A Proud Tradition

Last week I attended the 80th Oxford vs Cambridge University Varsity Judo match. The oldest judo team match in the world. First started in 1930, the event returned this year to the fabulous venue of Oxford Town Hall.

There is something about a team match which is far more exciting than individual tournaments. With the greatest respect to the participants, it would be fair to say that the level was not the standard of the World Championships, yet I found myself as enthralled as I had been in the Ahoy Stadium in Rotterdam last year.

Keeping to the traditional format the Men’s Team match is fought over 8 matches. This year it ended in a draw with 4 ippons each. It was decided by a random draw of 3 re-matches, with Oxford winning the fight-off by 2 matches to 1, to reclaim the Matsudaira Trophy. Congratulations to all the players involved in all the teams.

I have pasted above a photograph of the 1926 Oxford University Team with the Metropolitan Police Team. History buffs among you will identify Yukio Tani and Gunji Koizumi. The other photo is the interior of Oxford Town Hall, fantastic.

I got me thinking that we should always have judo events in iconic venues. As a sport we should try to avoid the faceless sports centre, and ply our trade in great, memorable venues. What is the most iconic venue in your town. Could you organise a judo event there?

The two Oxford Coaches, Chris and Carol Doherty have both studied the EJU Level 4 programme, with Chris graduating as an EJU Level 5 High Performance Coach. These programmes will shortly be re-launched at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. The EJU Level 3 Advanced Coach Award is attracting many new students and can be accessed through the Official EJU delivery partner, The Judospace Educational Institute. http://www.judospace.com/

Good luck to all the judo coaches working with their players in tournaments across the world this weekend, yours is an honourable profession, and you follow a proud tradition.

The Circle of Judo Success

Today I attended the South West Regional Training Session. The standard was high, yet the mat was open to all. It got me thinking about something I’d like to call the “circle of judo success”.

The circle starts with Great Coaching. Great Coaching leads to Competence. Competence leads to Confidence. Competence and Confidence lead to Success. Success increases faith in the Great Coaching.

Great Coaching, is both an art and a science. Some people make great coaching look easy. But when you look under the surface, you realise that they can make it look easy because they work so hard at trying to be great coaches. They study, they steal ideas, they create, they apply, they make mistakes, they reflect, they learn, they try again. You show me a great coach, and I’ll show you someone who’ll tell you they are still learning.

The studying and stealing ideas gives the expertise. Applying, and learning from the mistakes gives the experience. You can’t fast track that. To get the badge saying “Experience” you have to do the hard yards, and take the long route. I believe that the formula to create wisdom is Expertise x Experience.

Great Coaches will help the players gain Competence. The players will score more in randori. Have success with the slight variations that the coach suggests, and get more pleasure from their judo. They will feel they are doing it well, and gain an internal motivation.

The feeling of competence will lead to greater levels of Confidence. What I saw today were great levels of Confidence. This allowed the players to attack freely, to stay relaxed, to maintain concentration, to rise above any minor successes from their partner. I saw this confidence in a group once before, in the GB Women’s team during the 80s, and I saw it today again within the TeamBath Judo group.

The Competence and Confidence increase the chances of Success. Of course there will be things outside the players’ control. These can be minimised but not eliminated. But by instilling Competence and Confidence the Great Coach gives the players the greatest chances of Success.
When that Success comes, either in a randori or a contest, the player’s faith in the coach is increased, so they believe even more what the coach tells them. They become more coachable. That makes it easier for the Great Coach to do their job, and so the circle begins again.

I’m proud to be working with the European Judo Union and the Judospace Educational Institute to make a small contribution to the development of Great Coaches. To join them visit http://www.judospace.com/ and enrol on the EJU Level 3 Advanced Coach Award.

PS. Thanks to Klinger Sensei and the TeamBath and Welsh players for a great afternoon.

Judo Mastermind

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Happy New Year.

Successful Judo Performance in Rio 2016

In December 2008 I presented at a Research Seminar at the Kodokan, Tokyo, on the topic of Successful Judo Performance. I tried to identify what we know about successful judo performance based on research.

I have pasted below the bullet points from my Summary slide:

•Come from less than 30 nations　(30以下の国)
•Aged 18 – 33 (18歳から33歳)
•Technical range – unpredictability (意外性のある技の幅)
•6 nagewaza, 2 newaza (6種類の投げ技と、2種類の寝技)
•Kouchigari (小内刈り)
•Six 25 second bursts with 10 second rests (25秒間の激しい攻防と10秒間の静止)
•Understand seoinage and uchimata (背負い投げと内股)
•Low body fat percentage (低い体脂肪率)
•High lactate tolerance (高い乳酸値に対する耐性)
•Left sided tendencies (左サイドの技への変化)

Lets look forward to The Olympic Games in Rio in 2016. Around 6.5 years to go. The mean age of the judo medallists in Beijing was 25, with a range or 18 - 33. If we assume that to be the case in 2016, then the players you are working with between the ages of 11 - 26 are in with a chance.

What can you do in 2010 as a coach to increase their chances of medalling in Rio? How can you enhance their environment? Can they work on the left? Can they score with kouchigari? Is their conditioning relevant to the task they will encounter and relevant to their stage of development. How can you better yourself as a coach so you are still useful to them in 6.5 years time?

Do you have a plan for these players? Can you get advice? Do you have a more experienced coach you can turn to for support?

The New Year is a time for resolutions. Make that plan, devlop yourself so you can develop your players. Imagine coaching a player to win a gold medal in Rio. What a party that would be!

I'm working with the team at http://www.judospace.com/ to deliver the European Judo Union Level 3 Coach Award.

Happy New Year.

Three Levels of Judo

I would like to quote below from Mind over Muscle by Jigoro Kano, page 94-95.

"We have now established judo's three aspects - training for defense against attack, cultivation of the mond and body, and putting one's energy to use. We have also affirmed judo's highest goal as self perfection for the betterment of society. For the sake of convenience, let us place the foundation - training for defense against attack - at the bottom and call it lower level judo. Let us call training and cultivation, which are by-products of training for defense and attack, middle-level judo. The study of how to put one's energy to use in society comes last, so let us call it upper leve judo.

When we divide judo into these three levels, we can see that it must not be limited to training for fighting in the dojo, and even if you train your body and cultivate your mind, if you do not go a level higher, you cannot truly benefit society. No matter how great a person you are, how superior your inytelligence, or how strong your body, if you die without achieving anything, as the proverb says: 'Unused treasure is a wasted treasure.' It can be said that you perfected yourself, but it cannot be siad that you contributed to society. I urge all practitioners of judo to recognise that it consists of these three levels and to undergo their training without undue emphasis of one aspect over another."

I feel this message is of great value to coaches.

Of course you must strive to ensure your players have the technical ability to apply defense against attack, the first level. Some coaches also step up to the second level, and seek to cultivate the bodies and minds of their athletes, encourage them to develop physically in a balanced way, and encourage them to better their minds through education. Only some coaches work hard to study how to put their energies to use to benefit society.

Try to be a coach who benefits society, it's one of the things that makes judo more than sport.
I hope you have the time to vist the European Judo Union Level 3 Coach Award at www.judospace.com.

Presents come in threes.

Yesterday morning I collected my post at the Welsh Institute of Sport, it was a large envelope posted in Japan. Inside I found several imprints of a translation of part of my PhD thesis. A section of the thesis relating to historical judo research had been translated into japanese by Tajima Yasuko, a Project Researcher in the Department of Budo at the National Institute of Fitness and Sport, Kanoya University, supevised by Professor Hirasawa and Professor Hamada.
(Hamada Hatsuyuki Sensei 7th Dan was the coach to Miss Ryoko Tamura, and a gold medalliist in the Asian Judo Championships.)

I was thrilled to see my work in kanji. A wonderful gift. Thank you to all my friends in Kanoya for choosing to study my thesis. I was reminded of how important your friends are in judo.

In the evening I attended one of the most important events in the judo calendar. The Team Bath Judo christmas party is an occasion not to be missed. Double Olympian Marcon Bezzina had flown from Malta to the UK just to attend. In all there were 8 nations represented, and in the training group there are 7 players on the current IJF World Ranking List. A huge credit to the coaches. Thank you to Megan and Kat for organising it.

It was warming to be amongst friends, they gave me a great welcome and I am so proud of every one of them. Their gift of friendship was a wonderful present. Again I was reminded of how important your friends are in judo.

This morning Postman Pat dropped off a parcel at the front door. A third present? A box set of the fantastic Fighting Films Inoue DVD, sent by Kosei himself, with a note of thanks. Kosei is a remarkable young man, a judoka and a samurai, a credit to his parents and his University. It has been a pleasure to be able to help him this year.

A wonderful present. For a third time I was reminded how important your friends are in judo.

Jita kyoei.

Working with http://www.judospace.com/ to educate coaches in partnership with the EJU so that more players can have the chance to find friendship through judo.

The Judo Tree

Yesterday I was coaching the Cadet National Team at the Welsh National Judo Centre. I decided to tell them about the judo tree.

I learnt about the judo tree from Norito Katabuchi from Tokai University. The eldest of three Katabuchi judo brothers.

The trunk of the tree is your tokuiwaza. The branches are your combinations into and out of the technique(s). The roots are the things that make up your preparation; condition, attitude, lifestyle, training system, etc. The flowers are the spectacular techniques that lead nowhere, perhaps a sutemiwaza.

The trunk should ideally consist of one of four techniques, around which you can base a players technical strategy; Osotogari, Taiotoshi, Seoinage or Uchimata. Some great players, actually have two or more of these techniques in their trunk.

Often, the branches will include kouchigari or ouchigari.

A player who has a tokuiwaza which is not a major technique may find that their repertoire is limited, and they struggle to develop a series of renrakuwaza and renzokuwaza around their tokuiwaza. There judo tree will be feeble and not grow in a balanced way to produce strong branches.

Think about the trees of the players you work with. I suggest that all cadet players should work hard on the four major techniques. Even if they do not use them, they will understand them, and be better able to deal with attacks from their partner.

What we do as coaches is plant an acorn. Plant it in fertile soil, feed the roots, nurture the tree, talk to it, prune it occasionally, and you will have a strong healthy tree, with a powerful trunk, strong branches and beautiful flowers.

Happy gardening.

The European Judo Union Level 3 Advanced Coach Award is delivered by http://www.judospace.com/