Building a club that you, yourself, would like to train in

Technically KL Judo is on hiatus as we are in the midst of relocating but a few of the players wanted to do some training so we make use of this temporary facility. The space is very small but we make do with what we've got.

Sometime back I wrote an article about Goh Ai Ching, the founder of Penang-based Piktochart. There was something she said that really resonated with me because her motivation for wanting to build her own company was exactly the same reason I wanted to build my own judo club.

She said she did not like the job she had before and wanted to create a company that she, herself, would like to work in. Well, I wasn't happy with the judo club I was training at and felt the only way to get what I wanted out of a judo club was to build one myself.

A job we don't like. I think most people have experienced that to some degree. That's why so many people complain all the time -- about their work place, about their colleagues, about their bosses. How many people do you know absolutely love their jobs? For sure there are some but they are truly few and far in between.

The harsh reality is that most people don't like their jobs. But not many people are in a position to do anything about it. The greatest irony is when someone is in a position to create their own company but doesn't end up creating a good working environment. So they are as guilty as their previous boss whom they hated.

I always told myself if I ever had the chance to create my own company, I'd make it a place I'd like to work at. Which is exactly what Ai Ching has done. Well, I am not quite as entrepreneurial as she is and the closest I've come to forming a business is being a freelancer.

But I have founded a judo club that's been running for more than three years now. We've come a long way since the early days when we had just three or four members. It's not been smooth sailing and we've had our ups and downs. But through it all, I stayed true to my philosophy of building a club that I, myself, would like to train in.

I'm quite a demanding customer. I have high expectations of a judo club because I've trained at some of the best judo clubs in the US and the UK. So, I've set a high benchmark for my club. I want it to be absolutely world class, if not in terms of facilities, at least in terms of the training program.

The other thing I learned from Ai Ching, which I think is very insightful and instructive, is that corporate culture is everything. If you allow someone disruptive to ruin the corporate culture, it will ruin your company. And so it is with judo clubs as well. I totally believe that club culture is everything. If the wrong culture sets in, your club is doomed.

I'll share a case in point. There was a club I used to train at where it was not only permissible but was actually common practice for players to refuse to do randori. You'd literally have to go around the room asking multiple people to do randori before you could find someone to agree to spar with you. The rest would just sit around twiddling their thumbs because they are too tired or too lazy to spar.

It all started with a few senior belts who began to say no to randori (too tired, too lazy). The lower belts couldn't help but notice this and they probably thought: If a senior belt can say no to randori, so can I. Soon enough, lower belts started saying no to randori. In the end, it trickled all the way down to white belts. Can you imagine the ridiculous sight of a black belt asking a white belt for randori and the white belt saying no simply because he didn't feel like it?

I'm not making this up. This was how it was. The thing is, the sensei should have nipped it in the bud. If a player declines to do randori without a good reason he should be reprimanded. (Being injured or about to throw up are acceptable reasons for sitting out a randori. Feeling tired or lazy are not).

Ai Ching said that at first she didn't have the courage to deal with troublemakers but later on she built up that strength to confront them because she knew that if she didn't do it, it could infect the rest of the workforce. The same applies to judo clubs. Once you let someone get away with a bad attitude, it will eventually infect the rest.

Club culture, just like corporate culture, is at its most fragile in the early stages of the club. Over time, as the club matures, the culture will seep in deeply among the members. And that in itself is a rail guard against disruptive forces. If a new player joins the club, they will learn very soon what the club culture is like, what is acceptable behavior and what is not.

If that person wants to introduce some destructive new attitude, he's going to find no takers. There will be no accomplices. The existing members are there precisely because they like how training is conducted. They are not going to start saying no to randori just because some lazy bum likes to have the option of slacking off.

Over the years, we've had players come and go. The ones who fit well within our club culture stay. The ones that don't, leave. As a club, we always like the idea of having more members but not at all cost.

There's always room for improvement and I'm certainly open to new ideas about ways we could do things better but I dare say we have a damn good club culture at KL Judo. The players train hard, they have a keen fighting spirit and they play fair. There's not much more a coach could ask for.