Hitting the floor after the point.. do you give ippon?

[AlexM]

Hypothetical situation:

You, that's right YOU, have been asked to judge the team finals at the WKC in Glasgow. The match between Korea and Japan comes down to encho between Eiga and Lee (I think).

Eiga is dominating the match (you can see that) but has not yet scored a valid ippon. The match goes on and eventually Eiga does a katate-tsuki that finally lands right on the tsuki-dare... He pulls back and hits his shinai on the ground before coming back to chudan...

Do you give the point? He got datotsu and datotsu-bu, his footwork was great but he pulled out in a hurry and the tip of his shinai bounced off the ground in front of his opponent.

Have you raised your flag? (and that is not a disgusting metaphore) Eiga was dominating up to that point but he hadn't scored.. do you still give him the win?

I was told your shinai shouldn't hit the ground during kendo. It's like breaking your sword. I noticed the judges gave kote to a Korean vs. team USA despite the fact that he hit the ground with his shinai after the initial contact.

Are these just example of sloppy shinpan or am I missing something?

[supernils]

Gooood topic!
I do not konsider it a valid point if you strike the ground after doing an attack. Lesson #1: Treat your Shinai as the sword it represents.
I know koreans used to do it alot after Kote-uchi and it always annoyed me.
Hence... Torikeshi

[sminki]

hmmmm

interesting. as far as i could see, kim had been dominating (or to better put it, had been putting eiga on the defensive). but in any case, the tsuki was an ippon in my opinion.

[justforkendo]

[QUOTE=AlexM]Hypothetical situation

Eiga is dominating the match (you can see that) but has not yet scored a valid ippon. The match goes on and eventually Eiga does a katate-tsuki that finally lands right on the tsuki-dare... He pulls back and hits his shinai on the ground before coming back to chudan...

Do you give the point?

Yes, you treat your shinai like a sword. But sometime's it is not always possible. Waza such as tsuki require you to get in and out quickly, the momentum is enough in this case to make the shinai hit the floor. If it was a deliberate act I might have different thoughts about giving it ippon.

You cant say in the past whether in a large battle or a one on one dual, that swords never touched the ground.

I think the shipans should be congratulated for having the guts to give the tsuki ippon. A lot of people might not have. Personally I think it was a pretty good tsuki.

[xvikingx]

[QUOTE=justforkendo]You cant say in the past whether in a large battle or a one on one dual, that swords never touched the ground.QUOTE]

Don't think that would really matter when your opponent has a hole where his throat used to be.

As far as Eiga vs. Kim match goes; I have watch that at least a hundred times over and it still amazes me. It one hell of an ippon. That dramatic kendo, or at least NHK did a good job of displaying it that way.

[xvikingx]

Yuck... please pardon the bad grammar.

[JSchmidt]

The tsuki looked ok to me, although the camera angle on the ebogu tape obscured the actual impact. He probed twice for it, went for it 2 more times and got close each time, until landing the final one.
What really pissed me off was when the Korean coach complained about the first fighter getting pushed out of bounds, when the Koreans were happily doing the same to other people in previous matches. Very bad sportsmanship.

Jakob

[samurai999]

As for scoring and tapping the shinai on the ground... Watch the Y2k Worlds. Taishosen with Takahashi for the Japanese team. He picked off the Korean player's kote quick and tapped his shinai on the ground. The whole thing was so fast that the the Korean senshu was still going forward when Takahashi brought his shinai up after tapping the ground. All 3 hata went up simultaneously.

If you wanna think about it with the sword, you basically kill the guy in the throat or (in the case above) cut his arm off then tap your sword on the ground. Whatever you do to your sword is almost irrelevant after you strike a deciding blow to your opponent. The opponent is technically "dead" so therefore, it should be a point, right?. But trust me, I wouldn't tap a real sword on the ground.


My 0.02$ (US)
Tim

[AlexM]

Ok, good answers but still waiting for someone to actually say: "I was told at a recent seminar that..." or "I've been been doing kendo for some 15 odd years now..." I was told it shouldn't be ippon if you hit the ground with the shinai, but then again what the hell do I know.

In the case of Eiga there didn't seem to be any kind of "need" to actually take the shinai away from Kim towards to ground (I could understand if Kim had actually knocked the shinai down to the ground post hit). In fact, his "stab & retreat" looked bad compared with other tsuki in which he missed the mark but actually pulled out without hitting the ground (I think).

As for who was dominating the match, and at the risk of turning this into a discussion about that one match, I disagree with sminki. Just because Kim was attacking doesn't mean that he was winning. He made a lot of useless attacks from what I saw (only a few of them seemed close to landing). It was worse in their first match where Kim would not get out of tsubazeriai but just kept trying to land "mid-range" kote-men (while retreating from each other) in order to keep Eiga from getting back to a proper distance.

Someone who keeps attacking without there beeing a opening strikes me as beeing overwhelmed rather than dominating (although it might just be a clash in the styles of the two kendoka). When I'm nervous and against a better opponent in shinai I'm more likely to lauch attacks at the wrong time because I'm worried that doing nothing will mean I'm giving him or her the upper hand (it's better to strike out swinging rather than looking to use a baseball analogy).

[sminki]

As for who was dominating the match, and at the risk of turning this into a discussion about that one match, I disagree with sminki. Just because Kim was attacking doesn't mean that he was winning. He made a lot of useless attacks from what I saw (only a few of them seemed close to landing). It was worse in their first match where Kim would not get out of tsubazeriai but just kept trying to land "mid-range" kote-men (while retreating from each other) in order to keep Eiga from getting back to a proper distance.

Someone who keeps attacking without there beeing a opening strikes me as beeing overwhelmed rather than dominating (although it might just be a clash in the styles of the two kendoka). When I'm nervous and against a better opponent in shinai I'm more likely to lauch attacks at the wrong time because I'm worried that doing nothing will mean I'm giving him or her the upper hand (it's better to strike out swinging rather than looking to use a baseball analogy).

Not interested in turning this into a discussion on who dominated the match either, but would like to say a couple of things.

While I agree with you on attacking without opening being a sign of weakness, I still do think that Eiga was as overwhelmed as Kim was during that match which I believe that his emotional outburst resulting in coming to tears after the match shows. Perhaps I am reading a bit much into Eiga's reaction, but that's my take. It was a long, tough and challenging match for both of them. While Kim did attack a lot, I think that also is attributable in large part to the fighting style of the Korean team. Many Koreans describe their style as attacks creating openings as opposed to the Japanese styles which is described as creating openings first then attacking. (at the risk of opening up a whole new discussion on kendo/kumdo styles, etc., of which I'm sure we're all getting tired)

[slidercrank]

In fact, his "stab & retreat" looked bad compared with other tsuki in which he missed the mark but actually pulled out without hitting the ground (I think).


We all know that an ippon consists of: 1) striking on the correct part of the bogu with the correct part of shinai; 2) high spirit; 3) correct posture; and 4) correct zanshin. Ideally, all four are equally important and should be performed equally to the same high standard by the player. However, I think we can all agree that sometimes 1 of the 4 is not done up to the same standard as the other 3 parts. Does this make the tsuki not an ippon? Well, it certainly doesn't make the tsuki a perfect ippon, but I think the somewhat defective zanshin (shinai striking the floor) was not so bad as to make it not an ippon. Especially considering that it was a katate tsuki, it's not as "unforgivable" as shinai striking the floor ater a 2-handed kote strike. Yeah, I'd raise my flag for ippon.

[Nishi]

Im not sure about the kote cuts that hit the ground afterwards, they look like poor posture, poor tenouchi and poor acting for the shimpans benefit, As for the rules...ive been studying ikf regulations alot latley, but i cant remember anything about hitting the ground after ippon being a problem....The rules do state that you should show correct posture following the strike.

I see his reason for dropping the kissaki to the ground though...if the tsuki attempt missed, being katate it could be easily brushed to the side, and countered, by dropping the point, it could not be brushed aside, banging the tip against the floor brings the shinai back up to chudan quicker.

Ive never seen proper posture after a successful tsuki, im not even sure what it would look like, although i do attempt tsuki from time to time...so im only speculating in the second part of my post.

[mingshi]

ALEX WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? TIME FOR GETTING AN EYE TEST!!


the momentum is enough in this case to make the shinai hit the floor.

I am with Justforkendo here. That's a KATATE TSUKI, plus Kim moved/pushed his right kote after the Tsuki, in attempt to cover it! Look at Kim's similar reaction on Eiga's previous 2 Tsuki attempts. You can check all those out by freeze-playing the clip frame by frame.

If that was a sword, it'll be stuck at the opponent's throat already. Remember the sword ain't that light so technically you can't bounce it on the floor!!

What is the "attack without seeing opening" about??? Kim's attacks were attempts to create openings. Eiga had been going backwards on this match vs Kim. In any previous matches he almost never needed to do that.

TO CONCLUDE: THAT IS A PERFECT IPPON!! More importantly, I witnessed it!! I am sure the Oh of the Oh-My-God I said came out before Eiga's shinai hit the floor. :D

[slidercrank]

The rules do state that you should show correct posture following the strike.

That's the beauty of the IKF rules... using words without precisely defining them. The IKF shiai rules will never be mistaken for a legal document.



I see his reason for dropping the kissaki to the ground though...if the tsuki attempt missed, being katate it could be easily brushed to the side, and countered, by dropping the point, it could not be brushed aside, banging the tip against the floor brings the shinai back up to chudan quicker.

Ive never seen proper posture after a successful tsuki, im not even sure what it would look like, although i do attempt tsuki from time to time...so im only speculating in the second part of my post.

Zanshin for a proper tsuki, either morote or katate, is like that of a hiki waza; the attacker withdraws out of the issokuito no maai and assume chudan.

[sminki]

Zanshin for a proper tsuki, either morote or katate, is like that of a hiki waza; the attacker withdraws out of the issokuito no maai and assume chudan.

A beautiful example of which can be seen in the 47th All Japan Kendo Champs semifinal match - Eto vs. Iguchi, I think. BE-AU-TI-FUL TSUKI WITH ZANSHIN COMING BACK TO CHUDAN.

[sminki]

Another GREAT tsuki example being Ishida Toshiya's tsuki during 10th KWC in his match vs. Kim Kyung Nam. (I guess Kim Kyung Nam has had a bad streak vs. tsuki in the WKC.)

Both Eto and Ishida's tsuki that I've mentioned were two-handed tsuki. I think it would be harder to come back to a chudan position after a one-handed tsuki such as Eiga's in the last WKC.

[kendomushi]

What happens from the moment a strike lands and zanshin is often what influences the judges in my experience.
If the attacker lands a point, then does not make the effort to get zanshin, the judges do not give the point.
If the attacker lands a point, and is obviously making the effort for zanshin, no matter if the shina touches the ground, the opponent rushes in to stop him, or anything else, they award the point.

As to the particular match in question, neither of them dominated. The Korean was trying to win by over powering with his size and strength. The Japanese was trying to nullify that technique and apply his own. Very different styles in these two individuals, and I have seen both here in Japan often enough. I perosnally prefer Eiga's style as part of what appeals to me in kendo is that my size and strength mean little if anything. But both were very effective or they wouldn't have been in that match to start with.

[AlexM]

STOP SCREAMING AT ME MINGSHI!!! I AM ENTITLED TO MY OPINIONS! NO MATTER HOW NUTTY THEY ARE!

For instance, I think that England does not exist. It's a conspiracy by cartographers is all... (All right, I stole the one from Tom Stoppard: you get 100 bonus points for naming the play that's from).

In closing I'd just like to say: MINGSHI IS WRONG!

[Isak]

I concurr with Alex, it would be nice to here someone say: "hachi dan so and so told us at a recent seminar that that zanshin without hitting the floor are for morons/the correct way to do it."


In fact, his "stab & retreat" looked bad compared with other tsuki in which he missed the mark but actually pulled out without hitting the ground (I think).


As for Eigas other tsukis, I watched the e-bougu tapes yesterday and saw him do the exact same thing -going for katate tsuki and then hiting the shinai in the ground- three times. I am not sure I saw all his attempts though (was cleaning my apartment simultaneously, so I wasn't 100% focusing).

[Nishi]

I concurr with Alex, it would be nice to here someone say: "hachi dan so and so told us at a recent seminar that that zanshin without hitting the floor are for morons/the correct way to do it."

What hachidan says and IKF says are different, i think this is a shiai v shinsa debate to some degree. Who knows...why dosnt someone e-mail the IKF and ask?

Alex, i think its French Canada that does not exist.....(ohhhhhhh :grin: )...lol!!

[LNGUYEN]

For Kendo, I don't know much. From Judo experience I would say when two opponents with equal talents and skills facing each others, you won't see a perfect everything point. If the Korean tried to bounce the shinai to cheat away a point, then the judge will see it and still award the point.

By the way don't you know that the world as we know today doesn't exist. Have you watch the biggest document of the century "Matrix"? :happy:

[deviljun]

Quoting Samurai999: "Whatever you do to your sword is almost irrelevant after you strike a deciding blow to your opponent. The opponent is technically "dead" so therefore, it should be a point, right?"

Whatever you do to your sword after you strike a deciding blow is NOT irrelevant. Whe are not doing fencing, we are doing Kendo, and proper zanshin is what you do after striking a deciding blow. It is as simple as that.

In general, the shinai should not touch the ground, EVER! If you would do any attack without proper zanshin, that should not be an ippon. Shikashi, but, when judging a Kendo match you have several aspects to consider. First of all the basic ones; was it a proper hit to a proper datotsu-bui? Was it correct Zanshin after the hit? All the "kill the sword, kill the body and kill the spirit". But a good judge should also be aware of which state the two shiaisha are in, if it is a long encho one of the criterias for a perfect ippon may not have to be 100% perfect if the others still are, in order to give an ippon.

In Eiga vs Kim's case, it was a correct hit to the proper datotsu-bui, he made his attack with a perfect timing, slightly getting Kim unbalanced and open up for tsuki at the perfect moment. His zanshin was good except for the shinai touching the floor, and he had overpowered Kim mentally as well. Should it be an ippon? I think so, and apparently the judges thought so as well. Was it a 100% perfect ippon? Maybe not, but definately good enough to set the final score in the end of a long encho in the taisho match.

[etherknot]

Geez, I really ought to keep up with reading other threads.

The play was Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead".

As for the actual thead topic, I would probably not, award the point. It all depends on just what exactly happened. If it was totally obvious and the receiving kendoka was all like: Doh how could I have let that happen! I might be more inclined to give it up.

Depends on what the other two shinpan have to say about it and wether or not you are supplying us with giant bottles of sake afterwards or not. :)


I'll be waiting for my 100 bonus points though!

[AlexM]

Ding Ding Ding!!!

100 bonus points awarded!

Congratulations. The consolation prize for the wrong answer was a two week trip to Toronto (and no, you can't leave the city before the two weeks are up). So be happy with the 100 bonus points. :D