Printable Judo score sheet (free PDF)

Everything in the top block goes down before the bow, because a judo contest gives you none of the pauses other sheets count on: no rounds, no corner break, and an ippon can land on the first grip. Write the two names while the tatami is still empty — the sheet says Team A and Team B, but each box holds one person here, white in the first and blue in the second. The Referee box takes whoever will be calling hajime and matte; Scorekeeper is you; Date and Venue take a second. Category is no formality here: the weight class is what made this pairing exist, and Match no. is how you find the contest again.

Then the surprise: the grid has one row. A judo contest is not cut into periods, so the sheet prints a single contest line — four minutes of stopped time, and if golden score is needed it runs on along that same line. In each judoka's cell, write the scores as the referee calls them, in the order they fall: waza-ari, and the second waza-ari that becomes an ippon, or the ippon that ends everything at once. Yuko has no cell of its own on this sheet; note it in the margin beside the score, never inside the addition — it never grows into a waza-ari.

The Final score line underneath takes a result, not a total: ippon, two waza-ari, hansoku-make, or the score that ended golden score. Then four signature cells — the two judoka in the Captain A and Captain B boxes, the referee, and you. Both sign for a result, never for an addition of points. The legend at the foot is printed from the sport's own values: Ippon +10, Waza-ari +7, and Shido, the only sanction this sheet tracks. Those two figures are not IJF scores; they are the weights that keep a lone waza-ari under the ippon's ten, while two of them pass it and close the contest.

Three things live on this sheet. Ippon first: it ends the contest on the spot, whether it came from a clean throw onto the back, a twenty-second pin, an arm lock or a choke. Waza-ari next — ten seconds of osaekomi is worth one — and two of them make an ippon, and with it the win. Shido last, which never hands a point to the opponent: it is a tally kept beside a name, for passivity, a false attack, a deliberate step outside the area or an illegal grip. At the third one it is hansoku-make: contest over, the other judoka has won.

Timekeeping is the trap. Four minutes of contest are not four minutes on your watch: the clock stops at every matte and starts again at hajime, so sheet and stopwatch only agree if you stop when the referee does. Seconds change the score in exactly one place, osaekomi — count out loud with the referee, ten for a waza-ari, twenty for an ippon — so keep your eyes on the hold, not on the dial. Level when time runs out, golden score continues with no limit and the first advantage settles it, on the same line. Note the clock reading at the decisive score — after an ippon, nothing follows.