, since the purpose of an armbar is not that of an osae-komi-waza but is to dislocate and when one fails to dislocate no matter what the reason and uke does not tap out, there is no result and matte hat to follow. That was the reason why in the end the ref had no choice in my case but to award matte, but not from the moment I lifted him up, but only when after lifting him off the ground it became apparent there no longer was control.

In time I think the interpretation shifted, and probably the reason was that if one was in a position like that with tori hanging off your arm and your arm completely overstretched you wanted him to get off your elbow as soon a possible so you shook him off. There is nothing wrong about that. But ... in some cases refs. these situations sometimes started to be mistinterpreted as the prohibited action that says that you can't lift the opponent off the ground and then throw him back. So, sometimes one got shidô when one wasn't actually intending to lift him off the tatami and throw him back, but just free your own arm with tori falling off the arm. But just getting shidô or not could determine the outcome in serious contests.

On the other hand, the jûdôka also learnt how to play the rules, of course what would one have thought ! So we knew if we couldn't get out of it an it was effective we got up and stuck out our hands buried our face downwards so the ref couldn't see we were actually getting choked out, and oftentimes the ref would simply call 'matte" ...

So we see today 'changes' that oftentimes aren't really changes but emphases on things that should have been done like that all along, and once were done that way. Of course, in addition to that there is also a lot of rubbish.

Nice post CK.
Ben , yes an attack will be allowed to continue if uke tries to lift tori if it looks like a submission is imminent. As with everything though it will be at the referees discretion.

Nice post CK.
Ben , yes an attack will be allowed to continue if uke tries to lift tori if it looks like a submission is imminent. As with everything though it will be at the referees discretion.

[quote="tafftaz"]Nice post CK.[/quote

Ben , yes an attack will be allowed to continue if uke tries to lift tori if it looks like a submission is imminent. As with everything though it will be at the referees discretion.

To me it's a matter of how dangerous the situation is to either judoka, and intent. If the guy standing is attempting to escape, and that causes some lift, it's not a problem, but if he is shoving the guy back onto the mat on purpose, it's matte. That can be hard to decide, so I guess a lot of refs err on the side of caution...

If a guy has juji gatame locked on, lifting isn't necessarily the best thing to do, it's a calculated risk.

Cichorei Kano wrote:

Ben Reinhardt wrote:

tafftaz wrote:Ben I meant mate being called when uke stands up and is trying to lift tori off the floor while tori is attacking.
Trying to write an explanation is a nightmare. As for the standing katame/shimewaza the senior ijf referee taking the course stated that as long as tori is in a good attacking position and a submission could be gained fairly quickly, then standing up from guard while lifting the attacker will not get a mate called.

To be clear, if tori is lifted up off the mat, it can continue if a submission appears to be imminent ?

Just standing up was never an automatic mate (in my book at least), but lifting tori off the mat was.

Interesting, have to wait how this plays out over here.

This is really how it used to be, but over time the interpretations shifted. It's a bit like with the flying armbars. The first time my elbow was ripped was in the final of the nationals an I got into jûji-gatame that was effective. Still I finally managed to get on my knees and finally standing up and the ref. did not give matte initially. He was right, in fact, because my opponent has full control and the armlocks was effective, but I refused to tap out, and gave it all I got, and somehow tori no matter what he tried he was unable to actually dislocate it. When an armlock is effective, but uke refuses to tap out, and tori does not succeed in dislocating, the conclusion has to be that there is insufficient control even it tori has full control, since the purpose of an armbar is not that of an osae-komi-waza but is to dislocate and when one fails to dislocate no matter what the reason and uke does not tap out, there is no result and matte hat to follow. That was the reason why in the end the ref had no choice in my case but to award matte, but not from the moment I lifted him up, but only when after lifting him off the ground it became apparent there no longer was control.

In time I think the interpretation shifted, and probably the reason was that if one was in a position like that with tori hanging off your arm and your arm completely overstretched you wanted him to get off your elbow as soon a possible so you shook him off. There is nothing wrong about that. But ... in some cases refs. these situations sometimes started to be mistinterpreted as the prohibited action that says that you can't lift the opponent off the ground and then throw him back. So, sometimes one got shidô when one wasn't actually intending to lift him off the tatami and throw him back, but just free your own arm with tori falling off the arm. But just getting shidô or not could determine the outcome in serious contests.

On the other hand, the jûdôka also learnt how to play the rules, of course what would one have thought !  So we knew if we couldn't get out of it an it was effective we got up and stuck out our hands buried our face downwards so the ref couldn't see we were actually getting choked out, and oftentimes the ref would simply call 'matte" ...  

So we see today 'changes' that oftentimes aren't really changes but emphases on things that should have been done like that all along, and once were done that way. Of course, in addition to that there is also a lot of rubbish.

It takes an experienced referee/judoka to make those sorts of decisions, and those are not exactly in abundance these days, are they ?

I actually said to the referees attending the course that I would hate to be in their shoes trying to implement the rule changes.
Not going to be an easy job.

Said it before ... saying it again ... I wonder why national organizations are rolling all these changes and the entire rule set out to the vast majority of judoka who will never, never compete internationally ... that being the IJF's stated scope.

Yes, some countries have vertically integrated training programs, supported by sports ministries, who find anything other than the most up to date rule set absurd ... but that certainly is not applicable to the US for example.

Ben Reinhardt wrote:
It takes an experienced referee/judoka to make those sorts of decisions, and those are not exactly in abundance these days, are they ?

True. But isn't that avoidable ? Those refs. exist but often stopped refereeing sometimes because some countries have age limited but also because of other reasons. In my opinions the whole refereeing atmosphere has drastically changed. Refereeing very much as become a parallel dan-rank trajectory, and it all has started to revolve around your refereeing classification. Will you make it to Natonal ref, what qualification ? Will you make it to PJU/PJC, to IJF-B, IJF-A and to what extent ? Are you willing to do brown nose, bribe, sleep with or be slept with, or are you just willing to be good ? As the dan-rank system has destroyed a lot, I see the same with refereeing classificaiton. It introduces jealousy, envy, and lots of unpleasant things. Because of that evolution, the role of refereeing committee, head referees have evolved towards a true entity of power over those interested in pursuing that career.

Even staunchest critics as far as I am aware use to call me an excellent ref, but I quit for two reasons:

1. It became increasingly difficult for me to referee under the towards greater nonsense evolving IJF rules. The last two years I refereed I would constantly have scenes where I would give yûkô or nothing, and the two other referees would say 'ippon'. Ippon, for what ? For someone who falls on his knees and then continues in newaza getting on his back ? Ippon was always very clear to me: control, speed, force. For me ippon hasn't changed since 1975. For most refs, well, they weren't even born in 1975, and they became refs with ippon being awarded for kôka techniques.

I would end up with colleague refs who could not distinguish between uchi-mata-makikomi and head-diving. Head-diving which since I remember it being introduced somewhere around 1977, I recall something you would see maybe once per year, just like hansoku-make. Suddenly, supposedly 10 people were head-diving at your average tournament, and people would get hansoku-make for things they didn't even know what they had done wrong. It became simply dysfunctional for me having to referee with two refs. who seemed to be refereeing a different discipline than the one I had been educated.

2. The second reasons is somewhat related to the first, and had to do with the absurd role of refereeing committees in some countries. Basically if you wanted to keep your classification, get promoted or whatever, you didn't have to be a good ref, but you had to give the score that had to match some idiot in a committee. These committees depended on the championship and one knew that this guy was big on this, and that one on that. So, each tournament you had to referee in a different way as to what the consensus was that the idiot in the committee would likely desire. Instead of refereeing it became an "how can I please IJF-A Referee X". This to me too made it into an absurd and completely dysfunctional activity and conflicts totally with the job of refereeing.

As I have always said, the role of a ref, in my view is minimalistic, and he should stay out of a fight as much as possible. Refs should not make the fight, the jûdôka should. The same issue with reffing in shias is developing exactly into the same dysfunctional set-up in kata judges. There too it is not a matter of truly judging but of pleasing unless you want to forfeit your chances for getting promoted and see your ranking go down. They now even publish referee and kata judge rankings, which I find totally and completely absurd.

A couple of posts refer to "referee's discretion"

Therein lies often the biggest problem with rules such as these. I am a referee myself and often see things where discretion (and interpretation) from one ref to another would be different. If say a ref comes from a club that does a lot of newaza he will often see something happening that the others wont. See a sankaku being set up and just about to be applied as a corner judge and then the standing ref stands them up.

But I guess that is just part of Judo. As was said, in a perfect world the action should be dictated by the two doing the work, not the referee.