| Judging koi as koi, what you see is what you get
I see that the photo contest is finally sorting itself out and soon the judging will begin.
I did not want to comment on the dust up regarding judges but I did gain a lot of insight as to the impressions many have about judging in general.
As I see that emotions are high on this board lately and monitoring is set on 'low tolerance', I thought it would be best to post here on the 'outside' so as to incur no wrath from the administration should I stray into a politically incorrect position which I sometimes have a tendency to do- so with best intentions at heart I will begin.
Judging koi is a 60 year old past time. It was first simply a matter of opinion. And the strength of the opinion was based on the level of experience raising koi. When you raise koi you have the distinct advantage of knowing koi- how they grow, how they develop and which ones tend to turn out better than others based on past experience. And so, before there was an organized business, a retail interest or even an export business, there were a few men getting together, mostly in informal gatherings or at agricultural shows to compare their production levels and individual results. From this trading began and group opinions were formed about superior types and inferior types, best qualities and best impressions.
The formalization of things occurred in the 1960s with a brisk business beyond the ultra rich and a distribution business was formed where middle men went to the remote mountains to bring fancy carp to the towns and cities of Japan. The trading and sale of fish from Northern Japan to Southern Japan began again as the war and bomb had wiped out the fledgling koi business in Hiroshima and only the grower breeders in the mountains survived to begin again.
It as the western Japan koi fancier's association that became the backdrop and structure for the big koi show. partly dealer, partly amateur, this short lived concept got the first real amateur koi shows off the ground. And rules varied greatly from show to show as each breeder judge has his own views about what made a great koi. The spirit of koi and goodwill was high but this soon gave way to many disagreements as to who was a winner and who was judging to further their own business and customer's fish. Still the magical seduction of nishikigoi brought more middle and lower middle class hobbyists into the fold along with millionaire and later, billionaire amateur hobbyists. It was the beginning of the 'Japan economic miracle' and the koi hobby grew like a weed. The west Japan koi fanciers Association became the ZNA. And still, respected breeders were used to dispite some bitter feelings that were building among the amateur base. As you would expect, some breeders played fair and others did not. Some dealers who represented honest breeders begain to cheat. Something needed to be done.
So a group of wealthy amateurs from across Japan, begin organizing things. Rules were formalized and dealer breeder influence was marginalized. Standards were put in writing and a point system was adopted. The dealer and breeder were defined as 'Professionals' and slowly judging teams went from ' All experienced' to ' All professional' to a mix of breeder, dealer and amateur to finally ' All amateur' in 1971. Many hard feelings were created in Japan in the 1960s and early 70s over control of the Amateur koi show judging and they exist to this day. And the struggle never really ends, even in Japan, where the ZNA is under constant attack from key breeders and dealers.
As for the standards themselves, they were created by the breeders and formalized and refined by the amateurs. the point system was first meant to be serious and later to be a guide. But once isolated from one another, judging criteria, like any isolated 'gene pool' began to evolve separately. This difference was, at first very slight, and later very different. Today breeder's judge with genetics as a dominating influence. They refer to this focus on pure genetics as 'quality'. The amateur hobbyist judge is trained to pick the best fish in a beauty contest and as a result, early on, the pattern and color dominated most decisions. Today the amateur judge includes genetics or quality as the most important of several criteria. But pattern and color still carry great weighting. And perhaps most influential is the condition and movement of the fish on the day of judging. An all cases, size, sex and age of development mean a great deal in orientating the standard to the live specimen.
In the old days, a photo contest was an unheard of thing. And I imagine would have been reacted to as a silly thing as a koi show is all about the living, moving animal. But in today's world with the Internet and concerns about diseases, the photo contest has become an accepted human/koi outlet. It is fun, but we must be realistic- it is neither accurate or educational. Just fun and an opportunity to show off our pride and joy koi. The criteria one is left to judge from is color ( often manipulated) and pattern ( hard to change). And of course, the skill of the photographer and quality of the lens. What I do like about the photo contest, personally, is the fish that owners chose to enter when there is no governing body to guide them in their choices. It tends to be an interesting mix of kawari, pet fish and favored Internet breeds. In this regard, head to head competition is difficult and the judge, who ever that might be, has their work cut out for them in terms of rational and criteria chosen. It does cause some concern in that like the separate paths of evolution that the breeder judging and Amateur judging took, I suspect that photo judging will create another view of what makes a great koi, great. I absolutely expect a disappointed exhibitor at a koi show to approach me to complain that their photo contest GC didn't even place in the live koi show. It will be as difficult to explain as it is currently when an exhibitor complains about koi show results after entering an expensive unfinished tategoi that a dealer said was the very best fish imported that year.
Best luck to all. JR | 
02-05-2008
JR
there are many ways to hurt a fish.
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