Aau

[AndrewSimonsen]

Is anybody else here in the AAU and are any of you in Virginia?

[Eliz]

I'm with AAU.

[AndrewSimonsen]

I just got back from the Virginia qualifier, that was the worst judging I've ever seen. If you were a lower ramk fighting an upper rank they would ignore your hits, if you weren't with Team Baeflex you lost against somebody who was. no matter how bad you killed them you would lose. I saw on that got close but then the ref managed to throw out enough bogus penalties that the local boy won. I'll just save them the shame of having to cheat to beat me and skip any more tournaments that they have.

[Eliz]

Maybe I should have added, I also judge for AAU. :up: No harm, no foul.

Overall, I like the AAU and I think they keep a close watch on judges and coaches in general. They require annual testing to renew certification, plus seminars before Nationals and JO's.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. One thing I can assure you of, if the judging was as biased as what you say, other officials noticed.

Your coach HAD the option of filing an appeal. Unfortunately, I believe that time is expired. Is your coach familiar with policy?

There is nothing more I can tell you. With all due respect, your coach should probably be handling things from here.

[kodanjaclay]

Andrew,

I understand your furstration; however, I'm not sure that it is appropriate to bad mouth an organization because you do not like the result, or you feel the result is unfair. Further, to quit violates the principle of pil sung and I don't think you should be looking at that option either. You are young and you have alot more things you can do.

I agree with Eliz that you should say something to your coach. If you have some sour grapes, you should perhaps vent them quietly but make sure you maintain the face of good sportsmanship. Taekwondo is not just a sport, it is a martial art and that martial spirit should always come first. That being said, remember that people are not perfect. You see porr judging in everything from football on down. It is an unfortunate part of competitive life.

I hope this helps.

[AndrewSimonsen]

It's not that I'm quiting, I'll just be careful to be more selective as to what tournaments I go to, and as far as bad mouthing the organization, that was not my intention. I have been to several very good AAU tournaments. There were odd things going on with the entire tournament, missing segments of the competition, green belt judges, refferees stopping the match to award points, colorbelts fighting black belts from a higher weight class. I understand that my original comments may have come off overly negative, that wasn't my intention, but I wasn't the only one there that thought the judging was biased. I have nothing against the AAU or Master Ash who from what I saw first hand was keeping the rings he ran fair, but the judging on the whole was pathetic. But on a final note you come across unfortunate things all of the time and most of them, like this, are just an annoyance. No matter how bad I think the judging was, it really doesnt matter.
And as far as officials noticing, oh yeah, they noticed and reported it. Some reasons the judging may have been off was the fact that this is the first year the VA AAU TKD State Champs have been with this host, they changed from last year's host due to declining attendence (?) In every organization you have good and bad experiences this just happened to be a bad one.