Proposals of the IKU Technical Committee during the World Championship in Argentina and approved on 12 February 2025; the following rules will come into force, in official competitions, from 2 March 2025:
1) Upon proposal of the IKU T.C. President, is cancelled the “Rotation” team competition. Following the IOC dictates (see the latest Paris Olympics) on gender equality, the inclusion of the mix kumite team competition (two males + one female) open weight only (for the moment) in senior class is approved. In the mix kata sector the teams will be made up of 2 women + 1 man / senior and open style with direct clash; the team that achieves 2 victories (flag system) will win.
2) Given the difficulties of having the shobu ippon refereed with 5 referees of different nationalities from the athletes involved in that fight it is decided to have, in this specialty too, refereed by 3 referees (always of different nationalities from the athletes).
3) In all age classes and belts the athletes can perform a free kata (provided it is present in the official list); the division into shitei/sentei/tokui is no longer valid. White, yellow, orange belts can repeat the same kata, all other grades always have to make different kata at each test.
4) At the request of the Italian Member, the following kata are added, only in the case of combined styles: for Wado Ryu style Anan, Suparinpei, Unsu; for Goju Ryu style Anan Dai, Genkaku, Chikaku and for Shotokan Ryu style Sansai.
5) On proposal of the Irish Master Terry Boyle, it is recommended to get greater enhancement of the use of chudan kicks, even is they do not have all the necessary technical characteristics even according to the “skin-touch” concept, as for jodan kicks, in particular it is specified that: if the leg kick arrives at the target chudan in a non-optimal manner, waza-ari must still be given. If the shot lands chudan perfectly, with good vigor and with good execution, you must give ippon.
Expecially if the sruck athlete is left breathless (no torimasen, no atenai, no yowai). Master Terry Boyle insists on non-defense on the part of the athlete who is subjected to the chudan kick and does not mention any form of parade and/or dodge (in practice he is “passive”). Even, if he does not block the blow, waza-ari must also be given an a kick that partially hits the valid target and, also, the arm that is simply resting on the site.