Junior worlds and the new rules

I have watched a few fights at the recent junior worlds and the judo was good but i was mainly watching to see the difference the judo had in regards to the new rules of no direct attack below the belt.
It was interesting firstly to note that japan won 8 out of a possible 14 gold medals and it was obvious before the competition that the new rules definitely suits their style of judo.

I describe the new rule and the style of fighting like this. I wacth alot of cage fighting and kickboxing and then when i watched some boxing on TV in was like, man this is so one dimensional where are the kicks, the elbows the knees? Where is the takedown? For me personally it seemed very boring to watch due to the fact that they only use their hands.

This was almost the same with watching the junior worlds on judo vision. I was like where are the leg grabs?, where are the pickups and kata guruma attempts? To me the judo seemed very one dimensional from what it used to be.

Another interesting topic that has arisen from the junior world results is the spread in medals across the world. Comparing the Senior worlds to the junior worlds with the new rule being implemented the spread of medals has become increasingly less across the globe than before.

Taekwondo is facing getting chopped from the Olympics due to the domination of North and South Korea over the post 2 Olympics. And the question is why keep Taekwondoe if Korea when all the medals. Looking at Japan winning more than half of the gold medals the IOC may ask the same question.

Why let Judo in the Olympics if Japan win the majority of the Golds?

you can probably guess i am against the ijf's new rule for the simple fact that judo is renowned for having so many different styles of fighting and the popularity of the sport in countries the public has never heard of like Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan etc.
But by banning and labelling techniques as 'wrestling' is stupid because like i have stated earlier a footy tackle in rugby league, rugby union, judo wrestling and bjj is still a footy tackle. Its a not a particular style of footy tackle, its the exact same.

Many people have said to me oooo how are you going to cope with the new rule of no kata guruma and to be honest i ha vent thrown someone with Kata guruma for a very long time. So for me it doesn't matter too much.

the IJF are trialling the new rule again in an -23 tournament in a few weeks and then we will see what happens to the sport in the next few years.
We may see alot of judo players turning to wrestling which would be a pity because judo is so much more of a complete sport.

Here are a few versions of kata gurumas that will start to be implemented in judo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGP4LpT6s7A

And 2 videos that are anti the ijf rule
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVjJcIeW2k8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdtSuDx-iHw

And an awesome Guard Pass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjWZ2zCu2a0



Matt