I have recently been re-reading Yamashita-Sensei's "Fighting Spirit" book. In one of the appendix pages is a list of all the wins in his 203 fight winning streak in international contest. I was curious to know what techniques were on the list and what percentages they were used, so I punched the data into Excel and this is what I found.

There are 161 recorded scores, from a winning streak of 203 matches. 42 were won without a deciding score. This would put refereeing decisions squarely at position number two on the list.

A brief inspection of these results can tell us that having a strong Ne-Waza and a strong Tachi-Waza technique is essential. As players we also need to be able to demonstrate to referees that we were the superior player when scores are tied.

As a coach or player, we could decide that we should focus on standing and groundwork. Ensuring that players are positive and are able to influence the referee is vital. To this end, players should practise influencing the referee's decisions in just the same way as they would any other Judo skill.