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.
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