Getting ready for the big move

We need a one-tonne lorry for the big move.

Come August we will be training at our new dojo in Pudu, which be more than 1.5 times larger than our current place (our current mat area is 50 square metres; the new place will be 80 square metres).

Moving dojo is always a hassle. It's also costly. And you inevitably lose some members who, for one reason or another, find the new location unsuitable. But there can also be a lot of good to come out of a move. Each time in the past, when we moved to a new place, it always led to better things for our club.

In this case, we will be having more space for training and that is important as our membership is growing -- especially with the introduction of a children's class as well as our new centralized elite competition training sessions. More space also means we can do randori with less worry about knocking into walls and other players.

The new place has long opening hours, which means more flexibility for training times. We are currently scheduled to have five sessions a week, for two hour each session. But if we need more sessions or more hours, it's possible. The space is also big enough that even with the expansion of the mat area to 80 square metres, there's still plenty of room for further expansion if necessary.

The new place will have a lot of foot traffic so we hope some of them will be interested in trying out judo. We're making some buntings to promote the judo club, which we will place in strategic locations (next to our dojo, at the reception area and at the underground parking lot, near where people go to pay their parking tickets. Visibility for our club should be high.

Here's to bigger and better things.

Tuesday: Briggs Sankaku

Karen Briggs

Tuesday is newaza nite. For this session, we will learn the Briggs Sankaku, which is actually more of a turnover into osaekomi. This is the favored newaza technique of four-times World Champion Karen Briggs of Great Britain.

We will also revise the Keylock Roll that Connie Ramsay showed us last Tuesday. It's important to revise techniques we've learned in order to seal it into memory. Besides, the Keylock Roll has a similar entry to the Briggs Sankaku so it is related in a way.

After the groundwork session is done, we will do a bit of gripping work. I'll go through some gripping basics, theory, practical applications and so on. Then, we'll end with randori, first with newaza and then finally with tachi-waza. Should be a good session.

Muscle memory

Muscle memory is crucial in most sports and certainly in judo.

I recall watching a documentary on sports and in a segment on swimming, the coach talked about getting his swimmers to do the same drills over and over again so that muscle memory sets in. I thought to myself, "Wow, even in swimming muscle memory is important". I guess when milliseconds count -- and make the difference between first place and second place -- you want to reduce reaction time as much as possible.

Muscle memory is most certainly important for judo. You can teach a judo player a specific move and they can learn it really well, to the point they can demonstrate it perfectly. But that doesn't mean they can use it well in randori or in competition. Unless there's muscle memory, where the move has already become second nature to the player, it just won't happen. If you have to think about it, it won't work.

There are two things that need to happen for muscle memory to be ingrained for any specific move. Firstly, the players have to drill the heck out of the move. They have to do it over and over again. Initially, when they are first learning the move, they should do it with without resistance. Once learned it, they need to do it with resistance. Secondly, they need to try it in randori. Only if they do these two things will it be executable in competition.

One of the main reasons many judo players find it so difficult to pick up new moves is that they don't actually do these two things. Let's face it, drills are boring. Nobody likes to do drills. If you get a general judo class to do the same drills over and over again, week after week, pretty soon you will have very bored judo players wondering when they are going to learn something new. So repeated drills is not very viable for a recreational class.

You can do it with competitors though because they are on a mission (to win) and they understand to achieve that, they have to do what it takes. If it means doing boring drills over and over again for weeks on end, they will do it. That's why it's crucial to have competition-training classes which are separate from general (recreational classes).

The second part of the equation (getting them to try it in randori) is also really hard to achieve, and it doesn't matter if they are a competitor or a recreational player. People are creatures of habit and they tend to fall back on what they already know. You can have a player drill a move for one hour non-stop but once they go into randori, it's like they never even know the move. They don't even try it once. I've seen that so many times. It's just human nature.

There are a few rare people who make it a point to try new stuff in randori, even without prompting. Those are very few and far in between but usually they are the ones who progress the fastest. They instinctively know that they have to try the moves if they want to master it. For the rest, you have to remind them over and over again to try it in randori and maybe, just maybe, they might give it a try.

If they don't, it's not because they are being defiant. Just that when randori starts, they are in fight mode and tend to instinctively stick to what's tried and true. After the randori, you ask them why they didn't try the new move and they say, "Oh, I forgot". And they aren't lying. During the heat of the fight, they genuinely forgot.

So, what can you do? You just gotta persevere and keep drilling them and reminding them to try it in randori until they start doing it. It's part of of the job of being a coach.

The continual evolution of KL Judo

When we formed KL Judo Centre a little more than four years ago, our aim was very simple: To build a judo club for working adults. We didn't have other grand ambitions beyond that.

Our goal might have been simple but to achieve it hasn't been easy. Anyone who has ever run a judo club will tell you that building an adult membership is a very difficult thing. Most judo clubs -- here and abroad -- are children's clubs. But we knew what we wanted to do and we stuck to our guns.

The gestation period was a long one. It took us four long years to build up a critical mass of adult members such that there are always training partners available at all our sessions. Some days, the attendance can be quite low but our members know there will be at least a few bodies on the mat for you to train with. Achieving that alone is no mean feat and we never take it for granted.

Having achieved that critical mass, we recently embarked on a few new initiatives. You could say we've seen a growth spurt as of late.

For example, we recently started a children's class. Since the very beginning, we've had parents call in and ask if we had children's classes. We've had to turn away quite a few parents over the years because we were too busy building up our adults class.

Now, we have the beginnings of a children's class, with a pioneering batch of pre-cadets training with us once a week. Currently, they are training at the same time as the adults on Sundays. When we have more kids, we'll start a dedicated kids class.

I know a coach in the UK who has 600 kids under his club (including those in schools). Someone once asked me whether I had that kind of ambition for our kids program. While the thought is tantalizing -- imagine having such staggering membership numbers -- the idea actually doesn't appeal to me. What I prefer is just having a critical mass, which I define as having sufficient members such that there will always be enough players on the mat to train with, even on slow days.

For kids, that would be about 12 to 15 kids. For adults you'd need more because unlike kids, who are brought to class by their parents, adults are always distracted by work, family and personal obligations that tend to get in the way of their training. For adults, the critical mass you'd need is at least 20 (but ideally 30) if you want to ensure that there are always enough bodies on the mat for a decent training session.

Elite Competition Training class

Another initiative that we've just started is our Elite Competition Training program which runs twice a week, to complement our General Training program. The two are very different. Our General Training class is for everyone -- beginners, recreational players, competitors. The Elite Competition Training class, as its name implies, is specifically for those training for competitions.

The former is more technical. We go into great detail about groundwork and standing techniques in those classes. The latter involves more situational drills and strategy, etc. The stuff you need for competition. The General class is for our members only but the Elite class involves students from other clubs.

Running a judo club is a challenging endeavor because judo is not a popular sport in Malaysia but we are in a good position to really grow and evolve at a much faster pace in the coming months and years. A big part of that is the program that we run, which is very progressive and structured. But an equally important factor are the members that we have. We really have a good team of keen judokas.

This first half of the year has been good so far. The second half is poised to be even better!

Funakubo Roll(s) & Pinewood Roll

Funakubo Roll:
- Standard Version
- Reverse Version
- Obi-Tori-Gaeshi Version

Pinewood Roll (demonstrated by Connie Ramsay)