Can a black belt from another style, such as ITF, Karate, etc. become a USAT certified referee? What if their Master/ home club is not a member of USA Taekwondo? Can a non-kukiwon, club-certified, non-Korean style Olympic TKD black belt martial artist learn our rules, support our tournaments, climb the USAT referee certification ladder if they wish to? Is this wider group of black belts a source of recruitment for us?
Susan Lewis
I must confess that at one point, I had the same thought. "this isn't brain surgery, anybody with a good mind, and good reflexes could handle at least scoring points in the corner". And there may still be SOME validity to that argument; however, over the past several years of training my own black belts as referees, and gaining more experience and knowledge myself, I'd have to say that by and large, the better referees among our own black belts are those that not only have competitive experience as a player, but are still at least somewhat active as a player, even if it's like me, in the "fat old farts" division.
It's one thing to be intimately knowledgeable about the rules, it's another completely to be intimately "grounded" in the fabric of the competition. My experience with my local black belts has been that those with less competitive experience tend to be "letter of the law" referees, stopping the action for every single perceived infraction. While this is somewhat helpful in training our sparring students to be more cognizant of following the rules, it messes with the "flow" and "interplay" between the players. Our black belts that have more competitive experience, and/or still compete on a somewhat regular basis, are the ones that understand the ebb and flow of the competition, and do a better job of following the "spirit of the law" in regard to match-management.
While I still think it may be possible to train the non-player to score points from the corner, I do not feel comfortable with someone in the center who doesn't know how the game is played, from an experiential standpoint. Nor do I necessarily feel comfortable with people scoring on the corners who haven't been in the ring as players. I think those people who COULD do that well are the exception, rather than the norm.
Moral of story? I keep encouraging all of my black belts to compete at least once a year, just so they remember what if's like being the player. I don't care if it's a local tournament, or Nationals...they need to get in the ring and dust it off at least once a year. Keeps us sharp. Painful? only the bruises... :)
See many of you in Atlanta!
--Larry