How to encourage more ippons

In the latest social media clip from the IJF, Daniel Lascau, the head referee director, says that with the upcoming new rules, they want to encourage "ippons". But how do you do that exactly? There's been a lot of dissatisfaction from various quarters about the prevalence of shido play, which results in wins not by throwing your opponent but by forcing them to incur penalties.

This happened a lot, many say too much, at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Some people have suggested expanding the regular playing time to five minutes. Others have suggested reintroducing the yuko or maybe even the koka.

I don't see how any of this will encourage players to go for more ippons. What needs to be done to encourage more proper throws (that can result in ippon) rather than fake throws (that results in shido your opponent) is to put in place rules that do not reward shido play.

You can't do away without shido. If there's no shido. any player who has won a waza-ari will simply kill time until the buzzer rings. That's no solution. So, there needs to be penalties for passivity. But, modifications can be made to the current rules to wipe out the abuse of these rules by players intent on engaging in shido play only.

The way to do it won't be popular. But it is to give the referee and the video judges more discretion in determining whether an action was a real attempt to throw or just a move designed to make the opponent look passive.

If a player drops to their knees every time their opponent takes a hold, that's shido play. Currently, provided uke is moved, it's considered a valid attack. But even if tori manages to move uke, it doesn't mean tori was really trying to throw uke. An experienced judo watcher -- and certainly an experienced referee -- would know if it's a fake attack or not.

The standard cannot be simply that tori managed to move uke. It's entirely possible to do a move that in fact moves uke but was never designed to throw uke. In fact, some players have learned to specialize in that. Such shido play should not be rewarded.

In fact, at the very least it should be not rewarded but to really discourage such gamesmanship, it should be penalized. So what if uke was displaced by the attack. Was it a real attempt at a throw or just an attempt to move uke to make uke look passive?

The referee should be given the trust and discretion to determine that. There could (and should) be some safeguards with video judges having a big say in this too. If the referee and the video judges concur that what a player did was simply try to engage in shido play, that player should get a shido. Attacks should be real not fake.

Once players start getting shido for engaging in blatant shido play, you will start to see more players aiming for ippon throws again, because they know they can't win through shido play anymore.