New Year's Eve Training (31.12.17)

For our last training of the year, we focused on yoko-sankaku, the triangular technique that can be used to obtain a strangle, armlock or hold.

Sankaku is a complex technique and not one that can be taught quickly. It's because of this that I focused only on hold downs from sankaku for this session. The strangle and armlock from sankaku, I'll return to another time.

Bo learning how to do kesa-gatame on Winson.

Prior to the formal session starting, the players worked on a set of techniques (standing and groundwork) that's designed for yellow belt grading.

The group got a bit of a Japanese lesson on New Year's Eve.

Many players tend not to bother learning the Japanese names for techniques and instead, try to describe them in English. I've always emphasized the importance of learning proper Japanese terminology if they want to learn judo.

A smaller group than usual but all enthusiastic and all went away with some new newaza knowledge.

A look back and some plans for the new year

Another year will soon be over and a new one will soon begin. We tried out some new things this year, which worked well. For example, we live-streamed portions of our training session and surprisingly, we got quite a lot of views. We also did a lot of highlight videos showcasing different aspects of our training sessions: technical instruction, drills, randori -- and again those got quite decent viewership. I guess judo enthusiasts like to see what's going on at other clubs.

We're delighted at the number of people who came for our free trial sessions. Among those newcomers are some who are our now most ardent and keenest players.

As a club it's impossible to be everything to everyone. For sure, we will end up disappointing some. For one thing, we are a pure judo club so we don't mix in other martial arts in our training program. Those who hope to have some form of cross-training where other martial arts come into play will not find it here. At KL Judo, we do judo.

We also emphasize hands-on experience and as a result our training sessions are quite intense. Our Sunday sessions are three hours long with only a few water breaks in between. From the moment we start, usually with judo games, through the technical training, drills and randori, it's pretty much non-stop action. We're not a theory-based club but a practical-oriented one. Our players are totally spent by the end of each session. Again, this approach is not for everyone but our players like it.

Many of our players are working adults. The economy's not that good and everyone's busy trying to make ends meet. Some of our players have to work on weekends. Time is a scarce resource. With our members putting aside three hours for training (plus the travel time, to and fro), it's incumbent upon me to make sure that they get their time's worth of training, that they learn something new and that they get a good workout. At the end of each training I hope they will go away with the feeling that those three hours was time well spent.

I've written in the past that club culture is very important. Although we want to grow the club it's important we get the right type of members. There's no point having many people sign up if they don't like our style of training because eventually they will drop out. It's much better getting the right types who will stick with the club for the long run.

Plans for 2018
We head into the new year with a really solid group of members. I'm very heartened and grateful that we do have a really good mix.

Diversity
We don't have many kids but we do have enough that they can partner each other during training. What's great about our kids is that they are able to follow along with the adults class, which is not an easy thing. I think it helps that our sessions is very action-oriented so they are always kept busy and have no time to get bored. We do make a conscious effort to keep the activities interesting. So, there's no endless, mindless uchikomi at our club but rather, we do practical, purposeful drills that are designed to build "muscle memory" for techniques and moves.

Most judo clubs have a problem attracting female players and that was a challenge for us for a long time, even throughout most of this year. As our male membership grew, our female membership stayed stagnant. Fortunately, towards the tail end of the year, a few new female players signed up and now we have a small but enthusiastic group of female players to build upon going into the new year. Plus, we have teens and some light adult males whom they can train with.

Asians are generally smaller-sized than our Western counterparts. As such, bigger sized guys (90kg and above) usually have difficulty finding training partners. That was a problem for us for a while too but we were lucky to have a steady stream of bigger-sized guys joining us this year, so the big ones do have training partners to work out with.

What this means is that while we are by no means a big club, we do have a critical mass of players. Everyone now has training partners who are more or less their size. This is important because people need partners of the same size to do drills with and especially to do randori with. While it's possible to do some drills with different sized players, it's hard to get proper randori when there is a huge size difference. Imagine if a 48kg girl were to randori with a 90kg guy. The disparity in size, weight and strength is simply too large and it doesn't benefit either of them. So, having that critical mass is so important. It's something we have to maintain and build upon further in 2018.

Randori
Randori of free sparring is arguably the most crucial aspect of training. Yes, other components like technical training and drills are also important of course, but without randori, you can't really improve your judo. In contrast, even if some players have minimal skills but do tons and tons of randori, they will naturally become better over time.

The best of course is to have technical training and drills as well as randori. The first two is easy enough to do. All you need is a coach or YouTube and you can learn techniques. Drills, you just need one partner to do it with. And it doesn't even really have to be a partner of the same skill level. It's possible to do very specialized drills with anyone. But randori is different. For good randori, you need three types of partners and ideally more or less of the same size. At KL Judo, I'm delighted that currently, most of our players do have these three types of randori partners at every session.

Many of our players, including the beginners who started from scratch this year, are now at a level where they have some techniques that they can use and can do proper randori. As such, in 2018 we will increase the randori component in our training sessions. This will be crucial for improving our players' mat sense and fighting capabilities and frankly, it'll be more fun. Everyone likes to do randori (but only when they have some techniques to use).

In fact, for some of our Elite training sessions (not on Sundays, which is more of a General session but on some weekday sessions), we can have randori-only sessions. That will be really good for our players who want to get more fighting experience. (And again, it'll be more fun too!).

Grading
Many of our players are beginners and early next year, we will have our first round of grading. At KL Judo we don't really emphasize belt color so much. What's more important, in our opinion, is that our players are effective at what they do. That they are good at throwing and groundwork; that they have good mat sense and possess a sound grasp of fight strategy. Belt color is useless if they can't fight properly. So, we emphasize a lot on practical skills.

But grading is useful because it forces people to learn the proper names of techniques. I noticed that many players tend not to bother to learn the Japanese names of techniques but judo is conducted in Japanese so it's important to learn Japanese terminology.

Grading also requires players to learn a broad range of techniques which they would normally not be inclined to do because it's human nature to stick to what you like and not try something new. All of us know of players who can only do one or two techniques and nothing else. If left to their own devices, that's all they'll ever do and that's all they'll ever know.

While being an expert at one or two techniques may be enough to get you through some competitions, it doesn't make you a proper, well-rounded judoka. At KL Judo, we want our players to be knowledgeable and capable in judo. Not just in one or two techniques.

Competition
KL Judo is a competition-oriented club. It doesn't mean all our players are aiming to become national players but we do encourage our players to compete because competition is an integral part of the judo experience. Yes, judo is about mastery of technique. It's about strength and conditioning. But it's also about overcoming fears and bouncing back from setbacks and defeats. This is what competition gives you. And a judo player's training is incomplete without it.

There are not a lot of competitions in Malaysia alone but if you include neighboring countries like Singapore and Indonesia, there are quite a lot of competitions to go to in 2018. Some will be harder than others. Some are small, friendly tournaments while others are designed to be international. So there will be something for everyone in our club.

Management
In light of the fact that we plan to bring the team for training trips and competitions next year, we plan to establish a management team for the club so that things can run more smoothly. A big group of us went to the Penang Fescom competition recently but it was a very last-minute, ad hoc affair with different people taking different modes of transportation (trains, planes and automobiles) and having different accommodation arrangements.

For 2018, when we go for training trips or competitions, we really should travel together and lodge together. Further to that, we will be establishing a small management team for the club. There will be a travel manager in charge of sorting out all the logistics for trips and there will also be a team manager to help with the admins side of competition so that I can focus on the coaching bit.

I'm certainly looking forward to 2018. I think it'll be a great year for our club and hopefully our players will continue to grow and improve in noticeable and significant ways. And ideally, we'll have a lot of fun in the process. Happy 2018 and if you are in the KL area, drop by and join us for training on Sundays!

2018 Judo Events (Tentative Dates)

January 13/14: Singapore Workshop (Kashiwazaki '81 World Champion)

February 10/11: Nittadai Workshop (Japanese Physical Education University)
February 24/25: Singapore Open Championships

March 24/25: Junior Nationals (KL)

April: The Dojo Championships (Singapore)

May 6: Penang Invitational

July: Bali Open (Indonesia)
July 21/22: ATM Invitational (Lumut, Perak)

August: Jakarta Competition (Indonesia)
August 10-12: President's Shield (Singapore)

October: Senior Nationals (KL)

December 7-9: Jagsport (Singapore)
December 8/9: Fescom (Penang)
December 8/9: Sabah Invitational

Judo - A niche sport

Everybody's heard of judo. Judo is an Olympic sport. Judo is practiced all over the world. All that is true. But the harsh reality is that judo is still very much a niche sport. You hardly see it on TV (although there's a tremendous amount of judo on YouTube) and in most countries, it's not that easy to find a judo club (Japan, France and Brazil are exceptions).

Here in Malaysia, there are whole states without any judo clubs and in most states there's usually only one club or perhaps two, if you're lucky.

So, what are you to do if you're a judo player who aspires to be a champion? To do well in judo competition, you need three things:
a) a place to train
b) good coaching
c) training partners

If you happen to be in a state where there's no judo club at all, it's unlikely that you would have even started judo in the first place. But if you are a color belt judo player aspiring to be a black belt and maybe a national champion one day, it's likely there is at least one club that you can train at -- the club where you got your start in judo. So, (a) is taken care of.

Most clubs would be headed by a black belt who probably knows his/her stuff and can teach you traditional, basic judo. Of course to do well in competition, you need to know competition techniques and sometimes old, traditional teachers can't offer that, especially with way judo rules have been changing in recent years. It may be hard for them to keep up because with each change in rules, new strategies and even new techniques emerge to cope with them.

So, finding a good competition coach may be difficult. Thankfully, there's YouTube which is a treasure trove of judo video clips. Some are instructional in nature. Some are competition footage. Whatever the case, there's plenty of useful reference material for you to learn about competition judo.

Watching video alone is not as good as having a proper judo competition coach, of course, but it's certainly better than nothing. When I was starting out in judo in the early 90s, there was no Internet even so the only source of information were judo books and judo videos (on VHS tapes). That's what I used and it helped a lot. Later on, I benefitted greatly from having a proper competition coach but in the early years, books and videos were what I relied on. So, if you don't have a competition coach, make use of judo videos. There's plenty of them on YouTube. That takes care  of (b).

How nice if we could have so many players on the mat for randori sessions but alas this is not the case in most clubs. 

The last component is the most challenging: (c) training partners. In order to develop techniques, you need to be able to try them out in randori. All the uchikomi and nagekomi in the world will not help you if you can't try techniques out on fully resisting partners. While it's possible to do uchikomi and nagekomi with players who are not the same level (lower, for instance) as you, it's hard to get good randori unless it's with an equally-skilled partner.

In the Malaysian context, one state has a critical mass of players: Terengganu. Judo is part of its sports school program there and the players there have many training partners. To a lesser extent, Johor, which also has a sports school and the Angkatan Tentera Malaysia team (based in Lumut, Perak) also have a critical mass of players. Not to the degree of Terengganu but enough that their players can have sufficient training partners for randori. All three (Terengganu, Johor and ATM clubs) are government-supported.

The other clubs in other states are mainly private initiatives and these all face challenges when it comes to bodies on the mat. Of the private clubs, Penang seems to be the one that is thriving. It has a lot of players, although mostly at junior level. At senior level (above 21), they also don't have that many players.

Actually, at senior level even the sports schools are lacking. After the students graduate from secondary school and go on to college or enter the workforce, they don't really have a place to train anymore unless they happen to stay near the sports schools.

The private clubs also tend to focus on children and young teens. There may be an adult here or there to train with but the problem with many of the private clubs is that unlike the government clubs, they don't emphasize randori. In fact there are some that have whole sessions without randori or a just 15 or 20 minutes of it, which is not enough. I once visited a club that trained for 2.5 hours and not one minute of it was spent on randori.

So, if you're a senior player and don't live near any of the government clubs, you're out of luck when it comes to randori. And that is the biggest challenge Malaysian senior players face.

Of course we are not alone in this. Speak to judo enthusiasts in many other countries and they will tell you the same thing: Not enough suitable randori partners.

You'd be surprised, I was told this even by a county coach from Germany. Yes, Germany may have World and Olympic champions but there are also many small county clubs where the players are mainly kids and young teens. Seniors have difficulty finding randori partners. That county coach once told me about a senior player who would drive to another city hours away just to have a good session of randori. He would stay overnight and drive home the next day.

So what can you do if there are not enough suitable training partners where you're at? The answer is you improvise and think out of the box.

I once knew a Korean student who told me that when he was studying in the US, there was hardly any judo where he was at so he used to convince his friends to take up judo and even loaned them judogis just so he would have someone to train with. I have a British friend who took up BJJ just to get more training because there was not enough judo where he was at.

Both their stories resonate with me because it's more or less my story too. When I was doing my university studies in the US, I used to convince anyone I could find to take up judo and loan them judogis just so I would have someone to train with. This included karate people, Aikido people, football people, badminton people, my roommate at the time... whoever was willing. And, for a while, I also took up collegiate wrestling just to get more training. It's not the same thing but close enough.

The natural question is can you get proper randori
i) training with non-judo people
ii) doing other forms of grappling sports

Well, doing randori with non-judo players will never be as good as doing randori with experienced black belt competitors, of course. But if that option is not available to you, then you have to make do with what you've got.

The key is to teach them the basics and do some drills with them first. You teach them what to do and you do the drills with them. That way they learn and you get to practice. After a few months, they get pretty good at it, enough to give you some resistance.

As for doing other grappling sports, you have to go into it knowing what you're after. When I did wrestling, I focused on those techniques that are applicable to judo. In today's context, doing Greco-Roman Wrestling would be great for learning ura-nage.

US Olympic silver medalist Travis Stevens told me that there was one time when the only player he had to train with in preparation for the Dusseldorf Grand Prix was a white belt. So he formulated some drills and did what he had to do, training with the white belt for three months. Like I said, be creative, think out of the box and make the most of what's available to you. Later, when he got injured and could not do standing judo for a while, he took up BJJ which he could do off his butt. He improvised. He made the most of what was available to him. And he's a champion because of that.

At KL Judo, we have a nice dojo and we provide up-to-date competition instruction. Those two are constants. The one variable that we have to constantly look out for is making sure there are enough training partners for our players.

We have an open policy and welcome players from out of state and other clubs to visit us and train with us but we can't rely on external factors. Ultimately we have to make sure we have a critical mass of players in terms of gender (usually lacking in females) and size (sometimes not enough small guys and other times not enough big guys) so that all our players can get sufficient training partners.

It's not easy and it's not something we don't take for granted. I plan each session carefully in terms of the techniques I want to teach but I also take care to try to do match-up of training partners to ensure each player who is attending has a partner that is more or less equal in size and ideally in terms of experience and capabilities. I don't leave anything to chance.

This is necessary if you want to build up a successful club for the long term. 

Sunday Program (24.12.17)

1. Warm Up: Judo Games

2. Tachi-Waza: Yoko-Tomoe-Nage

3. Newaza: Koshi-Jime

4. Group Activity: Dojo Cleaning

Elite Training Summary (20.12.17)

We started out by going over New IJF Rules for 2018 and how that's going to affect competition.

Then we did some analysis of our players' performance at the recent Fescom competition in Penang. I went over some tactics to foil drop seoi-nage and ways to prevent common osaekomi turnovers.

For drills, we started with Reverse Seoi-Nage. I gave the players an overview of this very unique throw and showed them clips of top Korean players using this technique (Lee Kyu-Won, Wang Ki-Chun, An Changrim & An Baul).

Next, I taught them the right grip for this throw. After that, it's the turning-in movement (which many people tend to get wrong). I explained that there were five different types of finishings (drop, roll, drive, throw and leg-assisted). Tori can't really dictate which one to use and that it very much depends on how uke reacts to the throw.

For newaza, we worked on the Matsumoto Roll. Again, we started by watching video clips and then we proceeded with the drills. Although most of them were new to this move, they picked it up quite fast. Many people have told me they can't make head or tail of this move even after watching it on video multiple times, so the fact that our players could get it down so fast is a positive sign.

Towards then end, I showed them the "Reverse Matsumoto Roll" that I saw World Champion Clarisse Agebegnenou of France use in a competition. Although we didn't practice this drill (I wanted to save it for a future session), a few of the players decided to try it and managed to do it quite well in no time at all. A very positive sign indeed. 

Elite Training Program (20.12.17)

1. Competition Analysis:
- Drop Seoi
- Osaekomi
- Shido

2. Gripping (for 2018 rules)
- Strategy (4 point gripping strategy)
- Drills (securing the sleeve, high grip, 2-on-1)



3. Tachi-Waza: Reverse Seoi-Nage (See above)
- Drop
- Roll
- Drive
- Throw
- Leg Assisted


4. Newaza: Matsumoto Roll (See above)

5. Freeflow Randori (Tachi-Waza & Newaza)

Sunday Program: 17.12.17

 Groundwork Drills
1. Osaekomi Drills:
- Fending off with hands
- Getting past the legs
- Extracting leg
2. Alligator Roll
3. Matsumoto roll

Standing Drills
1. Gripping Drills:
- Fight for Sleeve Lapel
- Fight for High Grip
- Korean Wave
2. Ippon-Seoi Family of Techniques:
- Seoi-Nage
- Seoi-Otoshi
- Ippon Osoto
- Kouchi-Makikomi

Randori
1. Newaza
2. Tachi-Waza

Judo competition is an integral part of the judo experience

Competition is an integral part of the judo experience.

Is it possible to train in judo without competing? Of course it's possible. A player could just attend lessons, go for grading and never compete a day in their life. But such a player won't go very far.

For one thing, in terms of belts, many clubs don't award higher color belts and certainly not black belts unless the player competes. But even if belt color is not important, a player who never competes misses out on a lot of things that judo has to offer.

I've trained in clubs where some players are adamantly against competing. "I just do judo for fun," they'd usually say, as if competition and fun are mutually exclusive. But I understand what they are saying. They don't want to train so seriously. They just want to take it easy.

Fair enough but those very same players surely wouldn't like staying stagnant while others are improving. Unfortunately, that is what will happen if they don't compete while others do.

When you commit yourself to competing in a tournament, you naturally train harder and with more focus and purpose. And because of that, your judo will naturally improve. If there's no competition, there is no impetus to improve.

Those who don't compete will also miss out on a lot of other side benefits. Judo is supposed to be about building confidence and overcoming your fears. Make no mistake, there is a lot of fear involved in competition. I'm not even talking about the fear of getting injured. Injuries can happen anytime during regular practice. The fear I'm talking about is the fear of losing. And that's one of the worst reasons for not competing.

Not competing because of the fear of losing is all about ego and pride. Instead of rising to the challenge, the fearful person prefers not to participate. If that person cannot overcome their fear in judo, how are they going to do so in real life? Imagine always running away from life's challenges because of the fear of failure. That's no way to be a judoka and no way to lead a life.

I want to quote former American competitor Todd Brehe who wrote this about the importance of competition for recreational players:

In the short time we’ve had our judo club open, we’ve witnessed a deep-seated fear and reluctance by many of our recreational athletes to fight in tournaments. On the chance that we do encourage these kids to participate in a competition, even a novice division, they’ve often built up such a strong fear that they struggle to function at all during a match.

He goes on to say...

My personal belief is that competition is nothing less than beautiful. It’s important, valuable, and a critical element of our society. Every child, during the course of her lifetime, must compete at home for attention, in school for grades, on the playground for friends, in the work place for advancement, etc. Why then don’t we teach our kids better, more empowering philosophies and beliefs about competing?

Yes, it's true that competition is stressful and there are some things about it that are unpleasant, such as cutting weight (every player naturally wants to fight at least one weight class below their natural weight) and the nerves you feel leading up to the competition.

But there's also a lot of great things that you'd miss out on if you don't compete. The camaraderie with your teammates on competition trips is invaluable. Even cutting weight together and witnessing each person's progress at the start of each training session can be a fun, bonding experience. Yes, weight cutting is suffering but at least you're suffering together!

Going for competition, rooting for each other, having meals together, consoling and celebrating each other after each match -- these are all things only competitors will experience. The judo player who only comes for club training without ever giving competition a try will never know what this feels like. And what a waste that would be because these are some of the most memorable aspects of the judo experience. Why miss out on all that just because of fear and pride?

Sunday Program: 10.12.17

We'll start the session with a postmortem of the Penang Fescom competition. Our players did well there but of course there's always room for improvement. We'll look at the common mistakes made and then do some drills to rectify them for the future.

Newaza
1. Defences Against Turnovers
2. Arm Trap Roll
3. Matsumoto Roll

Tachi-Waza
1. Drop Seoi-Nage
2. Defences Against Drop Seoi-Nage
3. Ashiwaza

A great end-of-the-year competition experience

The KL Judo delegation, comprising players, coaches and supporters.Missing from the pic are our junior players Sami & Annabel, who had to leave earlier to catch a flight back to KL.

Trains, planes and automobiles. That's how KL Judo Club members made their way to Penang for FesCom (Festival Combat), Penang's annual, end-of-the-year judo competition. But make it we did and it was a really good experience for everyone involved.

FesCom is not a big tournament although there was variety with competitors hailing from various clubs including Angkatan Tentera Malaysia, Perak, Terengganu, Melaka (from two separate clubs) and Johor.

KL Judo is a small but growing judo club. Many of our players are either those coming back to judo after several years away or brand new beginners. Three of our players had done competition before but it was during the time before all the IJF rules changes were introduced. So, it was quite a while back. They had to reacquaint themselves with the rules again. Four of our players were completely new to judo competition. Only one had competed in another tournament earlier this year. So, this was really a way for most of them to get their feet wet in judo competition.

During the course of the competition, I received two recurring comments from other players, coaches and officials:
i) Your beginners (white belts) are really fighting well
ii) Your competition team seems to growing

Many found it totally surprising that our beginners had been doing judo for just a few months. Usually white belts with about two or three months' experience can do little more than breakfalls but our beginners fought well against coloured belts and in one case lasted a whole match against a black belt. That's because at KL Judo we treat judo as a sport and our approach is a very practical, competition-oriented style of training.

Our competition-style approach is also a natural vetting system which weeds out those who are not suited to our club culture. We do have a recreational class at KL Judo and competing is not compulsory. But even those who prefer not to compete have to train competition style just like the rest. So far it's worked out well. Not everybody competes but the majority of our members do. Which is why we were able to bring more players this time. This trend can only grow.

But going for judo tournaments is not just for players to gain competition experience. It's also great for team-building as well. Two of our members, Winson and Kenneth, who did not compete, chose to tag along to help out with videography and to give moral support. In the process they also managed to glean some insight into what judo competition is like.

Two of our players were juniors, Sami aged nine and Annabel, 12. Kudos to their parents for taking them to Penang to take part in their very first judo competition. Parents' support is crucial for a kids' success in judo.

I really appreciate the good folks at Penang Budo Academy for organizing this competition. In Malaysia, the Penang club is the one that's most active and most capable in organizing competitions and it's because of them that our players, and those from various clubs in the country, get to compete in judo.

We look forward to the next one in May 2018 and hopefully we'll be able to bring an even bigger team to Penang then.