Do you think that judges should be allowed to judge kata in styles they don;t have a clue about? An example is a judge who does Karate judging a tai-chi form.
I realize that at most tournaments the tournament staff is basically at the mercy of having to use what ever black belts show up as the judges. However there is no excuse for having judges sit and judge arts that are so different from what they have training in that they really don;t know what they are looking at. I’ve seen this many times. The judges will sit there and act as if they know what they are doing. Having been around the martial arts for many years It really makes me angry to see this happen. I have been asked to judge things that I did not feel qualified to judge. In such cases, I have declined and asked to be replaced. I imply will not sit and pretend I know something I do not. It is not fair to the competitors.
Several good answers here. I agree with a lot of what I see here. John mentioned another of my pet peeves about judging. I really think that all divisions should have five judges per ring. That is important for kata and Kumite. How many times I have seen someone get robbed in Kumite because there were less than five judges.
