Sunday Training's Agenda (1.10.17)

This is what we have in store for you today:

Warm Up: The Dojo Ball Game

This is a High Intensity Interval Training game that we learned from The Dojo in Singapore but we modified it a bit. Firstly we smaller balls. Secondly instead of four players (one in each corner of the mat), we have eight players (two at each corner). This encourages team work and strategy. The last time we played this we experimented with six balls. This proved to difficult for any pair to win. Then we tried eight balls and one corner seemed to win it consistently, so obviously they managed to figure out a strategy that works. For today, we will try seven balls. This game is a lot of fun and sure to get your heart beat racing.

More Than Sport: Judo at Turkey-Syria Border Refugee Camp

We'll watch a short clip about judo being practiced at a refugee camp in Kilis, Turkey that is home to thousands of refugees coming across the border from Syria. Two of our club members are from Syria.

Newaza: Neil Adams Juji-Gatame Roll

Neil Adams's unique way of rolling uke onto his back for juji-gatame is not the most common juji-gatame roll (the Alexandre Iastkevich roll is far more common) but it's the most versatile way to roll uke because the figure-4 grip involved allows uke to be rolled from the back and the front. We'll watch a clip of Adams winning the World title with this technique and we will then work on it.

Tachi-Waza: Hifumi Abe’s Sode-Tsurikomi-Goshi

Hifumi Abe was the star of the recent 2017 Budapest World Championships where he threw many of his opponents with his unique brand of sode-tsurikomi-goshi. Most stand-up sodes are done from a sleeve-lapel grip. Abe does it from a double-sleeve grip. His entry into the sode is also not traditional. Instead of pulling upwards, he pulls across, leading with his elbow. We'll watch clips of him executing this technique various times at the World Championships and then we'll try it out.

Randori: Newaza/Tachi-Waza
As usual, at least 1/3 of our training is devoted to randori. We'll start off with newaza randori and then we'll do tachi-waza. We have a few guests and newcomers coming but not too many so most likely there's enough room for everyone to be on the mat at the same time for both newaza and tachi-waza.

Gotong Royong Dojo Clean UpJudo is a full contact sport so cleanliness and hygiene is crucial. That doesn't just mean showing up with a clean judogi but also ensuring the mats are clean too. But the mats don't clean themselves, so we have to do it. It's been a while since we last cleaned our mats so after practice we will all work together to clean up the tatami we train on.

3 types of randori partners

In an ideal situation, you should have three types of randori partners:
i) Those who are lower level than you
ii) Those who are equal level to you
iii) Those who are higher level than you

Lower Level
It is important to have some players who are lower level than you because you need to be able to get in some throws. If all your training partners are better than you and you never ever get to do any techniques successfully, you will never acquire mastery of any techniques. In time you will lose heart and start to doubt your abilities in judo.

Rules of thumb when doing randori with those who are lower level than you:
i) Try new throws that you have not yet mastered. This is your chance to actually get a good feel of how these throws should feel when executed successfully.
ii) Try new combination attacks for the same reason above. This is your chance to actually get these combinations to work.
iii) Try techniques to the other side (if you are right-handed, try some left-handed techniques). Again for the same reason above.
iv) Don't waste time doing techniques that you have already mastered. If you are already very good at ippon-seoi-nage, why do this technique on a lower level player who will easily fall for it? All you get is a cheap thrill of throwing someone easily. But you learn nothing from it. So, don't do it.

In a nutshell, when you fight against a lower level player, use that opportunity to try new stuff.

Equal Level
It's good to fight someone of equal level because they can give you the right amount of resistance to make it hard for you to throw; they can potentially counter you when you come in with a sloppy attack; and of course, they could potentially throw you, which gives you a chance to develop defence and countering skills.

The potential downside of fighting someone your equal is that the randori can easily slide into a shiai and both players' mindset becomes one of a contest rather than free-flow sparring. This is not good. It becomes a clash of egos with neither one willing to give an inch, fighting defensively and refusing to take any risk. That doesn't benefit you because you don't end up doing anything other than preventing your partner from scoring.

The other danger is that the both of you might get injured. When pride is at stake, players will be tempted to spin out of throws to avoid conceding any score, almost at all cost, just as they would in a competition. Each time you do that you are risking injury. There is a time for doing shiai style fighting. Randori isn't that time. Randori is a time for you to attack without inhibitions. Get countered, no problem. It's just randori. 

If you have a tokui-waza (favourite technique) that works well for you, use it against an equal level partner. They might be able to defend against it or even counter it, which will force you to improve your tokui-waza.

For years, I had made the very mistake I wrote about above. I had a training partner who was a bit younger than I was but like me, was a former national champion and international competitor. Our randoris were always like shiais where neither one wanted to concede any scores. Looking back, I now realize that I had made a classic mistake that cost me a lot. I didn't improve my skills because I was too concerned about "winning the randori" and I got injured a few times trying to spin out of throws.

Don't make the mistake I did. Randori is not shiai. It is not a contest. Leave your ego at the door and don't worry if your technique fails or if you get countered. Nobody is watching (they are all too busy doing their own randori). So fight hard and enjoy the randori.

Higher Level
No matter how good you get at judo, there is always someone better. And if you're lucky, that someone better is in your club. Always seek out those who are better than you for randori.

One of the biggest mistakes players make is to always seek out inferior players (this happens quite often). Yes, there is value in sparring with inferior players, as explained earlier, but if all you do is spar against inferior players and slamming them with your favourite technique, your judo will not improve. It's also not enough to fight with equal level players, you must seek out higher level players as well.

A higher level player will normally be able to withstand your attacks, so go after them with heart and soul. Attack, attack, attack. Don't hesitate and don't fear either their attacks or their counters. Know that the better player will inevitably throw and counter you (that's why they are called "the better player"). So, don't concern yourself about that at all. It's going to happen. Instead of anticipating (and fearing) their attacks, you make sure you put in your attacks first. Attack relentlessly and fearlessly. Although many attempts will fail, occasionally something might just work and you will learn a whole lot from that.



Come for Randori at KL Judo on Sundays
In Malaysia, it's always a challenge finding enough randori partners (the sports schools are an exception). At the recent SEA Games in KL, I had a conversation with a male judo player in his early 20's who told me despite the fact that his judo club has many members, he has only two players whom he can do proper randori with (and one of them wasn't even in his weight class).

This is because in Malaysia most judo clubs have very few adult players. Most are children. So children will have plenty of opportunity to do randori but not so when it comes to older teens and adults.

At KL Judo Club many of our members are adults with a wide distribution of weights. Our smallest player is 52kg and our largest is over 100kg. Besides our regular members, we also have many guests from other clubs and other states (and sometimes other countries too).

When you come to our club for open mat randori on Sunday nights, you'll definitely be able to find someone your size to do randori with. In fact, you'll probably find several your size. So, if you are in KL on a Sunday night, come join us for some free-flow sparring at KL Judo Club. We have the best randori in town.

Wed Nite Competition Training (27.9.17)

We started out with newaza, as usual. I got the guys to do the Neil Adams juji-gatame roll without resistance. Then, I asked them to do it with resistance.

Next up was submission exercises. First is the Figure-4 clamp that puts pressure on uke's arm. It doesn't usually lead to submission but it can cause uke to release his grip so you can straighten it. After that we did a simple arm straightening exercise where you pull towards uke's head. It usually works. But if uke is particularly strong and this approach doesn't work, there's always the arm lever which is hard to resist. Lastly, we worked on the Ecky-gatame hold that can be done from a juji-gatame position.

For tachi-waza, we worked on sumi-gaeshi, a sacrifice throw that is a lot easier to learn than tomoe-nage which requires more finesse. There are a few important points to this throw. Firstly, you must get a high grip and get uke bent over. Secondly you must commit to sitting down in a sacrificing motion. Thirdly as you rotate uke over, you must turn onto your front and end, ideally, in an osaekomi position.

Seven good reasons to take up judo

1. New friends
Judo attracts different people from all walks of life. In your school or working life you will tend to meet the same kinds of people day in and day out. Through judo, you will interact with people you would not normally mix with. And that makes your life more interesting!

2. Physical fitness
Judo players regularly rank among the fittest athletes. The reason is that judo is a sport that requires a mix of strength, stamina, speed and agility. Very few sports work out your body the way judo does.

3. Competition
Our club participates in many competitions around the country and even in neighboring countries. Whether you wish to compete in a small local competition or at the national or regional level, we can get you there.

4. Affordable sport
Judo is one of the most freely accessible sports around. All you need is a judogi and you are ready to train. Our fees are very affordable, starting at RM80 per month for weekly sessions or RM25 per session for those who prefer to train on an ad hoc basis. If you wish to buy a low-cost judogi, we can help you source for one.

5. Self-defence
Although judo's emphasis is not self-defence per se (it is an Olympic sport and the focus is on sport), skilled and experience judokas are naturally very capable of defending themselves. Judo is a practical and realistic combat sport that will train your body to react when attacked.

6. Perseverance
When you first start out, you're gonna find it difficult to overcome your experienced training partners, who will seemingly be able to throw you at will and defeat you on the ground. This can be demoralizing at first but if you keep training, you will see tangible progress. In time, you will be able to overcome your opponent. This won't happen overnight. In fact, it may take quite a while if your opponent is very experienced. But judo is a sport where progress is very obvious and trackable.

7. Personal development
Beyond the physical benefits, judo players also learn:
a) to overcome fears
b) to control their emotions and to fight on stoically
c) to deal with pressurizing situations
d) to appreciate the value to team work and team spirit
e) to be respectful and courteous to other people
f) to be disciplined and hardworking

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The KL Judo Training System

The European Judo Union's slogan is "Judo - more than sport!"

In Europe, they have a slogan: "Judo - more than sport!" Anyone who has ever done judo knows what that means and knows it to be true. Judo is a sport but it's more than that. There's a moral code involved. Unlike some sports where there's a lot of trash talking (aimed at opponents and even referees), respect and good behaviour is emphasized in judo. And despite the fact that judo is a full-contact combat sport where players fight fiercely on the mat, off the mat they are friends. That's what makes judo more than sport.

There are those who pooh-pooh the sporting aspect of judo and think judo should be more like a martial art. Those are the ones who usually complain about the IJF rules prohibiting leg grabs and so on. They feel that as a martial art, judo should not have sports-centric restrictions. Such people would prefer for judo to revert to its jiu-jitsu origins. But by taking out the sporting aspects, judo would then become "less than sport" (thanks, Lance Wicks, for enlightening me on this). And we can't have that!

A lot of those martial arts types are fond of saying Jigoro Kano would roll in his grave if he could see what judo has become. They probably aren't aware that Kano was a member of the International Olympic Committee and the last thing he would want is for judo to become "less than sport".

Crash pads
At KL Judo Club, we view judo as a sport and we approach training from an athletic perspective. This is why we use crash pads extensively. I noticed in many judo clubs, including those that actually have crash pads, the coaches do not like the players to use crash pads ostensibly because being thrown on the tatami makes players tougher.

Actually what it does is two things:
i) It punishes uke who has to take multiple falls on a hard tatami
ii) It causes tori to assist uke on his way down so as to alleviate his suffering

What is the purpose of that? What value is there for uke to take 30 throws on a tatami? And what value does tori derive when he's not able to do a throw with full force?

So ingrained are players who are used to "no crash pads" that when they are asked to throw with full commitment on crash pads, they still end up assisting uke on the way down. We see a lot of that when visitors come to our club.

When I was in college, I did some  wrestling and for throwing drills, we always used crash pads. When I trained in Europe as a competitor in the early-90s, we always used crash pads for big throws.

So, I don't care if people think that "real" judokas don't use crash pads. I want my players to learn how to throw properly and for them to do that they need to throw with full force all the time. The only practical way for that to be done repeatedly is with the use of crash pads.

Newaza
It is said that judo players prefer to throw rather than do groundwork. This might be a stereotype but there is some truth to it. Yes, we all know of judokas who love their groundwork but those are actually a minority. Most judo players prefer standing techniques and some absolutely hate newaza.

When I first did competition training at the LA Judo Training Centre, my coach always had me start off with newaza training and then only tachi-waza. We tend to follow that routine at KL Judo (not always but usually). All of my players are conditioned to do lots of newaza, so very few of them fall under the "I hate newaza" category (though maybe one or two exist).

There are practical reasons for emphasizing newaza. Firstly, when your newaza is strong, you feel more confident with your tachi-waza. If your throw fails and you end up on the ground, you are not worried because you can handle yourself in newaza. And if your opponent throws you, and it's not an ippon, you can actually win the match by continuing the action in newaza. So, having good newaza  is crucial to competition success.

Gripping
Gripping is an important skill in judo yet it is rarely taught. Most judo players with good gripping skills (kumi-kata) are usually those who are exposed to a lot of randori. When you are able to do a lot of randori, you get exposed to all kinds of players with all kinds of gripping styles.

If you do plenty of randori day in and day out -- like the Japanese -- you'll eventually develop sound gripping skills through trial and error. But for the rest of us, who don't have the benefit of doing 10 to 15 randoris a day, gripping skills need to be taught.

At KL Judo we really emphasize gripping and players are taught how to do techniques from different gripping situations, how to break grips (legally) and how to impose grips effectively. There's an art and a science to gripping and players who are not equipped with sound gripping skills are at a vast disadvantage.

Drills
American judo coach Jimmy Pedro said in an interview that it's impossible for American players to do more judo than the Japanese simply because there are not that many players around to do randoris with. If you go to a top Japanese judo university, you can have as many as 40 or 50 black belts on the mat. They are known to do up to 15 randoris per session. In such a situation players come across all kinds of gripping, attacking, defending and countering situations. As they learn how to cope with these situations they become effective fighters.

In most Malaysian clubs (aside from the sports schools) there are not so many players. When randori opportunities are scant, and players fight with the same old training partners all the time, they don't get to encounter the different gripping, attacking, defending and countering situations. So what can you do?

Drills is one way to address this situation. Drills are designed to mimic situations. For example, most players are not used to fighting left-handers because most players are right-handed. If a player happens to be in a club where there are only two or three randori partners and they are all right-handed, that player would never learn how to fight a left-hander through randori alone. As such, it's important to do drills where you have partners purposely attacking him with a left-handed grip. This exposes the player to a situation that a free-flowing randori would not. Drills are crucial when your club doesn't have many players.

Randori
Nothing replaces randori for preparing players for competition. You can do all the drills in the world but if you don't get enough randori, you would not be ready for competition. But if you don't have a lot of players what can you do?

One solution is to take them to visit other clubs. I realize this is actually not a common thing in Malaysia. Clubs tend to be very insular and stick to themselves. Perhaps some coaches are worried their players might leave them if they are exposed to other clubs. But if those coaches are providing good training why should they be worried about such things?

I always encourage my players to visit other clubs and we have travelled to other states and even to Singapore just to get more randoris.

Of course there's no point in visiting another club if their training philosophies are so vastly different. For example, if another club doesn't like to do randori, what's the point of visiting such a club? Or if a club likes to mix their judo training with other martial arts like BJJ, MMA etc, I don't think there's any point in visiting them if your purpose is to do more judo randoris.

When other clubs ask to visit us, we try to get as many of our players together as possible in order to give them a good randori experience. If guests take the trouble to visit our club, we feel it's our obligation to give them a good randori.

Strategy
As a modern sport, judo competitions are won and lost not just on skill but on strategy as well. The rules are there whether you like it or not and it's up to you to work the existing rules to your advantage.

Players naturally tend to focus on technique when training. They want to be better at throwing and better at groundwork. And that's good of course. But if they are oblivious about strategy, they might find themselves losing to a player with lesser throwing and groundwork skills. A really strategic player can win a match without scoring a point through the clever use of shido play.

Of course as judo players we want technique to prevail and yes, it is more satisfying when you win by ippon. But sometimes that is not possible and sometimes you have to resort to tactical play to win the match. Strategy can be something as simple as learning how to keep uke on the ground when you're ahead by points and there's only 30 seconds left in the match. You might think that's common sense but if players are not conditioned to do this they might forget about this in the heat of competition.

The KL Judo Training System
In a nutshell, the KL Judo way is to treat judo as a sport and to emphasize:
a) nagekomi on crash pads (not tatami)
b) newaza
c) grips
d) drills
e) randori
f) strategy

Sunday Nite Training (24.9.17)

Most judokas prefer to do standing but KL Judo's players seem to prefer newaza. We had a vote on whether to work on newaza first or tachi-waza and it was 80% in favor of newaza first.

So, we started of with juji-gatame (or the cross armlock). I explained that sometimes, the juji comes as a follow up to a throw (transition) and other times, it may be a counter to a throw. But these are actually and far in between. Most of the time it's a result of a roll.

I told them there are two juji rolls that I would be teaching them: i) the one made famous by Alexander Iastkevich and ii) the one created by Neil Adams but that for today, I would focus on the former.

After demonstrating how the roll works, I got the players to do drills on them. I noticed that while most of them were able to execute the roll, many had difficulty keeping uke's head down after the roll. So, we did drills on those too.

The drills took up nearly an hour and we didn't have time to work on straightening the arm. That will have to wait for another day.

After a water break, I taught them tai-otoshi, highlighting the fact that it's a hand throw not a leg throw. I demonstrated the basic 3-step motion approach and then showed two variations: the cross grip version and the sleeve version. To learn the technique, the players did uchikomi followed by nagekomi.

Before we knew it, it was randori time and we had many guests show up. With so many players on the mat, we did randori motodachi style where a bunch of players would stand out there for two rounds in a row and then they'd be replaced by another set of players who would stay on for two rounds in a row. And this went on and on until we were too tired.

There were a few minor injuries which is to be expected and a couple of scares but those injuries turned out to be not-that-serious, so we are thankful. We are also grateful that there are judo players around who appreciate randori and want to join us to have a good sparring session. This type of collaboration for mutual benefit is what judo is all about and it's what KL Judo Club is all about too.

The importance of randori in judo training

Here we see Olympic and triple World Champion Jeon Ki-Young talking about the importance of randori. He says in South Korea, they do 10 randoris every session, each round lasting five minutes (perhaps now they have changed it to four minutes).

There are some clubs where randori is not emphasized or even not done at all (as amazing as that may seem, there are clubs like that). At KL Judo Club, randori is a major part of our training session, with at least an hour devoted to randori.

Uchikomi is useful when you are learning a particular technique for the first time. It allows you to learn how to "fit into" a throw. Nagekomi is important for allowing you to learn how to complete the throw. But to really learn how to execute a throw against a resisting opponent (who is also trying to throw you), randori is crucial. Without randori, you will never develop good fighting skills.

Randori is when you learn to cope with different gripping situations and different stances. And, as Jeon explains, it's during randori that you can get to try out different techniques and combinations to try to catch your opponent.

Camberley Judo Club today. The dojo area is rather small, just about the size of one competition area, but the walls are all nicely padded so you can fit in quite a lot of players for randori. It's safe due to the padding.

When I was a competitor preparing for the World Championships in 1993 and 1995, I used to train full-time for three month stints at Camberley Judo Club during my university summer vacations. There would be randori every night and on some nights top players including World and European champions would come visit for randori.

The Budokwai is England's (and indeed Europe's) oldest judo club. It has a long history and has over the years produced many top level competitors including Olympic Champion Angelo Parisi and World Champion Neil Adams.

On Tuesday nights, we would all get into a van and head to the Budokwai in London to have some variety in our randori. Tuesday night was the Budokwai's top randori night. It was quite a cosmopolitan crowd -- which is not surprising as London is a cosmopolitan city -- and there were many players from different countries on the mat.

High Wycombe today. It is a really nice centre with lots of facilities, including a lounge where players could gather after training to relax. Most importantly, it had a huge mat area able to accommodate many clubs at once.

On Wednesday nights, various clubs from around the region would gather at the High Wycombe Judo Centre of Excellence. Other than the time I visited the International Budo University in Japan, never had I seen so many players (many of whom were black belts and brown belts) on the judo mat. You would never run out of partners to do randori with during those sessions.

KL Judo Club has a pretty big mat area where we can accommodate many pairs of randori partners. There's also a small wing on the right which can't be seen in the picture. We also pad our walls during randori so that players can spar safely.

Over at KL Judo Club, we emphasize randori. We realize that one of the problems facing Malaysian judokas is the lack of randori partners and randori opportunities. That's why we have open mat night on Sundays where guests from other clubs are welcome to join us for randori.

If you are in KL on Sundays, do drop by KL Judo Club for our randori sessions. We have players of various levels and sizes -- and all of them would love to spar with you. We promise you a hard workout and lots of fun. :)

Wednesday Nite Training (20.9.17)

Wednesday nights are for the competition team. This is where I teach more advanced techniques. This week we focused on juji-gatame (the cross armlock).

For a complete study of the armlock, there are three core components:
a) The roll
b) Arm straightening
c) Hold-down when the arm doesn't come out

The roll
1. The classical or the most commonly scene version of the juji-gatame roll is the one made famous by Alexander Iastkevich. It's also the roll that inspired Neil Adams to develop his juji-gatame.
2. The Neil Adams roll is less common but is more versatile, and I'd argue, more effective. Key to this roll is the Figure-4 grip on the arm being attacked. This grip allows you to switch from attacking from the back or the front. It's a classic action-reaction move. If uke defends the back, you roll him from the front. If uke defends the front, you roll him from the back. Eventually, he'll roll over.

Arm straightening
1. There are many ways to straighten the arm. Brute force usually isn't one of them. If you are up against a strong opponent, you won't be able to straighten the arm with brute force.
2. An arm lever with a twisting action will allow you to straighten uke's arm quite easily.

Ecky-Gatame
1. Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can't straighten uke's arm. He's that strong. What you can do is switch to a hold-down. The Ecky-Gatame is that hold down.
2. It's not a very secure hold down but uke cannot turn out of it without letting go of his arms.
3. He's caught between a rock and a hard place. If he doesn't turn out, he will be pinned for ippon. If he turns out, you launch into a juji-gatame and gain a submission for ippon. So, uke has to decide. Either way, he's in a whole lot of trouble.

Sunday Nite Training (17.9.17)

We had a great training on Sunday. Biggest turnout at our club so far. We've had lots of players converge at our dojo in the past but usually that was when we had training camps with players from other clubs joining us. This one was our own, normal Sunday practice with mainly our own members and a few guests.

Our training sessions are 3 hours long. The rationale for this:
i) We don't have the luxury of daily trainings so we make up for that with longer trainings.
ii) We need at least three hours just to cover all the areas we have planned (quite often we don't get to cover everything and have to push some stuff to the following week).

Most clubs start their training with warm ups, stretching, breakfalls, forward rolls, etc.. But at KL Judo we try to do something a little more interesting. Usually we do drills or games. For this week we decided to play a game we learned at The Dojo in Singapore. You can see the game in the video above. It's right at the start of the video.

We decided to do newaza first because normally, judo players naturally tend to prefer tachi-waza. So if we do tachi-waza first, by the time we do newaza, people have no more patience for newaza (or are too tired). But if we have newaza first, when they are fresh, it works out fine because people somehow are able to summon enough energy to do tachi-waza. I guess if you like something very much, you are able to do it, even if you are tired.

To prep their bodies for newaza, we did the "Keeping Down" drill where tori tries to keep uke on the ground. Uke's job is to get up. Not easy for both players.

The first technique taught to them was how to remove an entangled leg. This is such a common situation so they need to learn this basic move. After that we worked on obi-tori-gaeshi, or as we call it, the "Oshima Roll" named after Yuma Oshima.

To learn a technique you have to first go through the movement. I guess this is the uchikomi part. Then, you have to do the movement with your partner resisting, to give it a dose of realism. Of course the ultimate test is when you try it during randori.

For tachi-waza, we worked on koshi-guruma, which is in many ways a more practical beginner's throw than ogoshi because of the grip involved. It's much easier for a beginner to secure a headlock than for them to get a grip around the waist.

The player begin with uchikomi to get a feel of the entry. Then they did nagekomi on crash pads. Why crash pads? Because we want them to go all out in their throws. If  you do that on the regular tatami, after a while uke will not be able to get up. With crash pads, uke can last much, much longer.

We had originally planned for ura-nage as well but many of the players were restless and so we decided to go straight to randori. By then it had already been two hours of training, so it was about time anyway since we like to get in at least an hour of randori each session.

Sometimes we have randori and shiai but with so many players on the mat we just did randori. We did it motodachi style with a few designated players standing out for two consecutive matches at a time. After that they are replaced with new players who also do two consecutive matches. And so on.

It was pretty tiring for everyone after just half an hour of randori. We weren't done yet though. We still had newaza to go. In retrospect, we should have done newaza first because after tachi-waza, most people were too tired to do newaza. But we did it anyway. Most were clearly too tired so next time, we start with newaza.

We're always happy when we get through a session without any injuries. We had one player who injured his elbow but it didn't seem too bad so we were thankful for that. The video above gives a pretty good overview of what we did on Sunday. 

Wed Nite Training 13.8.17

Our Sunday night trainings are popular and we have a really good mix of players, young and old, who get to learn basic judo techniques and do some sparring (randori) and mock competitions (shiai).

Recently a few more competition-minded players have joined the club and asked for training with a more competition-oriented focus. I've been conducting some competition training for a couple of our core players. These were more like personal coaching sessions than a proper class.

So, when a small group of players requested competition training classes, I decided to conduct one on Wednesday. The group was a lot smaller than Sunday's and the training was very different. There was a lot of focus on grip fighting, strategy and, of course, competition-oriented techniques. We also watched video clips of real-life competition moments, which I used to illustrate certain points that I wanted to get across.

Here was last night's program:
a) Rolling Practice
b) Leg-Insertion Shimewaza
c) Grip Fighting Strategies
d) Side Takedown
e) Belt Wrestling
f) Piggyback Randori

The training went over well and we'll try to do this on a more regular basis. With any luck, a competition team might emerge out of this.