3 key success factors for judo clubs

It's not easy building up a judo club in Malaysia. This sport is so niche it makes cricket seem mainstream. There are probably more people doing triathlons than judo. Heck, there are probably more people playing dodgeball than judo.

There are three key challenges to building up a judo club in Malaysia:

Infrastructure
Firstly, you'll need a dojo, which is a big challenge from the start. It doesn't really make sense to rent a shoplot since you'll probably not use it full-time. Sub-letting it to other sports sounds okay on paper but in practice it's not easy to find sub-tenants. They all want the same peak time slot as you would want for your judo class (7pm to 9pm on weekdays). Renting space in a gym is not easy either because most gyms don't have big matted areas and whatever matted area they have would usually be 2 or 3cm thick jigsaw mats. This is not what you want for judo (ideally 5cm mats).

Coach(es)
But let's say you somehow manage to solve your dojo problem. Next up, you'll need good coaches. "Good" is  subjective of course but someone who has himself built up a successful judo club once told me that an appealing coach should have these qualities
a) Good competitor (ideally a former champion)
b) Technically very sound
c) Good at communication and marketing

The ideal scenario is to have a coach with all three qualities but if you can find someone with two out of three, you are still in pretty good shape. In the context of Malaysia though, you'd be lucky to find someone with one out of three of these qualities.

Members
Let's say you happen to have great facilities and a fantastic coach, you still need one more factor, which is just as hard to get: Players. A club needs members. But how do you get members when a sport is so niche? The answer is: with a lot of difficulty.

So, if anybody is thinking of starting a judo club, they'll need to tackle all three key challenges:
i) good infrastructure
ii) good coach
iii) critical mass of members

Two out of three isn't good enough. You'll need all three factors resolved or the club will simply not take off.

Forum Pudu - Our best venue yet

In my last posting, I wrote about how the churn in membership is actually a good thing because it is a form of natural selection that helps us get the members who are really suited for our club.

In similar fashion, the fact that we've had to change venues so many times in the past has actually been good for us because each time we moved, we got a better and more suitable venue. Today, we are at Forum Pudu Badminton Centre and it's the best home for our judo club thus far.

The management is very supportive of our club and has agreed to a lot of our requests. It's also a very central place with LRT access. Best of all, it's spacious. We now have a dojo that's quite big, allowing us to train and randori properly.

Some people might find it odd that we are located in a badminton club but we got the inspiration from seeing a gymnastics club run out of a badminton club. We figured, if it's good enough for gymnastics, it should be good enough for judo! And it really is.

The revolving door of a judo club

If you've been in judo long enough you will realize that judo clubs have revolving doors -- not physically of course but metaphorically. People come and go in judo, and only a small handful will stay for the long haul. That's just how it is.

As someone who runs a judo club, of course I hope to retain as many members as possible but I also realize there is no point losing sleep over members who quit. There really isn't even any point in trying to change the minds of those who want to quit.

A while back I had read an article by a Canadian coach who tried to analyze the many different reasons why people quit judo, and they are as varied as the reasons people take up judo. At the end of the day it boils down to two things. If judo training is not fun or meaningful to them, they will end up quitting judo. Knowing that, we try our very best to make the training fun and we also try to impart important lessons in the class.

Judo is a really tough sport, in every sense of the word. It's difficult to master the techniques and it's hard on the body. The general toughness of the sport can easily wear someone out before they get very far. Only those who truly enjoy the sport and those who are able to glean some important life lessons from judo will have the desire and perseverance to carry on training.

When I first started the club, more than four years ago, I used to be very disappointed whenever someone left the club. I always felt, what a shame we were not able to retain that person. I have a friend who feels exactly the same way when an employee leaves her company. "Why don't you want to stay?" always rings through her head whenever someone quits.

These days I view people quitting with stoic equanimity. Whatever the reasons someone may have for wanting to leave, one of two things are obvious: They are either not suited for the sport or they are not suited for the club. So, you can treat it like a kind of natural selection process going on to improve your club. The ones who stay back are precisely the kind of members you want in your club. They are the ones who will help you grow the club and take it to greater heights.

In recent months, we've had a handful of members leave and we've also had a handful of new people come in. This churn will continue because, as I've said, judo clubs have a revolving door. People come and people go. The ones who stay will be the ones who go on to become black belts and hopefully, have meaningful experiences that will enrich their lives.

The importance of a training partner

Judo is not a solo sport. You could do some shadow randori or pulling on bands but that's not really proper judo training. To do proper judo training, you need a regular training partner.

A judo club is not like a fitness gym or a yoga studio where it doesn't matter whether you have a training partner or not. If you're doing some weight training or aerobics or yoga, you can just show up and it doesn't matter if anyone else is there. But judo cannot be done in isolation.

Ideally a regular training partner is someone roughly the same size, roughly the same age and roughly the same level of experience. If aspirations are similar (e.g. both aiming for competition), all the better, although this is not crucial.

A training partner is necessary because you need someone to do uchikomi, nagekomi, drills and randori with. But a training partner is more than that. A training partner is someone who is there to motivate you and encourage you to come for training.

We all have down days when we're a bit too tired or lazy or just don't feel like training for whatever reasons. If you know your training partner is keen to train, and will not be able to do so if you are not there, it is a potent form of motivation to be there. You don't want to let your training partner down because you know they have always been there for you when you wanted to train.

If you are lucky, there are already players in the club who are your weight class and have the same experience level, etc, whom you could easily partner with. And if you are especially fortunate, these players come for training regularly, so you always have someone to train with whenever you show up for training.

Most of us are not that lucky. Judo is a niche sport, not just in Malaysia but in most places, all over the world. The problem of having suitable training partners is a global one. If you want to improve your judo, you have to do your part.

If there is already someone in the club who could be a suitable training partner, encourage them to come more often. Coordinate with them so that when you come for training, they are there. And be prepared to make sacrifices and go for training whenever they need you. Cooperation requires both parties to make sacrifices to accommodate the other.

If there's no one in the club to partner with, help to recruit new players into the club. Don't rely on chance. Don't sit around waiting for something to happen. Do you part. Make it happen. Lastly, if and when you do find yourself a suitable training partner, remember: If you want them to be there for you, you need to be there for them.

The difference between technical skill and fighting skills

The ideal judoka is someone who has both sound technical skills and good fighting skills. It is totally possible for someone to be technically sound but not a good fighter. It is also possible for someone to be a good fighter but not very technical.

A person to only focuses on technical skills would be able to demonstrate a technique very well. But if that person doesn't do a lot of randori and doesn't compete, he won't be able to test those skill against a resisting partner. It's debatable whether such a person is actually technically sound after all if his techniques don't work when someone is resisting or fighting back. But such a person can definitely demonstrate the technique well when there is a cooperative partner. Whether you consider such a person technical or not depends on your definition of "technical".

I would say such a person is technical in as far as judo demonstrations are concerned because they could do the techniques beautifully in a demonstration context. It's sort of like how someone could be very good at kata but not good at shiai. You can't say someone like that is not technical. He's just not good at fighting.

On the other hand, we all know of some players who are really pretty good at fighting but have a very limited range of techniques. Sometimes such players are limited to as few as one technique (e.g. drop seoi-nage). They only do one technique but they catch everyone with it. Ask them to demonstrate other techniques and they aren't able to do so.

Those are two extremes of course: (a) someone who is very technical but cannot fight (b) someone who fights well but not very technical.

Most people are a mix of both, possessing some technical skills and some fighting skills. Which skills a person prioritizes will depend on their aspirations. For example, a competitor will naturally favor fighting skills. But in the long run, for a competitor to be good, he would need to develop technical skills too. Instinctive fighting ability, strength and aggression can take you only so far in judo.

Training competitorsIf you're training a competitor from scratch, the first thing you need to do is build up their technical base. That is, teach them several techniques and get them to master them. Then (and only then) should you embark on teaching them fighting skills.

If you do it the other way around, that is, teach fighting skills first, they will tend to rely on aggression and raw strength to try to overcome their opponent. They won't be interested in technical skills. So, it's better to teach skills first. Then teach them how to fight.

Teaching technical skills means showing them the mechanics of the throws and get them practice the throws over and over (uchikomi first, then nagekomi). It's pretty straight forward. Not so with fighting skills.

You can't really teach fighting skills. You can teach certain things that will help their fighting abilities, like gripping techniques and strategies, you can also teach them some strategic moves, such as teaching them how to transition seamlessly from standing to groundwork (and vice versa). You can also mimic different scenarios with resistance drills. But at the end of the day, good fighting skills will come from doing lots of randori and competing in lots of tournaments.

Family Judo in full swing.

Sunday is family day at KL Judo. We're delighted families are doing judo together.

I once interviewed a restaurateur who told me that a good restaurant has to update its menu every now and then. What if the current food offering is already very good, I asked? He replied that you can keep your core offering but you also have to introduce some new dishes just to stay fresh.

And so it is with judo clubs as well. Not only do the coaches have to introduce new and interesting approaches to training, they also have to offer new type of classes as well.

People who are familiar with KL Judo would know that for the longest time, we only had one type of class, which is an adults' judo class. For the first four, we resisted calls for us to start a kids' class.

This was partly because we were so preoccupied with building up an adults class (which is not an easy thing to do) and therefore did not have spare time to start a kids' class; and partly also because we knew that all the other judo clubs in Klang Valley were primarily kids' classes. Why offer more of the same? (An adults class, in contrast, was very unique, not just in KL but in Malaysia).

This year, shortly after we celebrated our fourth anniversary, we decided to start a kids' class. We started with slightly older kids (age seven and above) but soon there were queries for kids as young as three to four years old.

At first we said no because we didn't have the capacity to offer a toddler's class as well. However, we felt if a kid's parent was on the mat as well, we might be able to do this because small children will generally feel more comfortable and confident when their parents are on the mat with them.

We decided to try it out and four families have signed up so far. In two cases, both parents have decided to take up judo as well. In two other cases, the father decided to take up judo.

So far it's been good. Sunday is supposed to be family day. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon doing some sports with your family?

If you know anyone who wants to give Family Judo a try, give us a call at 016-6262004.