Preparation for each session

I don't believe into going into anything without proper preparation. If I'm about to teach a college class on writing for example (something I did for several years though not anymore), I would naturally plan the lesson in advance. I wouldn't just go into the class and just "wing it" without any preparation. That's probably why my students enjoyed my class and why I consistent got top ratings in student surveys semester after semester. Planning is important if you want to teach a college class.

It shouldn't be any different with judo. Anyone who has attended KL Judo's sessions will know that our practices are very structured. We train for three straight hours with very short breaks in between. Everything runs like clockwork because I know exactly what to do after each segment of the training is concluded.

Currently, we have two different sessions: Sunday and Wednesday sessions. Each has its own template which I try to follow every week. So, there is a structure in place. It's the content that changes from week to week. I'll describe the Sunday sessions to illustrate what I mean by planning and preparation. We usually do the following (in this order):

a) Warm Ups: For this we usually play some judo games.

b) Newaza: We usually start with newaza. I would demonstrate a technique and then show them some video clips of that technique as used in competition. I would then get the players to go through the motions without resistance. Once I feel most of them are familiar enough with the technique, we would do the drills with resistance.

c) Tachi-Waza: As with newaza, I would demonstrate the throw followed by some video viewing. The players would then do uchikomi followed by nagekomi (on crash pads). Sometimes I would have them do some light randori where they are allowed to use only the throw that they've been working on for that session.

d) Randori: We start with newaza randori with one player in a turtle position and the other player on top. Each randori round lasts the length of one song. When that song is over, the same partners remain but they switch position and the one on top is now in a turtle position. For tachi-waza randori, there are many ways you could approach it including the Japanese-style motodachi but I find that the best approach for our players is to have everybody on the mat (our dojo is big enough) and do randori at the same time. If it's a particularly hot day, we have water breaks in between each round of randori. If it's not so hot, we have two randoris in a row before we have our water breaks.

e) Shiai: Sometimes we end the session with shiai but not always. It depends on how much time we have. There are times when the technical portion lasts too long and we don't have enough time for shiai.

Preparation for the program above doesn't just mean deciding what techniques to demonstrate. It involves a a lot more planning than that. I start by determing who will be attending. That is why I make an attendance list days before each Sunday session and have my players inform the group whether they are attending or not. Based on that list, I assign the partners who will be working together for that day.

Why are such "match-ups" important? Because in order for the players to gain maximum benefit from the session, I need to pair each person with the right partner. Generally, the "right" partners are those who are more or less the same size and strengths. Those are the main considerations. There are other factors involved such as compatible temperaments or skill levels but those are luxuries. What's more important is that they have someone more or less their size to train with.

Doing such match-ups are not as easy as it might seem. There's not always a perfect fit. Sometimes there's an uneven number of big guys.. Then I have to decide which of the smaller guys would best be suited to train with that big guy without a partner. Usually it's someone with experience and is therefore more capable of dealing with a bigger guy.

Where possible, I try to match girls with girls but sometimes there is an uneven number of girls present. Again, I have to find a smaller-sized guy who would be suitable to train with the girl without a partner. Sometimes, there's an uneven number of kids present. And again, I have to find a suitable smaller-sized guy or girl to train with that kid without a partner. I don't leave any of this to chance because, as I said earlier, I want to make sure each player gets the most out of their Sunday training sessions.

For judo games, I do regular research to find the best games for the warm up sessions. So far we've tried out quite a few and some work better than others. We trash the unpopular ones and keep the good ones. To keep things fresh though, we do need to regularly introduce new games.

For newaza, once I've decided what to teach them, I will have to figure out if that technique can be taught in one session or has to be broken up into a few sessions spread over several Sundays. When we train, we really go in-depth and it takes up a lot of time. You can't rush these things. If the technique is somewhat complex or unique, I will show them video clips from competition. This takes quite a bit of editing because I don't want the clips to drag for too long. I show them only the relevant parts.

Unlike newaza, most tachi-waza techniques do not have to be broken up into multiple sessions. But if a particular tachi-waza has several major variations that must be covered, it could take several sessions to cover all the important versions. For example, kouchi-gari has three major variations, all of which have to be taught in order for the players to have a good grasp of that technique. I also try to show them competition video clips of the tachi-waza in question.

For randori, we don't have a free-for-all. I actually assign randori partners for each round because I want to make sure the right people spar against each other. This is very important to ensure they get quality randori. A mismatch is a waste of time (e.g. big sized guy against small girl). For shiai, I do the same thing. Like I said, these things cannot be left to chance. You need to plan and prepare if you want your sessions to be productive and enjoyable.

Technical Training Week 5 (Feb 4, 2018)

Gripping Drills
Secure the sleeve
High grip exercise
Korean wave

Video: Kosei Inoue

Newaza: Juji-Gatame: Arm Lever

Tachi-Waza: Uchimata

No Gi Randori

Regular Randori

Sticking with it

When I first picked up judo, I was among a whole bunch of white belts. Perhaps there were about a dozen of us. After three months, there were about five or six left and by mid-year, there were only two of us left (and the other guy didn't even come regularly).

Judo is a tough sport. It takes a lot of commitment and effort to get good at it. There's also a lot of frustration because you won't be able to throw anyone for a long time. It took me about nine months before I could throw anybody. And that's with daily practice!

Groundwork generally progresses a bit faster. If you put in the same amount of time for groundwork as you do with standing work, you'll see improvements in the former much faster. But even so, I think it took me about half a year before I could catch anyone on the ground.

After a year of training really hard, I was still a babe in the woods when it came to competition training. When I joined a competitive club after a year of training at my university club, I found myself unable to throw anyone again. And in one of the first few sessions at groundwork, I nearly got my arm broken when someone did an unexpected armlock on me (I didn't even know what an armlock was at the time).

I could have stopped training for a few months but instead I wrapped up my elbow and continued training. I was on a mission. After three months of daily training, I managed to choke out the guy who had armlocked me.

I'd like to think that the perseverance I've learned in judo has helped me in life as well. Knowing how hard it was for me to get good at judo, I face life's challenges knowing that nothing good comes easy and that I have to be patient if I want to achieve my goals.

When you run a judo club, you will see players come and go. Sometimes even the ones who seem the most gung-ho end up dropping out. While you would generally like to retain players, it's important to remember that those who choose to drop out are probably not cut out to do judo in the first place. So, it's better for them to find another sport more suited for them.

For those who choose to stay on, I push them hard because I want them to excel. And excel they shall if they stick with it. For those who decide to quit, I wish them the very best and hope they can find something else that they can sink their teeth into.

Building up from scratch

When I was an editor at a local newspaper many years ago, I had a conversation with the editor-in-chief about the difficulty in recruiting experienced journalists. I told him the only viable long-term solution is to train up our own journalists. That means hiring inexperienced writers -- fresh grads, perhaps -- and train them up. "That takes too long," he replied.

He's right in saying that it will take a long time to train a writer up from scratch. But if you don't have a steady supply of writers, what can you do?

And so it is with judo. If you want to build a judo club but there is no ready supply of judo players to tap onto your only option is to build them up from scratch. Sure, if you promote your club online, you might attract some experienced foreign players who happen to be in Malaysia, either for work or studies. We've certainly had a few of those but if you want to have a thriving club, you need more than just a handful of experienced players. You need to have a critical mass of members. That means recruiting some beginners and build them up from scratch.

It's not easy and it's a long process. You'll also have quite a few drop outs along the way. But if you invest time and effort into training up keen white belts, you'll find that they can exceed their own expectations. I've had beginners who previously had no sporting experience whatsoever, who never exercised regularly, but who ended up become quite dedicated, hardened players.

Building up your own players from scratch is what it takes to build up a judo club in this environment where judo is a very niche sport. It's something we are committed to doing at KL Judo.

Week 4: Juji-Gatame & Ura-Nage

Very good turnout, the best this year so far, resulting in excellent randori and shiai.

We've finished our yoko-sankaku module and are now moving onto a new one, juji-gatame. For standing, we worked on ura-nage, a technique that several of our players seem to really like using. It is a very good counter against forward attacks especially in light of the fact that leg-grab counters are no longer legal.

As usual, we started the randori session with newaza randori.

Then after a short water break, we moved on to tachi-waza randori. Even though the players were tired, everybody likes tachi-waza randori, so it wasn't a problem.

Finally, towards the last half hour of training we did shiai. By then everyone was exhausted but everyone loves shiai, so again, no problem.

Technical Training Week 4 (Jan 28, 2018)

1. Judo Heroes: World Champion Avdantili Tchrikishvili (GEO)
2. Newaza: Neil Adams Juji-Gatame Roll; Video: Neil Adams
3. Gripping: Securing the sleeve; High grip
4. Tachi-Waza: Ura-nage; Video: Tchrikishvili
5. Randori: Newaza; Tachi-Waza
6. Shiai: Newaza; Tachi-Waza

Week 3: Sankaku Revision & Kouchi-Gari

It's been three weekends now since the start of the year and the players are picking up lots of new techniques. They are also getting lots of randori and doing some shiai too. Everything's coming along smoothly.

Before the proper session started, the players worked on some grading moves. Many of them are going for their yellow belt.


For newaza, we revised sankaku. This will be the final session for sankaku. Starting next week we will move onto something new. The players did a drill whereby uke resisted 100%. It's kind of like randori except the focus was only on sankaku.



For tachi-waza, we worked on kouchi-gari, specifically skipping kouchi-gari, which is useful in a kenka-yotsu situation. As usual, we started off with uchikomi and then nagekomi. I also had them do a drill where both players tried to get kouchi on each other with full resistance. In other words, a randori where only kouchi could be used.

Players taking a break before moving on to randori and shiai.

We did some newaza randori and then instead of tachi-waza randori we did some shiai. There were some pretty good throws and quite a few surprise throws. Everyone's upping their game!

We ended the session with some cake. It was a really good session.

The players presented me with a collage of some of our training pics over the past few months.

Idealism vs commercialism

Training without competition doesn't make sense.

If you're a former competitor, and especially if you've competed at a very high level, when you form a judo club it's very natural that you'd want it to be a competitive club -- as opposed to one that is purely recreational.

By competitive club I mean one that trains players to compete in tournaments. It doesn't mean that everyone in the club has to compete and even for those who do choose to do so, not all of them would want to compete at a very high level. Some may want to compete in small tournaments just for fun.

But the training is geared towards preparing players for competition. That means the technical portions are focused on practical techniques. That means teaching them about gripping. That also means talking about rules and strategy.

This is what I call judo idealism. Such endeavors don't make money. More often that not they cost you money. But you do it anyway because you love judo.

Then, there is judo commercialization. There's nothing wrong with commercializing judo and trying to make money from it. But it would mean focusing on other areas rather than judo competition per se. 

For example, if you were to build a club that offers "Judo for BJJ" or "Judo for MMA" classes, you'd probably get pretty good enrollment. Similarly, a "Judo for Self Defence" class would also probably get you more members than a judo-for-competition class.

There are other ways to make money in judo. For example there is some demand for personal instruction in judo. Some people prefer to be taught one-on-one. You could also aim to build up a big children's class or go to schools and try to introduce judo there.

All these are fine and they can help to generate the income that the competition-training component doesn't make. But I think it's important never to lose sight of the competition aspect. Making money  at the expense of competition training would be quite meaningless to me.

People often say judo is more than just a physical activity. It's supposed to teach you important values and life lessons too. Well, that's true only if you embrace and experience the whole of judo, of which competition is a crucial component.

One of the most valuable lessons you learn from judo is overcoming your fears. Taking part in competitions helps you achieve that. Persistence? Learning to pick yourself up when you're down? Working hard towards a goal? All these things are spurred on by competition.

Anyone who thinks you can really achieve any of these things simply by doing uchikomi and sticking to the confines of the club randori are kidding themselves. You only truly experience judo and truly benefit from it if you commit yourself to taking part in competitions. It doesn't mean you have to go for the Nationals. You can take part in small club competitions. That's fine. But compete.

Do you notice there are lots of running events lately? Marathons, half marathons and other distance events. Lots of people take part in these. Do you think they are all top athletes aiming for the SEA Games? No, most of them are ordinary folks -- many of whom don't even consider themselves to be athletes. But they are taking part in a race. It might be a fun run not a serious one but it's still a competition.

Why do they do this? It's because they want to test themselves. Sure, you can enjoy jogging for jogging's sake but if you're doing all that running, and improving by the day, it's only natural to want to push yourself a bit further and test yourself. Signing up for a run will give you the motivation to push a bit harder, to run regularly and to be the best that you can be in running.

And so it is with judo. If you're doing all that training, and improving day by day, it makes all the sense in the world to compete. It will give you the motivation to train hard, instill the discipline to lose weight and force you to confront your fears.You might win, you might lose but even if it's the latter, there's great benefit to be gained from it. You'll learn to pick yourself up, train harder and improve so that you can win the next time around. These are all important life lessons. But you won't get them if you don't try competing.

So, competition is a very important part of the judo experience and it's something I would never want to lose sight of. It must be a crucial part of the overall mix if we try to make judo commercially viable. Without it, we might as well close shop.

The importance of video for club promotion

Recently a friend who runs a judo club asked me if the videos that I make for the KL Judo Club Facebook Page works. Meaning, does it actually help with recruitment?

I can't say that we've had a flood of new members because of it but we do have a fairly constant stream of people coming in for trial sessions. And they mainly learn about us from our videos, which have proven to be quite popular. Some of these people end up becoming very keen members. These are people we wouldn't have attracted had we not done the videos.

When we first started, we mainly posted pictures. But pictures are literally snapshots and don't tell the full story. To better highlight key things that we do during our training sessions, videos are far more effective.

In recent months, we livestreamed aspects of our training sessions. At first we were uncertain whether a livestream would be of interest to anyone. After all, livestreams are typically quite grainy and the sound really isn't great at all. But to our surprise, our livestreams have been pretty popular. A typical livestream will get around 200 views, which we consider to be a lot.

My sense is that people like to peer in and have a glimpse of how other judo clubs conduct their sessions. Our club is unique in many ways. For one thing our sessions are three hours long (sometimes a little bit more). We also do a lot of groundwork (at least 50% of our time is devoted to groundwork, which is not so common among judo clubs). We play music when we train. We make extensive use of crash pads. We do gripping drills. We have lots of international players. Most of our members are adults. And we do lots of randori.

Some people have asked me, "Aren't you giving away secrets when you show your training methods?" Well, Sunday is a general class where I teach very standard or common techniques. For example, when I demonstrate sankaku, it's the standard version of the technique. Sure, I might add some best practices here and there based on what I've picked up over the years. But the fundamental movement is no secret at all.

It's the same for all the other techniques -- groundwork and standing -- that I teach on Sundays. There's nothing being shown that can't be easily found on YouTube. I guess what people find interesting is seeing other players in the process of learning new techniques.

We also have training on Wednesdays but we typically don't show the technical sessions for those because that is when I work with the players on their individual techniques. It's also on Wednesday that I teach some specialized competition techniques (not the standard versions) like unique turnovers or unusual strangles for groundwork; and gripping tactics and unorthodox throws for standing. These we don't show. There must be some privileges to membership!

Although we don't show everything, if you watch our videos you'll get a very good sense of the type of training we do at KL Judo Club, and of the fun we have during training. We train hard and long and our sessions are always very intense but there's always a lot of laughter, which is important.

Many of my friends who are coaches at judo clubs around the world face the same challenge we face in recruiting members. Whether we like to admit it or not, judo is a niche sport so recruitment will always be difficult. Videos make a difference especially if you have an interesting program to showcase. There is really nothing like video to convey that to prospective members.

Technical Training Week 3 (Jan 21, 2018)

1. Newaza: Since our players have learned how to do a hold-down, a strangle and an armlock from a sankaku position, we will spend some time drilling it, with partners giving full resistance. (This will be the last week we work on sankaku. After this week, we will move on to a new newaza technique).

2. Tachi-Waza: We will work on a pair of inner reaping techniques: Ouchi-Gari and Kouchi-Gari. The former is a more forceful technique while the latter requires more finesse. There are many variations for each of these techniques. We will work on the basics this week. It's important to get the fundamentals right.

Week 2: Sankaku-Jime & Ippon-Osoto

We had slightly fewer players on the mat this past Sunday as two of our members were sick and a few had to miss training due to work obligations. Still, we had a great session.

We started off with a new game of "Cat & Mouse" followed by "Hunger Games Cats".  Then I showed them some clips of Ilias Iliadis's amazing career. It's important for judo players to know who the legends of our sport are.



For newaza, we worked on sankaku again, this time for the strangle. This session went quite fast as most of the players are already familiar with the basic sankaku movement. Next week, we'll review sankaku one more time and then after that we'll move on to something new, probably juji-gatame.

Next up was ippon-osoto, or osoto-gari done from an ippon-seoi-nage grip. This was a move made famous by Cheng (CHN). Most of the players could get this one quite easily because they already knew ippon-seoi-nage. Next week we will do a drill that gets them to switch between ippon-seoi and ippon-osoto.

We had our usual randori towards the end of training, starting with newaza randori followed by tachi-waza randori. Then, we had shiai, something we haven't done in a while. It went over quite well. We must do more of these to get the players used to competition.

Overall, a really good session.

The big disconnect in Malaysian judo

There is a big disconnect in Malaysian judo which is why we are not producing many top-level judo players.

Some clubs are producing promising junior players, in particular the government-funded sports schools. There is also one private club in the North that is also producing lots of junior players.

The problem is that very few of the juniors continue to do judo once they get out of secondary school. In the case of the sports schools, when they move on to do their diplomas or degrees, quite often they find that they no longer have any club to train at (there are very few judo clubs in Malaysia in general).

Even if there were a club nearby, it might not be a competitive club. Back when they were in sports school, these players trained twice a day and did plenty of randori with lots of training partners. Most private clubs have low membership, barely do any randori and train maybe twice a week. This is not the kind of training that produces champions and former sports school players will find such training less than satisfactory.

For the sake of discussion, let's say they happen to find a club that kinda suits them. It's not as competitive as during their sports school days but good enough that they can get some randori and stay somewhat fit for competition. There is still the problem of funding, or lack thereof.

Sports schools are fully funded. They have good facilities and the school pays for their competition expenses. Now that they are out of the sports school system and into a private club, they suddenly have to pay for everything -- judogis, athletic tape, monthly club fees and all sorts of competition-related expenses like travel, accommodation and contest registration fees.

With everything fully-funded in the past, it is a rude awakening for them to suddenly find they have to pay for everything! Some won't be able to afford it and even those who could might find it tough to stomach having to pay for something they used to get for free.

So, because of a variety of reasons -- no clubs nearby, clubs that aren't suitable, the need to pay for training and competition expenses -- they end up quitting judo. From representing their state and even their country, they end up not doing judo at all.

The situation is a bit different in the case of juniors from private clubs. Such players are used to paying for things because they've been paying all along. So the money issue is not a factor. But time is. When they are in university, they are getting closer and closer to entering the workforce. This situation is very different from their secondary school days when working life still seems like a lifetime away. When in university, their priorities change and judo takes a back seat. Some might still do judo once in a while but they certainly don't want to train for competition.

Even a really talented player doesn't hit their prime when they are 17, 18 or 19. They've still got many years to go before they peak. But because of the judo system (or lack thereof) in our country they don't continue doing judo (at least not competitively) after leaving secondary school.

This is the BIG disconnect. If Malaysian judo is ever going to produce a SEA Games champion after a 40-year drought we need to have a system in place that allows junior champions to continue their competitive training when they are in university and beyond.

That means a centralized facility where players can congregate and train together. Of course this alone is not enough. Having all the infrastructure in place is useless if you don't have players. And getting them to come together in a centralized place is not an easy thing to do.

Many countries have tried it and each faced stiff resistance. The UK has a requirement that its top judo players train at a central location if they want funding. Some forego national funding in order to avoid this. In Holland, there is a similar requirement except that it's stricter. Players who want to represent the country have to train at a centralized location. There is no option of not going there. One top female player actually had to sue to avoid having to relocate. So there is generally a lot of resistance to centralized training, although it makes sense to do so.

Imagine if we had such a training facility in Malaysia. Logically speaking, it would probably have to be in KL since this is the capital and most the universities and colleges are here anyway. Will players from other states move to KL to train at such a facility? Probably not without major incentives like some kind of scholarship or sponsorship or a guaranteed job of some kind. The government is not going to pay for this. Not as long as Malaysian judo doesn't produce any champions. It's a classic chicken and egg thing. They won't fund unless there are champions but there won't be any champions unless there is funding.

For the sake of discussion let's say we miraculously convince promising players from all over the country to move to one centralized training place. What system will you implement? Do you use a local coach? Do you import a foreign coach? If it's the latter, do you go back to your traditional sources of coaching i.e. Japan, South Korea or Mongolia? Or do you do something out of the box and get a European or Brazilian coach?

As you can see, there are many stumbling blocks making it very hard for Malaysia to produce a judo champion, even at just the SEA Games level (let's not even think about Asian, World or Olympics at this point).

I guess it would help a lot of the government were to introduce judo into the sports school system in Bukit Jalil. Then you would have a steady supply of young players to feed into a newly-built national training centre. But that doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.

So, it's really up to the private clubs to offer a solution. They need to provide a training eco-system that will encourage senior judo players (those aged 21 and above) to continue training competitively. That's a pretty tall order for most judo clubs as they are just not set up for that. Most clubs are children's and youth clubs with very few having more than a handful of adult players.

If you visit KL Judo you may be surprised to find that most of our players are adults. We do have some juniors but most are actually seniors. This didn't happen by chance. It's not that we discourage juniors (they are always welcome here) it's that we very proactively recruit senior players. We've only just begun but so far the signs are encouraging. Some are absolute beginners, a few have some experience but all are very keen on competition style training and doing lots of randori. 

Technical Training Week 2 (Jan 14, 2018)

Sankaku-Jime, the strangle with the legs.

Last week, for newaza we worked on sankaku-gatame (hold down from the triangle technique). This coming Sunday we will work on sankaku-jime (strangle). If there's time we will also work on the armlock from a sankaku position as well. For tachi-waza, we will work on ippon-osoto (or osoto-gari done from an ippon-seoi grip).

Cheng is the best exponent of ippon-osoto in competition today.

The ippon-osoto is the perfect complement to ippon-seoi-nage. Cheng Xunzhao (CHN) shocked the world by throwing three top contenders at the 2016 Rio Olympics with it and followed that up with a spectacular win the 2017 Paris Grand Slam with that exact same technique in the final. We will look at how he does his ippon-osoto.

Week 1: Sankaku-Gatame & Rear Counters

We had our first training session of the year last Sunday (Jan 7, 2018). The turnout was good. Many people who had been away from some time were back on the mat, most notably Eric Chung, one of the early members of our club who had been very busy with work and had just returned from an overseas trip; Jovenn, who was back in her hometown during her university break; and Nigel, who had gotten injured at the Penang Fescom tournament and is now fast on the mend.

We also had two new members: Ryan, a British expat who has been following the KL Judo blog for some time and has now decided to give judo a try; and Akmal, a judo enthusiast who visited our club once, some time back. Seems like he's now ready to commit himself to regular training in judo.

Last year was a period of experimentation, to try to find the best way to grow our club. Through trial and error we have managed to figure out some best practices and we are putting in place policies that will benefit our members.

For our players to do well, they need to have a structured program where they progressively learn something new every week. In order to do that, we can't afford to have "parachute judokas" who drop in as and when they feel like it. We need players who will attend training sessions regularly.

Some judo techniques are quite complex and need to be taught over a span of two or three sessions. Take something like the rolling juji-gatame. I would not attempt to teach that move within on session but would rather spread it over three sessions, with the first being about the roll itself, the second about the arm lever (used to straighten it) and finally, the third session about the Ecky-Gatame finishing.

Imagine if a player misses the first session and pops in for the second one. Everyone else would have already known how to do the roll into the juji-gatame position except for this particular player. If we just proceed with the arm lever, this player would have no idea how to get into a position to do the arm lever in the first place. So, we have to assign someone to teach him what everyone else had already learned the previous week. Not only that, this player would also need a training partner who will have to bear with re-hashing what was already taught previously. Such a player drains resources in the form of instructors and training partners. Now, imagine if this player had not shown up for the first and second sessions and just came for the third one. That would be even worse. We would have to invest time and resources into teaching them both the roll (from the first session) and the arm lever (from the second session) before they can join the rest in doing the Ecky-Gatame. Again, this takes up valuable time from the instructor and the training partner.

Judo techniques are also often very related to one another. Let's say we want to teach "action-reaction" techniques like ippon-seoi-nage and ippon-osoto (osoto-gari done from a seoi-nage grip). The first is a throw to the front, the second a throw to the back. They are very related. It's the threat of the first that allows the second to happen. Imagine if we had spent the first session on ippon-seoi-nage and a parachute player decides to drop in on the second session when we are teaching the ippon-osoto. Everyone else would have already known how to do ippon-seoi except this player.

There's no doubting that parachute judokas hamper a club's ability to forge ahead in training up its members so we are doing away with per session fees, which encourages this parachute approach to training. If someone wants to train at our club they have to become a member and pay monthly fees. This policy will allow us to steadily build up a team of players who will grow and improve together through the course of the year.

First Hour
As usual, we started out with groundwork. Let's face it, many judo players tend to prefer standing over groundwork and some actually hate groundwork. At KL Judo we consider groundwork to be equally important to standing. Someone once told me doing standing without groundwork is like eating a meal with only a spoon, without a fork. You need both a spoon and a fork to get your meal properly. And so it is with judo. To fight well, you need both standing and groundwork. So, we start with groundwork when everyone is still fresh. If you start off with standing, by the time the second hour comes along and people are already a bit tired, they don't have the mindset to do groundwork properly anymore. In contrast, even if they are already a bit tired they will be keen to do standing (because judo players naturally like standing techniques). So, it's always groundwork first, standing second and randori last (that's the bit everyone likes the most, so we save it for last).

The technique we worked on was yoko-sankaku, which I will spread over at least two weeks. Part 1 was this week, where we worked on sankaku-gatame, the hold down from sankaku. Below is a clip of our sankaku training. Nigel, Shen and Alvinc helped with the instruction and guidance. They did a great job!

Second Hour
In judo, you have forward throws (like ippon-seoi-nage, uchimata, tai-otoshi) and backward throws (osoto-gari, ouchi-gari, kosoto-gari). You also have sacrifice techniques (like tomoe-nage, sumi-gaeshi, yoko-otoshi). There is a fourth type of throw which are counters. We focused on two of them, tani-otoshi and ura-nage.

Tani-otoshi was one of the first counters I learned when I was starting out. It's not a difficult technique to learn. As an "otoshi" it is a takedown rather than a throw (that involves lift). The most important thing is that the person doing it twists on the way down so that they land on top of their partner in order to get the score.

Ura-nage is sort of a related technique in that is also a counter technique to the back. In fact, its name means "rear throw" and yes, it is a throw that involves a lifting action. To assist in the lift, many judo players like to use their legs to propel their opponent upwards. This move can feel a bit awkward as you can't really balance well when you are standing on one leg only so it's important to arch your back and throw your opponent to the rear once you have lift-off.  As with tani-otoshi, you have to make a twist so that you land on your front except this time, the twisting motion has to be done mid-air. You can see why ura-nage is a lot harder to do than tani-otoshi.

Below is a clip of our tani-otoshi and ura-nage training. Nigel and Shen helped to teach the players this pair of rear counters.

Third Hour
For randori, we split it in half with the first 30 minutes devoted to newaza randori and the second half with tachi-waza randori. Our dojo is big enough to accommodate everybody so everyone was on the mat for both newaza and tachi-waza randoris. Shen, who is still recovering from a collar bone injury did some randori. Even Nigel, who is also recovering from a rib injury did some light randori. Here's a clip of our exciting randori session:

Technical training, drills, randori & strategy

In the quest to train up better competitors, there are fundamentally four elements that are needed:

i) technical training
ii) drills
iii) randori
iv) strategy

Of course if you want to be nit-picky, it can be said there are many more elements like cutting weight, building strength, improving stamina etc. The list can go on and on. But I've limited the core to four items that a player usually cannot do on their own and need the guidance of a coach or the presence of a training partner.

Things like weight training and endurance exercises, they can do on their own. Weight cutting, they can do on their own. Drills and randori, however, they can't. For those, they need a training partner. Technical training and strategy -- that usually comes from a coach. Let's look at the four core items in detail:

Technical training
The easiest thing in the world is to learn very basic Kodokan judo. Why? Because there's plenty of resources. Any dojo would have a sensei or senior player who could teach the basics. There are also plenty of books on traditional Kodokan judo. Go to YouTube and you can get tons of clips on how to do the traditional version of a throw or groundwork move. What's difficult is learning how to do those moves in a randori or competition setting whereby the opponent is resisting with all their might. The traditional version of techniques usually don't work in such settings.

Ippon-Seoi-Nage is the best example of this. In the traditional version, tori does the technique off a sleeve grip. In almost all competition examples, it's done off a lapel grip (or in Koga's case, armpit grip). That doesn't mean it's impossible to do ippon-seoi-nage off the sleeve, it's just very difficult and rare. Easily 90% or 95% of ippon-seoi-nage in competitions are done off the lapel.

The leg positioning in traditional ippon-seoi-nage calls for tori to bend his knees (stand-up version) or squat (drop version). Yet, neither of those two positions are ever seen in competition. For the stand-up version players either insert their driving leg in between uke's leg (the way Koga does) or they enter with straight legs (the more common way). As for the drop version, almost all players (yes, including the Japanese) drop down to their knees.

If you were to follow the traditional version taught in most books and videos, you'll end up trying to do ippon-seoi off the sleeve and entering with knees bent or squatting -- and you will fail to get it to work.

Ippon-seoi is just one example. This is true for almost all techniques. The competition version is often very different from the textbook version. If you have a competition coach who knows his stuff, he will teach you how various judo techniques are actually done.

Drills
Uchikomi and drills are not the same thing. Uchikomi can be said to be a kind of drill and it's useful when a player is learning a technique for the first time. They need to know how to enter and load uke for the throw. But once they've mastered the mechanics of a technique, they have to move on from uchikomi to nagekomi, which is also another form of drills.

Nagekomi is important because it teaches a player how to throw a person (uchikomi only teaches a player how to enter and load but not throw). However, nagekomi is also not enough because it's a static situation against a non-resisting partner.

What is ultimately needed are situational drills where the coach has players trying out moves under different scenarios e.g. trying a technique in a kenka-yotsu (opposite stance) situation and an ai-yotsu situation (similar stance); trying to do it against an upright opponent and a bent-over opponent, etc...

In a country like Japan where a university dojo could have 50 black belts on the mat, you don't really have to do drills because you will come across all kinds of gripping scenarios in the course of your many randoris. Most of us don't have that luxury. Getting even one or two suitable randori partners is a challenge in most clubs. When you don't have variety in randori partners, you need to do situational drills.

If a player only has two randori partners and both are right handed, that player will never learn how to fight a left-hander. So, it's up to the coach to create drills that simulate that situation for them (by asking their partners to purpose adopt a left-handed gripping situation). Similarly, if that player's partners naturally prefer a traditional sleeve-lapel grip, that player will never know what it's like to come to grips with a player who prefers a Russian high grip. Again, drills is the answer. A good coach will know what drill to apply.

Randori
Randori or free sparring is the hardest thing to find in Malaysian judo. Other than in government-funded clubs which has tons of students, you will be hard pressed to find more than two players in a club that are suitable randori partners for you. In many cases it's just one or none.

I know one guy from a neighboring state where he has nobody in his club who is his weight class and equal in terms of skill level. I know of another guy who actually trains in a state which has the largest private club. He told me at most he has two players whom he could really train with and even they are not in the same weight class and also not quite the same skill level.

This is not an easy problem to solve. One thing a coach can do is to bring his players to visit other clubs but more often than not that means travelling out of state. Why? First of all, in many places there's only one club in the whole state! Secondly, even if there are other clubs in the state, some of them might not emphasize randori or might not have it at all. I once visited a club where they trained for 2.5 hours and not one minute of that was set aside for randori.

In the context of my judo club, it probably means travelling as far as Singapore to get really good randori sessions for my players. But how often can we afford to travel to Singapore? It's costly to do so and it takes up a lot of time. A more practical option is to extend on open invitation to players from other clubs to visit us and do randori with us. We've had some success with this but it's not something you can rely on for regular, weekly randori.

At the end of the day, as a coach, you have to do your best to build up your own randori squad and make sure your players show up for training regularly (if not religiously). You have to make them realize that whenever they fail to show up, they are not only denying themselves a randori opportunity, they are also reducing the number of players their teammates can randori with.

In a club, it's everybody's responsibility to ensure that there is a critical mass of players to do randori with. When the club culture is such that players feel that responsibility they will show up for training. Even if they are tired or may not be in the mood for training, if they know their training partners are relying on them to be there, they will be more likely to show up.

Fostering that culture is not at all easy but it is a necessity for the club to thrive. You cannot rely on external parties for randori. At the end of the day, you have to foster a strong randori culture in your own club.

Strategy
Strategy is seldom taught at judo club. Most senseis feel it's enough to teach their players techniques. There's no need to teach them gripping, no need to teach them rules, no need to teach them how to outwit their opponents. Just technique. That's okay if you are training them for kata. But if you are training them for competition, they need to know strategy.

The IJF has implemented a bunch of new rules, which have been tweaked and updated fairly regularly since 2010. It's my job as a coach to adapt my players to these rules because the rule changes absolutely affect the way the game is played.

Take the new 2018 rules which requires a score to win in Golden Score (GS). In the past, a shido was enough. Now, no more. That will totally change how GS is fought. Another example: Leg grabs are now regular shidos which means it actually requires three infractions before you get hansoku-make (for a long time it was just one leg grab infraction for hansoku-make, then it became two before the current rule change). In a scenario where there's only a few seconds left in the match and you have non shido on the board or just one shido and your opponent comes in for a big leg throw, do you grab the leg to stop his throw? If there's only 10 seconds left, hell yes. It's worth getting the shido because you are stopping what is potentially an ippon throw. With 10 seconds left and with no shido or just one shido on the board, you can afford that additional shido from a leg grab. These are things a competitive coach has to teach his players.

At KL Judo Club, we teach all four things. All our players are shown how traditional techniques are taught and then shown how those techniques are actually done in competition. They do uchikomi and then nagekomi, after which they are given situational drills to do. We have at least one hour of randori each session. Lastly, our players are regularly taught and reminded about competition strategy based on current rules.

Other things like strength training, endurance training, flexibility training etc, they do themselves. We focus on the things they can't do on their own.

Technical Training Week 1 (Jan 7, 2018)

I'm going to be introducing a 52-week technical training program for 2018. I plan to teach at least one new technique (standing and groundwork) each session. If all goes well by the end of the year, the players will have a very sound knowledge of judo techniques.

Sankaku Technique

For our very first training session of the year, the groundwork technique we will work on is yoko-sankaku. It's often referred to as sankaku-jime, which indicates it's a strangle and indeed the core of this technique is a strangle (with the legs), but it's actually a very versatile technique that can also lead to a hold-down or an armlock.

Tani-Otoshi

Ura-Nage

For standing, I will focus on a set of counters, starting with tani-otoshi. If time permits, we will also work on ura-nage. Most throwing techniques are done to the front. These two counters are useful when someone tries a throw to the front. One involves a drop and the other, a throw.

One man's meat is another man's poison

There's a famous saying, "One man's meat is another man's poison", which basically means things that one person likes might be hated by another person. All rabbits may like carrots and all dogs may like chasing the postman. But as human beings, we don't all have the same tastes, be it with regard to food, music, movies etc. For example my mother loves onions but I can't stand them. We have different tastes.

And so it is with judo as well. I once had an online chat with someone from a judo club in Singapore who connected with me probably because of my Facebook postings on judo. I asked him what his club's training was like. He said his club is a more traditional type and that they liked doing "soft" judo, not the hard, competitive stuff.

That's perfectly fine. For them. But I wouldn't like to do that kind of judo. Power to those who do like it though.

If you happen to live in an area where there is only one club around, you'd better hope they have the kind of training that you like. If not, either you tolerate it or you quit because there's no other option around.

In Malaysia, generally there's not a lot of options when it comes to judo clubs. As I've mentioned in previous blog postings, in many states, there's only one club around. Klang Valley has the most, which is not to say that there are a lot but at least there are some choices.

I run a particular kind of judo club that's in line with my experiences as a judo athlete. I was trained in the West (initially in the US and later, more extensively in Europe). As a result, my judo is naturally more European in nature. That is reflected in not only the types of techniques I teach my players but also in terms of the way we conduct our training.

I also view judo as a sport, not a martial art. I recognize that it has some martial arts influences but a lot of people forget (or don't know) that the founder of judo, Jigoro Kano, was not some martial arts mystic but an educator who spoke excellent English and worked for Japan's Ministry of Education. He was also the first Asian to become a member of the International Olympic Committee (which he served from 1909 until 1938).

Although part of my responsibilities is to teach people judo techniques, my main role is that of a coach, which means it's my job to teach my players how to win a contest. It's not enough that they know how to properly demonstrate techniques on a cooperative partner. They must be able to execute techniques against a fully-resisting partner.

I make a point to familiarize my players with the latest IJF rules. I teach them contest strategies that take into account those rules. I also teach them gripping techniques and strategies based on what's allowed and not allowed in competition. I prepare them mentally to overcome their fears so they can fight their opponents well. That's what a coach does.

Those who have experienced my sessions know me to be not very traditional. We do bow at the start and end of each session and of course we use Japanese terminology. But other than that, our sessions are like that of a sports club not a martial arts club.

People are encouraged to take regular water breaks and properly hydrate themselves (none of this "no-drinking until the training is over" crap). We use crash pads during nagekomi (none of this "real judokas don't use crash pads" horse manure). We play music during drills and randori (I know, heresy, right?).

I'm also pretty strict when it comes to randori. Unless a player is injured or ill, they don't have the option to not do randori. I also don't like it when players avoid doing proper randori. That can manifest itself in many ways. We all know of big-sized players who like to randori with small players only. Or black belts who like to spar with colored belts only. Or strong guys who like to spar with smaller-sized girls only. If I see this happening, I put a stop to it immediately.

Is there any point in a 100kg black belt guy sparring with a 48kg white belt girl? Is there any benefit to him beyond boosting his ego that he can throw her around like a rag doll? Is there any benefit to her not being able to even come to grips with this guy, let alone move him, let alone throw him? We don't allow any of this nonsense at KL Judo. In fact, I make a point to pair-up the right sparring partners so that everyone gets the most out of our randori sessions.

Is this the kind of club for everyone? Of course not. For those who prefer to spend their time doing endless uchikomis instead of situational drills, sorry KL Judo is not the right club for them. For those who like to be able to choose easy targets for randori, KL Judo is also not the right club. And for those who like to be able to say "no" to randori itself, KL Judo is most definitely not the right club.

The good news for judo players who don't fancy our approach is that there are other clubs which might cater to their needs. I know of a few clubs where randori is practically non-existent or is limited to 15 or 20 minutes. I also know of one club where players can -- and regularly do -- say no to randori and are allowed to relax and sit out the sparring session. I know of many clubs that spend a huge portion of their sessions doing uchikomis.There are players who prefer such approaches and fortunately for them, there are clubs like that for them in the Klang Valley.

In my years as a judoka, I've trained at many clubs where I loved the atmosphere, the culture and the training systems there. I've also been to a few where the culture and their whole approach to judo were at odds with what I understood judo to be about.

I told myself back then that if I were to ever run a judo club of my own, I would put into practice all the things I liked about the good clubs I've trained at. So, I make no apologies for being passionate about the sport of judo and wanting my players to achieve their full potential as judokas.

Perhaps because of this KL Judo will never become a huge club with many members, but that's okay. As I told one of my players during a discussion about recruitment, I always prefer quality over quantity. There's a certain type of player I want for our club -- and I'm not even talking about physical prowess or attributes. I'm talking about attitude.

I'd rather take on a player who is not very athletic but has the right mindset for learning and training than a naturally-talented player who acts like a diva and believes they can do whatever they like during training. I want players who look forward to training, not those who look for excuses to skip it.

As a private club we have to make money to keep the club running. So we do need to have a certain critical mass of members. But as long as we are able to cover expenses I prefer to train a small bunch of dedicated players who believe in my program than to sell out and try to be all things to all people just to have bigger membership. That would totally ruin judo for me.

The importance of continuity

Technical training takes up a lot of time. It's best spent on those players who are serious about training and committed to following the program.

Last year, when we started aggressively introducing people to judo, we did two things to make it easier for newcomers to give judo a try. Firstly, we provided free trials. Secondly, we gave people the option to pay per session rather than commit to a monthly fee.

Going forward in 2018, we will tweak the first policy and eliminate the second. Free trials are pretty common for any clubs. If you go to a gym, they will usually allow you to try out for free to see if you like it there. So, yes, we will continue to offer this although on a selective basis. Last year, we had some people who, in retrospect, clearly never seriously intended to give judo a go and only wanted to come once. Perhaps it's to have some social media picture opportunities to say, look I've tried judo! Perhaps it's part of their bucket list to have tried every martial arts at least once. Who knows, but from now on we will assess those who want a free trial and if it doesn't seem like they are serious about taking up judo, we won't offer a free trial to them.

Now, you might wonder what's wrong with giving someone a free trial. It doesn't really cost us anything to do so right? Actually that's not true. It costs us time, which is scarce and valuable. When a new player comes for a free trial, they are usually starting from scratch so we have to allocate resources to teaching them the basics. Then, when it comes for the technical sessions they will naturally have difficulty keeping up with the other players who already have some experience. That's fine if they are serious about taking up judo. It's not fine -- and a complete waste of time, actually -- if they never had any intention to come back again in the first place.

We've also had some players who couldn't or wouldn't commit to training regularly with us. They would come perhaps once or twice a month or maybe once in two months (yes, there are some like that). To make it less financially burdensome for such people, we gave them the option of paying a per session fee instead of a monthly fee.

This may have been a good option for such players but it was not so good for the club. Firstly, when fees are ad hoc like this, there is no reliable stream of income. But we have overheads to pay every month. Having a steady stream of income is important for the survival of the club. Secondly, when people come on an ad hoc basis, they fall behind very badly. Again, additional time and resources are needed just to get them up to speed. Such time and resources would be better spent on members who train regularly and who are committed to following the program. So, we won't be having the per session option anymore.

We are not a big judo club. We don't have a huge membership. In fact, our membership is quite small if you compare us to some of the government-funded clubs. On most months, we generate just enough revenue to cover costs. So we are running on passion. If I, as a coach, am going to spend time training people in judo, I want to spend it training those who are truly keen and are willing to put in the time to learn judo properly.