In previous blogs, I’ve talked about positive aspects of soccer that we in Judo should emulate: how soccer grew in the U.S. through the efforts of volunteer coaches and the AYSO, and how an innovative training tool, futsal, lead to an increase in the technical skills of Brazilian soccer players.

Watching this year’s World Cup reminds me that soccer also has an ugly side to it that parallels the ugly side of Judo. Both have to do with rules, referees, and the use of distasteful tactics to manipulate the outcome of matches. This is not Pele’s beautiful game at all.

Since the 1970 World Cup, soccer referees penalize players for infractions to the rules by using a yellow or red card, which correspond to shido and hansoku make in Judo. If a player receives two yellow cards (2 shidos) in a game, he is then shown a red card (hansoku make) and is sent off the field. His team then plays one man down for the rest of the game. If he receives a yellow card in two different games during a tournament run, he must sit out one game. His team is however allowed to field the requisite number of players.

Every soccer referee, like every Judo referee, seems to have a different tolerance level for awarding penalties. Some prefer to let the game flow naturally and let the players play the game, while others try to over-control the game and become penalty obsessed. Needless to say, the latter unfortunately have the power to change the outcome of, and ruin, the game.

Both Judo and soccer are low scoring sports, so the awarding of penalties becomes ultra-critical in determining the outcome of matches. Players in both sports have caught on to this and have found ways to win ugly via tactics. In Judo, far too often it’s easier to get your opponent penalized than it is to throw, pin or submit him: a little foot work here and there, some movement, a few disingenuous “foot sweeps” that make it look like you’re attacking, and voila, the opponent is penalized for non-combativity. Ugly Judo.

In soccer, players know that a good acting job of falling to the ground and writhing in pain can get the referee to issue that dreaded second yellow card or red card to the offending players. Scoring against ten players is a lot easier than scoring against eleven. If the acting job is done in the penalty box, the not-so-innocent victim of the foul is afforded a penalty shot, which almost always changes the outcome of the game. The acting and the dishonesty that goes on during a soccer match make for an unpleasant game.

Both sports have the technology to make sure that referee decisions are accurate and fair. Soccer refuses to use that technology for some reason, in spite of all the blown offside calls, disallowed goals, and phantom infractions leading to penalty shots. Judo has thankfully shown more willingness to use technology to get it right. It fails too often to get it right, but at least it’s trying.

On the bright side, more and more soccer players from Africa, Mexico and the U.S. are now playing in England, Spain, Italy and Germany, homes to the toughest professional leagues in the world. The experience gained from playing overseas helps their national teams’ efforts. U.S. Judo should one day recognize the benefit of placing some of our players overseas, whether in Japan or Europe, where they will be challenged day in and day out by numerous, high-quality training partners. Except for a very few exceptions, our domestic programs are simply not getting the job done at the international level. I think it’s time to do what our 1964 Olympians did: get more and more players to be based overseas for extended periods.

Lastly, I suggest we send our penalty-driven Judo referees to the soccer world, where I am sure they will at least be able to tell when a player is really tripped or knocked down, and when he is acting. Seems like a win-win situation for everyone.

When I got wind that Martin Bregman and his referee committee were working on a set of developmental rules, I knew that their finished product would hardly be what I considered developmental. And it isn’t. I fired off a series of emails to the USJA board to voice my concerns. This is what I told the board:

I applaud the USJA for trying to create a set of rules for developmental purposes. Coaches throughout the country have already been doing this informally for years. However, I find it unconscionable to allow the referees committee to formulate these rules. Referees are responsible for screwing up Judo, even if they won’t take responsibility for this fact. They can’t keep pointing the finger at the IJF, while acting like they too are victims. Our referees, to the detriment of Judo development in this country, follow the diktats of the IJF lock, stock and barrel. They should not even be consulted when it comes to creating these developmental rules.

New rules should be developed by coaches who understand that competition is but one aspect of the overall technical development of our athletes. Coaches have a vested interest in developing better athletes. Referees don’t. We need to start treating tournaments (and rules) as more than a means to merely designate winners and losers. If you haven’t already done so, please read Where’s Judo’s Futsal? to get a better perspective of what we can achieve with rules that facilitate technical development. This is a serious undertaking, and referees should not be allowed within a thousand miles of this project.

Only four members answered, and all agreed that the referees should be involved. Again, I was disappointed, but not totally shocked. In subsequent emails, I stated that putting referees in charge of rules is like asking criminals to effect penal reform, and I mentioned there is a reason that rules for professional sports in North America are voted on by the owners of the teams and not by the guys officiating.

USJA President DeMars justified her selection of three A referees for the project by saying that they were also coaches and past competitors; true, but irrelevant. All three are by training, mindset, and outlook referees! They are referees who happen to also teach/coach Judo. That does not make them coaches with the mindset of a coach. This distinction is important because their final project reflects their inability and unwillingness to think outside the referee box.

So what are the modifications? In a nutshell, penalties will be lessened for first time infractions: shido for grabbing a leg, followed by hansoku make; shido for a small gi with an opportunity to change into a bigger gi; and penalty-free verbal warnings. My gosh, these guys really stretched their minds, didn’t they? This is exactly what I expected from referees: obvious changes that still don’t go far enough, nothing earth-shattering, and no outside-the-box thinking.

OK, so fewer penalties are always a great idea, but let’s be honest here, these rules are not very developmental. We need rules that will promote sound, technical skills. We need to eliminate winning matches by penalties. We need to use a reward system for good Judo rather than a punishment system for bad Judo. We should reward with higher scores those skills we want to see performed by our athletes, and conversely downgrade the scores for skills we don’t want to see. We must also minimize the risk factor associated with attacks.

These are some of the ways we can accomplish the above. Eliminate most of the penalties we give out. Referees need to issue verbal warnings to shape the match. I know this works because I use this system in my in-house events. AAU and freestyle Judo rules also use this, and it makes for more exciting matches. Players must win via positive Judo and not penalty-derived scores.

To eliminate the risk factor of attacks, do way with the match-ending ippon. Let the match continue for a set time, and allow for many ippons. Mitch Palacios has run tournaments in San Francisco that require two ippons to win.

To encourage the development of standing Judo, and to mitigate flop and drop Judo, downgrade the scores of flop and drop techniques regardless of the impact, or ignore them for scoring purposes. There’s no need to ban them however. We have already emasculated Judo enough.

The purpose of developmental tournaments should be twofold: to encourage the development of technical Judo, and to encourage the participation of more players in Judo tournaments. We can achieve these objectives by using a reward system rather than a punishment system, and by increasing TIM (time in a match) by removing terminal ippons. We should also think about doing away with the standard scores and using numerical values instead. This would enable us to reward more of the skills we want to see in Judo.

I’m tired of ten-second matches under a modified double elimination system. Throw in hansoku make for illegal leg grabs and small gis, and you have a recipe for disaster when it comes to technical growth and participation. This is precisely what we are experiencing now. Developmental tournaments should also use the round robin or double elimination system.

Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. The USJA’s developmental rules are not really developmental. They are modified, which is better than the full IJF rules, but not by much. We need to send this rule project back to a committee that can think about the technical development of our athletes by thinking outside the box. Our referees couldn’t get the job done if their life depended on it. I want a do-over. Of course, nothing prevents coaches from developing their own set of rules and running tournaments as they see fit. Sadly, this may be where true change comes from.

To view the clips go to the IJF site. The ones that have had their outcome changed are the following:

23  No Hansokumake. Should be Shido for White
27  No Hansokumake. Should be Shido for White
29  No Hansokumake
31  No Hansokumake
39  Not Valid. Remove from samples
40  Not Valid. Remove from samples
44  No Hansokumake
46  No Hansokumake. Should be Shido for White
47  No Hansokumake
49  No Hansokumake. Should be Shido for White
50  No Hansokumake. Should be Shido for Blue
51  No Hansokumake. Should be Shido for white

Back in December, I also correctly anticipated the law of unintended consequences when I asked, “Will these new rules engender new tactics to continue to make Judo ugly? Will players develop pseudo-attacks in order to get uke to react and perform illegal leg grabs?” We didn’t have to wait very long for that to happen. Consider Travis Stevens’ (USA) own account to USA Judo on how he defeated four-time World Cup medalist Aliaksandr Stsiashenka (BLR) at the 2010 Paris Open. Down by a waza ari and yuko, Stevens explained,

I was shaking my arm out and trying to figure out how I was going to beat this guy when I remembered from watching his other fight that he was always trying to grab [Takahiro Nakai's] leg when he stuck it out. So I decided to go with that and I was able to trick him into grabbing my leg and trying to throw me with a te guruma and it worked.

Seems like we are trading one type of ugly, penalty-based, tactical Judo for another. Not long ago, players won matches by getting their opponents to step outside the contest area. Now, we’ll have to witness guys sticking their leg out hoping that their opponent will take the bait like Aliaksandr Stsiashenka did, and perform an illegal leg grab. How exciting!

Can’t we just get back to positive, attacking Judo? Seems like the Classic Rules World Judo Championships (scheduled for March in New Rochelle NY) is trying to do just that: no penalties other than for unsportsmanlike conduct and dangerous acts, only ippon and waza ari, all grips, all postures, greater ne waza time, etc. I can’t wait for the outcome of that event.

One last word….International referees at the 2010 San Jose Buddhist Judo Club Sensei Memorial, an “E”  level tournament for USA Judo, continue to mislead athletes and coaches when they say that they don’t like the new rules, but they must enforce them. While it may be true that they don’t like the new rules, it is still not true that these new rules must be enforced by the world’s national Judo federations. How do I know this? Because the IJF says so!

A colleague of mine recently suggested that, “The person with the power to do something about this [rule changes] for local and regional competition is the tournament director.”  He’s only partially correct. The three groups that control tournaments are the tournament director, the head referee, and the coaches, although at first glance you would not believe that coaches have any say in the conduct of tournaments. More on that later.

The tournament director often is just another one of those sheep that uphold the status quo. More often than not, it is the referees who dictate to the tournament directors because we allow them to do that. If referees honestly care about the sport and its survival- as an American coach I don’t think they do- they too must say enough is enough, this is going too far to change our sport. But no, they’ll tell you that they are only following orders from the IJF, and they can’t make changes. Of course, it’s a lie because when they want to, they do modify IJF rules. In addition, the IJF has said that national federations are free to make adjustments according to their needs, knowing full well that federations are sheep that will blindly follow the leader.

I don’t know what to make of referees, especially American referees. Consider the attitude differences between a European A referee and an American PJU referee. Years ago while attending the European Championships in Poland I asked my host, a Polish “A” referee, why there were so few penalties for stepping out. She said that she and her (EJU) colleagues didn’t approve of the rule so they were not enforcing it! Conversely, when I mentioned to an American PJU referee that the rules were killing the sport, he said quite vehemently that he didn’t care if they were and he was going to continue to do his job without saying a word. It was clear that his allegiance was to the rules and not to the sport. Blindly following diktats regardless of the damaging outcome, now that’s scary!

So scary is that attitude of Mr. PJU referee that we must wake up now before the sport goes the way of the dinosaurs! The real power to effect change in Judo, especially at the local and regional level, resides in the hands of the coaches, if we stop to think about it and take advantage of it. Tournaments are a commodity that we Judo consumers can either buy or not buy. The quickest way to effect change is for coaches to tell tournament directors that their clubs will not be attending their tournaments, and why they won’t be attending.  The loss of revenue will have a great impact on attitudes especially if coaches band together in significant numbers.

Simply boycotting an event, however, does little to change the battleground. Step into the tournament director’s shoes. If you don’t show up at his tournament, he has no idea why you didn’t participate. Was it because you were sick? Did transportation break down? Was there another event on that weekend? Did you not get the notice? Was the event too expensive? Did you not like the weight divisions, etc.? So it behooves all of us to tell him that you didn’t show up because you won’t support tournaments that enforce the hansoku make rule against leg grabs, for example, or because he is running a single elimination event. Don’t forget to tell him that when he changes the way he runs the tournament, you’ll show up with x number of players the next time around.

Our national organizations are in such a financial hurt that they are now going after the jujitsu crowd in order to raise funds through increased membership enrollment. Hey, national organizations! How about better serving the existing Judo community to start with. Want to make our sport more appealing? How about pulling your heads out of the sand and seeing how the IJF is killing a dying sport.

I recognize that it’s going to take some true leadership from our coaches and some courage to do what I am suggesting. It may mean that your little six-year old doesn’t get to be a national junior champion this year. It may mean that referees will not officiate at events that deviate too far from the official IJF rules. None of this matters. What matters is that our sport survives the onslaught of jiujitsu and mma, and we can’t do that with the emasculated, sanitized, penalty-heavy version of Judo that is being proposed.

To survive, we must voice our position vehemently through economic pressure. You don’t have to be a member of any national organization and you don’t need “sanctioned” events in order to practice and compete in Judo, and to make Judo grow. Our past history is already proof of that. We do, however, need to remove those shackles imposed on us by our national and international organizations. If the IJF disappeared from the earth today, Judo would still exist because it exists through the hard work and dedication of its coaches and participants. Understanding that should give you the courage to do what is right for our sport.

Note: As I was was finishing this entry, I received a very supportive email in response to Hansoku Make, IJF! from Patrick Mahon in Australia. I am attaching it here so you don’t have to go looking for it. Please heed his suggestions as well as mine.

Hi everyone,

Please, please send your feelings and comments to the IJF director Juan Carlos Barcos, Vladimir Barta, Jean-Luc Rouge and the IJF president. Mr. Barcos started all these changes back in June 2009. His idea then was to get rid of the Eastern European/Russian style judo. Now it’s come to this debacle. The new rules are not locked in yet. Only from the 1st of May will everything be locked in. If we all voice our dislike for these crazy rule changes, we can make a difference. We must. They will drive players away. I want to start a petition and present it to Barcos and the IJF before April 1st. Please email me at patrickmahon4@gmail.com to have your name included in the protest. It would be a good idea to have big name with us like Jimmy Pedro, Michael Swain, Pat Burris. In the USA, these guys have credibility. I am asking my old friends like Neil Adams, Rob Van de Walle, Kate Howie and Udo Quellmalz to join the list. We must change these ridiculous rules that will kill our sport which is already under stress.

Patrick Mahon
in Australia

It appears that the IJF has issued the “definitive” version of the rule changes. We are now stuck with them until December 31, 2012. Go to http://217.79.182.227/intranet.ijf.org/ijf_video.php to see examples of illegal Judo. Focus on clips 19-60, the ones in red that merit a hansoku make for the offending player. Of the forty-two clips in red, some of them appear to contradict the written information we have received so far. With others, you must view them several times before coming to some conclusion. Each one of those clips elicited from me comments that would have to be paraphrased as “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Check out # 20, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 42, 43, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 57, and 60.

The main problem I have with the latest wholesale remodeling of Judo is that that there is no free shido for the first offense of grabbing a leg as had been thrown around previously. If you grab a leg the wrong way or at the wrong time, you are disqualified from the match. This is a rather drastic measure, don’t you think, for what is considered ugly Judo rather than dangerous Judo? In Greco-Roman wrestling, a sport that forbids all attacks below the waist, the cost of the infraction is a point taken away, not disqualification. You have to stall four times before losing a match, but grab a leg once and it’s lights out. What sense does that make?

Direct leg grab attacks like Morote gari or Kata ashi dori are easy enough to understand and obvious enough that bad refereeing decisions should not occur. The more nebulous situations are those associated with counters and combinations, and with throws that appear to be attacks but are not.

Timing of a leg grab is critical: too soon or too late and it’s hansoku make. In one of the clips, player A turns for a forward throw and is blocked. On his way out to face player B again, B grabs his leg and counters. This is what we call a late technique or late movement counter. It’s definitely the Go No Sen Judo (counter) principle at work. Unfortunately, the IJF calls this hansoku make. Why? Because the players must have “body contact” to legally grab a leg. Imagine the additional layer of decision making the IJF has foisted upon our referees by inventing “body contact” as a criterion. If you’re like me, you’re probably just dying to get to that first 2010 Judo tournament.

According to the IJF, simultaneous or quasi-simultaneous attacks with grips of legs are prohibited. Can someone explain what the heck quasi-simultaneous is? Will this require a stopwatch or so many frames per second on a video to get it right?

Timing of ducking also seems to be critical. You can’t duck under your opponent’s high grip on your own volition in order to attack his leg with Te guruma for example, but you can attack his leg if he puts you in the same position by cross gripping you over the back. That’s clear. However, I’ve watched clip #29 at least ten times, and still don’t get it. Why is this hansoku make? Did the player have to wait longer before launching his leg grab counter? If it’s still not readily obvious after watching the clip numerous times, how are referees supposed to make the correct decision without the benefit of reviewing the action? I’m not getting warm, fuzzy feelings about this. Are you?

Now what about the law of unintended consequences? Will these new rules engender new tactics to continue to make Judo ugly? Will players develop pseudo-attacks in order to get uke to react and perform illegal leg grabs? I think it’s right around the corner once players give it some thought. Will grassroots Judo suffer? Will fewer players consider attending tournaments? How many referees will throw their hands up and say, “That’s it for me. I’m not refereeing anymore.”?

I welcome the IJF’s desire to minimize flop and drop Judo, and to accentuate stand-up Judo. On the other hand, I dislike the emasculation of Judo resulting from the banning of non-dangerous techniques. The heavy-handedness of penalties needs to stop. If you look at the clips that show illegal actions, many represent good, dynamic, flowing, crowd-pleasing actions that certainly don’t detract from Judo’s beauty. They also add to Judo’s value as a martial art. So why the hansoku make?

The IJF has gone bonkers. We need to penalize less, and reward good Judo with higher scores and ugly Judo with lower scores. We should not ban techniques. Instead, we should eliminate or minimize their scoring value. Why not simply award a higher value to high amplitude throws done from a standing position while the low amplitude throws that require flopping onto knees or back receive a lesser score (i,e, yuko) or no score even if uke is thrown onto his back?

I hope I am wrong but my gut reaction is that we will see no good come from the latest reinvention of Judo, especially at the grassroots level. For those of us who are fighting for Judo’s survival amidst a sea of Brazilian jiujitsu and mixed martial arts clubs, this latest round of rule changes isn’t going to help our cause. It was bad enough with all the ridiculous gripping rules, now we’ve added an equivalent set of rules for the lower body.

The IJF has spoken. The national organizations will undoubtedly follow suit without blinking an eye and adopt the new IJF rules lock, stock, and barrel, irrespective of the damage it will do. What remains to be seen is how local clubs react. Will curricula and promotion requirements have to change, further diminishing the breadth of Judo’s technical inventory? Will clubs think twice about attending tournaments further decreasing participation, which is already low? I know that I can ill-afford to take kids to tournaments and risk having them disqualified for something as innocuous as a leg grab. Will clubs band together and finally do what is right for American Judo, and not blindly follow the diktats of the IJF? Will we see more tournaments with alternative rules, like the AAU freestyle Judo events?

What’s absolutely clear to me is that the IJF needs to have its head examined and it should be issued a hansoku make. If you agree, make your voice heard and contact our national and international organizations. Tell them you’re mad as hell and you aren’t going to take it anymore.