Accomplishment ?- Ray Jordan

[mrbradleybradley]

"When judging koi of AJS caliber it is not about demerits it is about accomplishments, overall presence, and also beauty. "

Hi Ray. I am hoping you might expand this thought some more.

Are you saying that an AJS has little need for a + and - system and that lower calibre shows rely on this more? What then is the place of a + and - system

eg.in Manual to Nishikigoi by Takeo Kuroki

Figure 30 Marks
Colours 20 Marks
Pattern 20 Marks
Quality 10 Marks
Elegance 10 Marks
Imposing Appearance 10 Marks

I have no doubt that bias exists even within a scoring system. Is this more the starting point rather than the finishing point as your thought might suggest.

Cheers

BB

[RayJordan]

I'll try to be more complete in my thoughts. I was attempting to focus the attention and discussion more on the positive accomplishments and the total beauty of a Grand Champion class koi while judging vs becoming locked in on the merits and demerits in some type of point system.

Here are a couple of examples that might make my comments more clear. Two famous AJS Grand Champion Koi clearly violate some of the early koi show "standards". For example the famous kohaku Diamond Mask had red eyes. This was considered a huge demerit in the early days and with some of the older point systems would have prevented Diamond Mask from winning any major award based on demerits vs merits. Also the famous Dianiachi inazuma showa is another example having very little sumi that was mostly unfinished compared to the early showa standards. Fortunately these exceptional and uniquely beautiful koi were given their well deserved awards.

Dr. Kuroki's book which you quote was the first written over 25 years ago as a effort to help western koi hobbyists better understand different koi variaties and basic fundamentals of koi appreciation/judging. Dr. Kuroki's was clearly the biggest reason the koi hobby spread beyond Japan as well as flourished in Japan. He formed and led ZNA for over 30 years until his dealth. I think it is unfair to him to take what he wrote long ago to assist us western koi hobbyists at the beginning of what was the modern age of koi to try and understand the basics of koi and think it is what he would say today. In fact he was one of the first to stress the concept of judging the koi as a whole vs using a constraining point system and tally merits and demerits.

Of course learning koi judging merits and demerits are the fundamentals that are the starting point of koi appreication. I would hope we have moved beyond using a + and - point system in judging koi today and can better rank koi using the merits and demerits as a starting point but also consider the beauty of the whole koi as part of the final rankings.