Judo: Why Flavio Canto is not allowed to do his newaza?

The traditional rules of judo are intended to avoid injuries to the participants and ensure proper etiquette. Some later additions to the rules were motivated by a desire to make the sport more interesting to observers.

Penalties may be given for being inactive during the match, or for using illegal techniques. Fighting must be stopped if a participant is outside the designated area on the mat (tatami). If the referee and judges need to discuss something during groundwork, the referee will call sonomama (which means "do not move") and both fighters must stop in the position they are in. When they are done, the referee says yoshi and the match continues.

All scores and penalties are given by the referee. The judges can make a decision that changes the score or penalty given by the referee.

There are slight differences to IJF rules to accommodate blind judo.