GMAC Umpire Course Report

Sunday 16th June GMAC held an Umpire training course to update on the new ITF Tournament Rules and aid in preparation for the tournament on the 23rd June.

The course kicked off at 10am with an introduction to the ITF Tournament and Umpire Rules from Mrs McIlvaney with some visual examples of Pattern, Sparring, Special Technique and Power whereby the participants could score and give a result on the video examples they were shown.

This part of the course also allowed for questions from the participants which were answered in full, and examples given where appropriate.

After the presentation on the updated rules, we advanced to the Dojang for some practical application of the rules ran by Mr McIlvaney.  All participants were taught the correct way to start each event, the correct terminology to use throughout each event, and the correct way to give warning’s & fouls during a sparring bout.  Each participant was then given the opportunity to be Jury Presidents, Pattern/Sparring Judges as well as Centre Referee’s for the afternoon and put these newly acquired skills into practice.

All those taking part had an enjoyable course, and went away with skills required to further their refereeing knowledge.  We all look forward to putting them into practice at the next tournament.