Transforming your judo

Nigel & Jason doing some extra training.

When I was an up-and-coming judoka nearly three decades ago, I made a journey from Austin, Texas, where I was studying, to Los Angeles, California, where I had heard there was a lot of good judo clubs.

It was during my university summer break and I decided to spend three months in LA to transform my judo. I took the mission seriously and found a club where I could train literally every day. Needless to say, at the end of three months, my judo had really been transformed.

I recently got a call from someone who told me he was on summer break from his university for three months and he was looking for a place to train so he could transform his judo.

Now, I've heard this kind of pronouncement before -- people saying they want to do some serious training to transform their judo. In fact, just a month ago, I received a similar inquiry from another player who said she was on a break for one month and really wanted to improve her judo. She ended up coming for maybe two or three sessions throughout the whole month.

Even at the LA Judo Training Centre where I got my first exposure to competition judo, we also had people coming in saying they wanted to do serious training and that they were aiming for international competition etc. I recall excitedly telling my coach that a new player had just joined who said he wanted to aim for the Olympics some day. My coach told me, "Take such comments with a pinch of salt." As it turned out that player trained for about two weeks and then disappeared, never to be seen again.

Since then I've always taken such pronouncements with a pinch of salt. It's easy for people to say, "I want to train seriously" but life offers lots of distractions. Friends have birthday parties, old classmates have reunion gatherings, family have reunion dinners, relatives from out of town need you to show them around. You name it, there's 101 reasons why someone can't come for training.

When I was at the LA Judo Training Centre, I didn't give myself any excuse to skip training. I was serious about transforming my judo so I trained every day, without fail, for three months. That summer, my judo improved by leaps and bounds.

Well, that guy who is on summer break has so far shown a lot of commitment, coming for every official training we've had as well as extra training sessions we've had this week. It's only been a week but he's attended more sessions than some of our other players have done in a month. Let's see if he keeps it up. One thing I can guarantee is that if he does keep it up, and trains almost daily for three months, his judo will be completely transformed.