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).
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.
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.
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