by Jacob3 Tue Feb 24, 2015 6:08 am
Well, I have watched it about 20 times now, and tbh I cannot come to the same conclusion as most here.
When I look at the slowmotions, I cannot see a closed fist at any point. He starts open hand and ends open hand on the collar. So if he intentionally hit him, he did it with open hand and also extremely fluently transfers to gripping. And since this is a 10-year-old boy, I can come up with 2 possilities:
1: he is well trained in 'tricks to win', like hitting and immediately and fluently transferring to gripping. Possible, but that needs very perticular training. And yes, there are schools that promote this kind of behaviour, but I cannot imagine him already being that good at it, at his age, regaring the fluent transfer. On the other hand, I also cannot imagine any trainer wanting to promote such a blow in plain sight, likely being disqualified for it.
2: It is a genuine accident. He lifts his hand high up, possibly because uke lifts his left leg up, which tori is trying to overcome in an instance. Lateron ukes right knee and left arm go under tori's arm and might have deflected it towards his face, whilst aiming for his collar. That part is hard to see, since uke's head is in the way.
Since tori stops already before the referee calls matte, it seems to me that he is surprised himself about what happened. Otherwise he would probably have just continued. So I am going to go with the verdict of the committee. It seems an accident to me.
However, the result remains the same. Your son got hurt, which was not a positive experience.
Personally I am not a competitionfan myself, so I cannot / will not comment on the match itself. I do have many experiences with kids who compete(d) though, and I would like to give you 2 things to consider.
At first I often see parents and trainers tell their kids/students that they lost a match for whatever reason, but never their own performance. It is always the referee or the other kid. I see kids like that develop to notoir 'victims', instead of people who try to develop themselves to become better at competition. Those kids often start lacking enthousiasm and especially pleasure for competition and Judo as a whole, very soon. I would like to advise you not to make a big fuss out of this towards your son. Accidents happen, and he needs to learn to deal with that if he wants to keep competing.
I also doubt, as others already did, if it is a good idea to have a 10 year old compete with a seven year old. That seems to be a huge difference in development.
Secondly if the main thing you are trying to accomplish here, is to have the 10-year-old realise that you think he did something that he should not have done, I don't think you are taking it up the correct road. You seem to know who he is and where he trains. Just send the clip to his trainer and/or parents and tell them that you wonder what happened here. Let them talk to the boy and have him explain. Likely he will not admit that he did it on purpose if he did, but at least you will give everyone around him a chance to point out to him that what happend was not supposed to happen. And also that it has now been noted and that he is being watched. If such a thing will happen again with the same kid in the near future, people will start noticing his behaviour.
This will have much more effect than what you have done so far. No official committee will condamn a referee of their own, if the evidence is not 100% clear, and it is not. That is just how politics work. And that is just what it is often. Also, the boy and his surroundings will now feel backed up instead of criticised. Also, if you are trying to find an anonimous crowd on Youtube to back you up and to 'open the eyes of the committee', I fear that you will shoot yourself in the foot. Chances are that it will turn against you and that you ( your son ) will be handled negatively over this in competitions in the future. And if this is a case of principle for you, I would say 'go for it', but please realise that the outcome will probably not be what you whish it will be.
Just my 2 cents here.