by Taiobroshi Sat Apr 27, 2013 6:08 am
Why do you list hikikomi gaeshi...?
Regardless, there's no way to mandate a consistently "satisfactory" shiai experience at high level. I use "satisfactory" to signify a contest to see who has the best judo, expressed as who can produce an ippon first. When there is a disconnect between "having the best judo" and "producing an ippon," that's where we run into tactics which no longer accord with the spirit and philosophy of the martial art. I'm not going to pretend I understand the whole of Kano's vision, but actions like running out of bounds, stalling in newaza so the referee can stand you up, and butt-scooting were definitely not part of it. It's not so much the techniques that create the problems in shiai as it is the context under which they are used. I think the forum members all agree on this and, if we were to hold him in a submission hold, Marius Vizer would agree as well.
So what's the solution? The IJF seems to think that by adding more rules, everyone will suddenly play like Neil Adams (with the aim of making shiai "more spectacular"). This doesn't work because, and I encourage you to try it, if you take 10 minutes to think about the current rules you can come up with a handful of ways that you would be able to stall or force penalties on your opponent. If you can do that in 10 minutes, imagine what a dedicated coach, whose job is to make people win, could come up with.
While I say that "mandating" good judo is impossible, we can "encourage" it in our respective clubs. Politics notwithstanding having an excess of proper judoka who can make their way up into high positions is the only way things are ever going to change. Teaching students that shiai isn't paradigm of judo allows them to take an expansive view of their judo experience and they will want to spread good judo to the world, as opposed to stopping it after they are no longer able to compete or their get their black belt. Nobody is going to bat an eye if a few clubs "turn away" from the IJF. In big countries with a strong judo culture there is excess of people with the exact same skill level who, if your top players drop out of principle, would jump at a chance to compete in big tournaments they wouldn't be able to otherwise. The IJF, to my knowledge, plays a large role in encouraging and supporting the various continental unions to bring judo smaller countries (such as Madagascar, where I'm from) which is valuable towards the completion of Kano's vision. They must also have a strong network of lawyers and people willing to travel to advocate for them, such that creating an equivalently powerful organization with a different rule set from the ground up is not feasible.
In short, encourage good judo on the club level, so those people eventually become coaches, referees, and big names that will drive the "judo community," as in the judoka and clubs who choose to make shiai a focus of their experience, in a better direction. I also don't see the need to make everybody do randori under an approximation of IJF rules, since the percentage of people who compete in the average club is low. Just because I get caught with an illegal technique, doesn't mean that that was only throw that could have been used in the situation. People just need to work harder to learn during randori!
-Ben
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