Judo competitions for kids
Judo is a competitive sport, participating in a competition is both a rewarding and a harrowing experience for most people, including children. In competition all competitors will at some time or another lose a fight. There are not too many Judo players out there who can rightfully claim to have won more fights than they have lost. Children are often very upset when they lose, this is natural but can be tempered by instilling the right attitude towards competition.
Competition is a testing ground for Judo players. It is when we get to try what we know on others and see if it works on them. It is also an opportunity to experience firsthand the techniques of other players from other clubs, areas or countries. It is an opportunity to learn more Judo by being attacked (or thrown) by another player.
The standard Judo tournament will consist of a selection of weight divisions, typically in 5kg groupings. All the entrants will be weighed by tournament officials and allocated to their divisions.
Each division will be divided into “pools”, a pool will consist of about 5 players. All the members of a pool will fight one another, and the two with the most wins will go through to the “knock-out phase”.
In the knockout phase, the players are placed on opposite sides of the competition “drawsheet”, the first two players will fight who ever wins will fight again. Then players three and four will fight and the winner would go forward and fight the winner from the first match. This continues until there is one player left on both sides of the “draw”, these two then fight the final, the winner being the champion.
Those who lose at any stage to the two finalists are placed in a repecharge knockout, which operate the same way, until there are two remaining players. These two do not however fight and considered equal third place getters.
This is the most common format for tournaments, but different formats are common and used depending on local preference and situations.
A Judo fight is won in one of three ways:
1. Throwing the opponent for Ippon
2. Scoring Ippon by holding your opponent on the ground for the required amount of time (presently 25 seconds)
3. Earning more smaller scores than your opponent by the end of the contest.
Ippon is scored for a throw that is executed with Force, Speed and Control, with the opponent landing largely on the back. An Ippon score stops the fight immediately. An Ippon is the goal that your child should be trying to achieve at all times.
If the throw is lacking one of the 4 elements for Ippon, (force, speed, control, on the back) it is awarded a score of Wazari, equivalent to half and Ippon. Scoring two Warazi earns an Ippon.
Should two elements be missing a Score of Yuko is awarded. Unlike Wazari, these scores are do not eventually earn a Wazari or Ippon.
Should three elements be missing, then the technique will be awarded the lowest score, Koka. Again Multiple Koka scores do not become Yuko, Wazari or Ippon scores.
The referee can also award no score at all.