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.