Nigel's last session

Nigel's moving on to a new country but we hope to see him again in the near future when he visits Malaysia.

They say all good things must come to an end and so it is with Nigel's stint at KL Judo. Last Sunday was his final session with us. He'll soon be moving to Perth, Australia, where he plans to start a cafe business with his brother. Hopefully, he'll find a good judo club there and perhaps one day we can visit and train with him there.

I first met Nigel when I visited the Melaka Central Judo Club, his home club, last year. We had a couple of good randoris and I invited him to come visit us whenever he was in KL.

One day, he did visit us. We were still a very small club then and there were only three or four players when he came by. Still we had some nice randoris that day. Over time, his visits became more regular. We always appreciated his visits, which was quite an effort since he was still based in Melaka.

Whenever some players would complain that our dojo was too far away from their homes, I would always tell them: "Nigel drives all the way from Melaka so what do you have to complain about?"

Back in the day when I was a young judo player, I used to take two hour train rides from London to Camberley to attend training at the Camberley Judo Club. If you factor in the trip to the train station and the journey back, it was pretty much the whole day gone. But it was well worth it because of the training.

One of the most common questions Nigel and I would get from beginners is: "What can I do to improve my judo?". I'm not sure what answer Nigel usually gives but I always say the same thing: "Don't miss training".

It may sound like I'm being dismissive but it's the best answer I can give because it's true. Players like Nigel and myself did not get good at judo by skipping training. We got good because we trained long and we trained hard, for years.

Even today, we are still training long and hard. I guess we always will despite the inconvenience and despite the injuries because at the end of the day we love judo and we are constantly striving to perfect our techniques.