Competition training begins

Our first competition of the year has been identified. We plan to compete in Singapore in February. Four of our players are confirmed to be competing in that one.

I will start preparing three of them today (the other one is still out of town on holiday).

They basically have seven weeks to get ready. For such a short lead time, we have to focus on a few core techniques and that's it. The training will be very focused on those core techniques.

It'll be very interesting to see how much of a difference these seven weeks will make to their judo. I think it will make a world of difference.

2020: The year ahead

We go into 2020 full of optimism. The club is on a strong footing, with a healthy membership base and good support from Majlis Sukan Wilayah Persekutuan. Here are some of the things we can look forward to this year:

Competitions
In 2019 there weren't that many domestic competitions (our club went to only two) but more are slated for 2020. Combine that with competitions in neighboring countries (namely, Singapore) and we have quite a few to look forward to. Here's the calendar of competitions so far. We will continue to update it as new events are confirmed.

Belt Gradings
Our kids class will start their gradings in January. We will adopt the Mon Grade system used by the British (18 Mons in all) but we'll adapt it for our purposes. Our adult players will continue to go for Kyu gradings as and when they are ready (we don't have set dates for colored belt gradings; whenever a player is ready, we will grade them). We also have a few players who can aim for Dan (black belt) gradings. A few of our players are brown belts and one is already a Shodan so he can go for his second degree black belt.  Dan gradings are external and our players will have until November to prepare for this.

Family Judo
Family Judo is one of our breakout success stories for 2019. Apparently, it's quite common in Europe for family members to train together in judo. We weren't sure if this would work in Malaysia but we tried it and it's taken off really well. In fact, starting in the new year, we will have a dedicated session for Family Judo from 2pm to 4pm on Sundays. After that, from 4pm to 6pm will be competition/advanced judo training. In 2019, we had a combined session from 3pm to 6pm and the mat was getting a bit too crowded, so we decided going forward, we will separate the classes.

Feeder Schools
The concept of feeder schools is a Japanese concept that we will draw some inspiration from. In Japan, it's quite common for top judo-oriented universities to have feeder schools to draw talent from. In 2020, we will be working with Alice Smith School (Primary & Secondary) with their judo program. Students who are keen on competition can eventually do additional training at KL Judo.

Visitors
Our club has always welcomed visitors. In 2019, we had a former international competitor from Scotland as well as a team from Jeju come train with us. Over the years, we've also had students from various universities abroad come do short stints with us to improve their judo. It's always been a pleasure to train them and we look forward to welcoming more guests in 2020.

Videos
We've always used videos to promote our club and it's an important component of our marketing strategy. Through videos, people curious about judo can see for themselves what kind of training we do and what they can expect if they join our club. They will also get a strong sense of the club's culture and ethos. We believe we have a good "product" to offer so we are happy to share it with our viewers. We will of course continue to do that going forward.

Something else we will do is make more comprehensive instructional videos. As our members are working adults, sometimes some of them can't make class due to work commitments. But we don't want them to miss out on the instruction. Video is a way to make sure they are up-to-date with what's being taught. We will share some  of the videos with the public but probably reserve some as exclusive learning materials for our members.

2019: The year that was

The end of the year is coming. It's a good time to reflect on the year that was.

In a way, it was a tumultuous year. We had to move twice. We were quite happy to be in Damansara Perdana because the mat area in the gym that we were in was quite spacious. Then, the gym closed down so we had to find a new location. We moved into a yoga studio in Bangsar but that didn't work out because they needed to wear shoes for some of their activities and we can't have shoes on our mats.

In the end, we settled into a badminton hall, which isn't the most obvious place to have a judo dojo but it has worked out well for us. The crucial difference I guess is that unlike the three other venues in the past (Cheras, Damansara Perdana & Bangsar), this is our own dojo. We are not renting someone else's dojo or studio but rather we now have our own dojo inside a badminton hall. This gives us more flexibility in terms of scheduling classes and putting in the infrastructure that we need.

Membership has grown, both in terms of competitors and recreational players. We also have some kids now, as well! While there is certainly still plenty of room for growth, we are delighted that we have enough of a critical mass of players to hold almost daily classes (except Mondays) and even during exam periods or holiday periods when students are usually indisposed, we are able to still have sessions with a decent turnout. In fact, recently when all instructors were out-of-state, a few of the players carried on training, which is great. We hope to continue to grow all three segments (competitor, recreational players and children) in 2020.

This year, we began working with Majlis Sukan Wilayah Persekutuan to develop players for SUKMA. There isn't much time to do development work for SUKMA 2020 since we don't have that many juniors in our club. For much of our club's existence, it has been a club geared towards working adults so we have a very limited number of juniors to work with. Still, we will do our best and hopefully deliver at least one gold. 

Videos as instructional aids

For the past year, we mainly used videos for branding and promotional purposes. In 2020, we will utilize video more and more for instructional purposes.

Most of our members are working adults and as to be expected, quite often work and life get in the way of training. But just because a player has to miss a session doesn't mean they have to miss out on the lesson. That's where video comes into play.

Here are three examples of how we can use video to help our members:

Basic Ouchi-Gari (detailed breakdown)

Ouchi-Gari from a Kenka-Yotsu situation

Ouchi-Gari from an Ai-Yotsu situation

Over the course of the year, we will be teaching a lot of fundamentals as well as competition variations to our members and capturing them on video for them to review. These will be shared in our closed Facebook Group but we will make some of these publicly available as well (though not all).

Ouchi-Gari Masterclass

1. Standard Version (Square Stance)
- Leg Action
- Hand Action
- Action Reaction

2. Three Common Mistakes
- Over-Rotation
- Hikite Pull
- Space between Tori & Uke

3. Kenka-Yotsu Variations
- Ken Ken (Gill, Ebinuma, Decosse, Legrand)
- Lapel Grip (Decosse, Harrison, Yandzi)
- Hugging (Davaadorj, Dashdavaa)

4. Ai-Yotsu Variations
- Whirling
- Hugging (Takato)

5. Combinations
- Ouchi into Kouchi
- Kouchi into Ouchi
- Ouchi into Tai-Otoshi

6. Counter: Ouchi-Gaeshi

Grips, nagekomi, drills, randori, shiai

If a judo player happens to be a student of a sports school or a professional athlete, they would be training a few times a day. They have volume in their training. The sheer amount of training they do and the number of different training partners that they have would mean that over time, simply through trial and error, they would have discovered effective ways to grip, throw, outsmart and defeat an opponent.

But few people have that luxury. Most people aren't sports school students or professional athletes and can at most train three times a week, for perhaps two hours at a time. To make it worse, usually they'd only have one or two judokas their size and skill level. In such a situation, you can't learn through trial and error. There is not enough volume of training (and training partners) for you to pick up skill-sets this way.

Instead, you have to train in a smart and systematic way. At KL Judo Centre, we have a decent-sized crowd but it's nothing like in the sports schools. On a good day, we'd be lucky to have a dozen people on the mat. So, we have to have a systematic approach to training to get our athletes competition-ready.

I believe there are 5 key factors that are critical to success in competition.

i) Gripping strategy, tactics and technique
ii) Nagekomi on crash pads
iii) Situational drills
iv) Purposeful randori
v) Shiai

Gripping
A sound understanding of stance and gripping styles is important in order to devise a strategy to deal with every situation. You will also need some tactics and techniques to deal with a constantly changing scenario. No huge mass of training partners means you can't learn this through trial and error. It needs to be taught and drilled.

Nagekomi
These have to be done with full force and to do this repeatedly, you need to have a crash pad or uke will suffer greatly.

DrillsAgain, unless you have a room full of people to train with, you won't encounter many different body types, grips, fighting styles, etc. So, you have to simulate those situations through drills and practice your response to each scenario.

Randori
I am a strong believer in randori. If there are not many partners, just do randori multiple times with the same partners but do each one with a set objective in mind. In one randori, you can focus on trying a new technique, in the next one, perhaps focus on how to block and counter their favorite techniques, and for the third one, try out different grips to find out which one is most effective for a particular technique. And so on. Be purposeful in your randori. It doesn't matter if your randori partner is the same person over and over again.

Shiai
If there are not many competitions for you to go to, do shiai in the club where you compete in realistic situations (4 minute matches, with someone acting as a referee to call out shido penalties and so on). This simulation will give you more exposure to competition scenarios which you will need to become a good competitor.

The complete judoka

What does it mean to be a "complete judoka" and why is it  important?

It's possible to do well in randori and shiai by relying heavily on your athleticism and strength. It's also possible to throw many people with just one or two techniques that you do very well. But neither of these two scenarios make you a well-rounded judoka.

Players who are naturally gifted athletically, sometimes fall into this trap of relying too much on their strength and agility to overcome their training partners. Because their physical prowess is sufficient for them to defeat others, they sometimes tend to rely on it too much at the detriment of their skills development. They won't be too bothered to develop good techniques because they don't have to. They can just outpower everyone!

Of course that can only take you so far. Eventually they will meet someone who is just as strong and fit and agile, but has better technique.

Similarly, a player who has only one really good technique (or perhaps two) may be able to defeat most people because they've figured out how to do that one technique so well. In some cases this leads to complacency and a reluctance to learn anything new because, again, why should they? Their one technique alone is working so well for them.

But again, this will only take you so far. One day, they will meet someone who is very versatile and can do many techniques effectively. A one-trick pony is likely to lose out in such a scenario.

It's good to develop your physicality. Judo is a very physical sport and being strong, fit and agile is necessary if you want to be successful in competition. It's also important to specialize in a few favorite techniques (tokui-waza). But, it's important also at the same time, to be familiar with a broad range of techniques, in standing and on the ground.

There are parallels in journalism. Let's take the case of relying too much on strength. Here's the analogy: A dogged reporter who is persistent in chasing a lead might be able to get a lot of good stories because they manage to get many scoops (exclusives). If you get a scoop, you'll get your story published even if you are not such a good writer. The copy editor and your section editor will help rewrite the story if necessary. But if you don't develop good writing skills your career can go only so far before it stalls. You'll never get beyond being a beat reporter. You certainly won't be able to helm an editorial position or write a column because... you can't write well!

Meanwhile, the part about tokui-waza reminds me of an valuable piece of advice my editor once told me. He said a good journalist is one who specializes in a particular beat (e.g. politics, IT, health, etc) but who is also versatile enough to take on any assignments. So if they are assigned to cover a business story, they must be able to do  it. If they are asked to cover an entertainment story, they also must be able to do it.

The same applies to judo. Don't rely just on strength or just on one or two techniques. Develop a broad range of skills so you can become a complete judoka.

Judo teacher vs judo coach

The traditional way of doing ippon-seoi-nage bears little resemblance to how it is done in competition.

A judo teacher is someone who teaches students the fundamentals of judo techniques. They should be familiar with the classical or traditional versions of all the major techniques and be able to teach the mechanics of those techniques.

A judo coach, in contrast, teaches players to win competitions. A coach should also teach techniques but usually they would go into more advanced version or competition variations that are not in the Gokyo, so to speak. A coach also goes into competition strategies and mental training etc. These are things that a judo teacher is usually not concerned with.

So, who should you learn from? That depends on what your objectives or goals are. If you are someone interested only in learning the Gokyo and perhaps doing some kata, a judo teacher would be suitable. (A judo coach is probably not the best person to go to for kata). But if you are interested in competing, you really should go to a judo coach.

A question many players would naturally have is "Does a good coach have to have been a judo champion?"

I don't think a good coach necessarily needs to have been a great champion but he or she should have had competition experience (at a high level). If you've never competed before how can you coach someone to do well in competition?

This concept is the same when it comes to journalism (another area I'm familiar with). In the past, I taught journalism in many private colleges for diploma and even degree-level classes. In Malaysia, normally you have to have a Masters degree to teach journalism but exceptions can be obtained for those with experience and I had plenty of that (I had held senior editorial positions in several newspapers).

The head of department at one of the colleges I taught had a PhD in journalism but had never worked as a journalist before. Perhaps this person was a good administrator who could run the department well but I'm pretty certain they can't teach practical journalism techniques because they had never done it before. That's why they brought in people like me; people have actually been on the ground doing journalism for years and who have had literally thousands of articles published.

A judo teacher who has never actually competed before is likely to teach a technique the traditional or the textbook way. Sometimes the traditional way works but often times, in the heat of competition, when your opponent is resisting with all their might and trying their best to catch you with their own techniques, traditional techniques just won't cut it.

The best example I can give is that of ippon-seoi-nage. In traditional judo, ippon seoi-nage is taught to be done from a sleeve grip. Tori is also taught to enter into the technique and do a squat. This is not how it works in competition. Almost all ippon-seoi-nage done in competition is done off the lapel grip rather than the sleeve grip because it allows for a tighter pull. Secondly, almost all standing ippon-seoi-nage is done with either straight legs or with split legs. Nobody actually squats. People do drop all the way to their knees but that's a drop seoi-nage, which is a related but different technique. Squatting only happens in demonstrations, never in competition.

Yet if you ask a judo teacher to demonstrate ippon-seoi-nage, they will more likely than not, teach the traditional way of doing it. A judo coach, with competition experience, will dispense with the traditional way, which is mechanically inferior, and go with what actually works.

Having said all that, it's worth highlighting that a good competitor or even a great champion may not necessarily be a good coach, which requires many other attributes besides having a sound understanding of the mechanics of competition techniques.

A good coach must be analytical, empathetic, inspiring and selfless to a degree. It's totally possible for a great champion to have little of these qualities. And if that's the case, they wouldn't make for a good coach. But, to be a good competition coach, you must have had some competition experience at a fairly high level.

2020 Changes

2020 is dawning upon us. We will be implementing some changes in the new year.

1. We currently have a good problem with our Sunday classes. The success of our Family Judo concept has resulted in the mats getting overcrowded during our Sunday sessions where children, parents, adult beginners and experienced players all train together on the same mat. To avoid congestion, we will be having separate sessions with Family Judo players and adult beginners training from 2pm to 4pm; and experienced players and competitors training from 4pm to 6pm.

2. Belt grading for kids. Although our kids' classes have been ongoing for several months now, we haven't yet done any belt gradings so far. This will change in the new year.

3. We didn't go to that many competitions this year. But next year will be a different matter. We have found a few different competitions which may be suitable for our players to go to. We plan to compete throughout the year. We hope even our recreational players will give competition a try because the judo experience is incomplete without it.

4. We didn't go to any training camps this year. Again, next year will be a different matter and we have already identified a few overseas destinations we could go to for training.

Wednesday's Program

Wednesday's Program
1. Gripping Drills:
- Iliadis grip-strength drill
- Korean Shake

2. Controlling Uke (Part 1)
- How to secure a sleeve grip (hikite)
- How to switch from a high-grip attempt to an unexpected attack

3. Controlling Uke (Part 2)
- How to secure a lapel grip (with your hikite)
- How to switch from a high-grip attempt to an unexpected attack

Newaza
Alligator Roll into a yoko-shiho-gatame
- How to roll and bait uke into trapping the leg
- How to extract the leg

Purposeful Randori

Randori is an essential component for mastering judo techniques. You do uchikomi to learn how to load up an opponent for a throw, you do nagekomi to get a feel for the execution of the throws, and you do randori to try out the technique against a resisting opponent.

There is a tendency for many players to treat randori as shiai (competition). In some extreme cases, each randori is treated like it's the final of the World Championships. This is not how you are supposed to do randori.

There is no win or lose in randori because it is not shiai. But you definitely lose out if you treat randori as shiai. In shiai you don't want to concede a score so you won't take chances. In contrast, in randori, you're supposed to take chances and try new things. It doesn't matter if you get countered. What's important is that you get to try your technique.

You can use randori to hone a technique that you've already mastered. Maybe you're a little bit rusty and want to sharpen your technique. That's fine. Use randori for that purpose. Or you might want to use randori to try out something completely new. Randori is ideal for that. If you get countered, you learn something about that technique -- you now know what not to do when executing it. And through a process of trial and error, you will figure out the best way to make the technique work.

You can also use randori to figure out a way to thwart your training partner's favorite technique. Let's say your partner always throws you with uchimata, how do you stop it? Or better still, how do you counter it? There are techniques to do that. Try them in randori. Bait your partner into doing uchimata and see if the counter works. If it doesn't, try tweaking your approach to it. You'll have to be willing to be thrown many times before you can figure out a solution to it. Leave your ego at the door of the judo hall and be willing to try, and fail, and get countered. This is how you learn.

Always be purposeful when you do randori. That is, be clear about what it is you are trying to achieve. Have that objective in mind and keep it in mind throughout the randori. Then, you will really benefit from the session.

Play the cards you're dealt with

There's a member of my judo club who is able to train only twice per week because her job schedule doesn't permit her to train more. She works nights and most of our training sessions are at night. So, she is only able to come on her two days off during the week.

I realize this is frustrating for her because she has told me should would like to train four or five times a week if she could.

There is a possibility she could get a morning shift assignment in the future but for now she's stuck with the evening shift. I told her that in the meantime, we just make the most of the two days she has and make every moment count during the training.

There are, for example, some players who attend a session and don't really focus on what's being taught. With such an attitude, even going for training four or fives times a week is a waste of time (waste of their time and waste of the coach's time too). In contrast, someone who just comes twice a week, but is very focused on learning and trying out new skills, will gain so much more.

Yesterday, I chatted with a foreign judo player who happens to be working in Malaysia now. She also has a late shift and has only one day off per week. That's the only day she can come for training, which is not much for someone who wants to get back into competition (she used to be an international competitor but has not trained for nearly a year).

I told her that once a week may not be much but we've got to play the cards we are dealt with. She would rather train more times a week and I too would rather have her train more times per week, of course. But this is not possible given her work schedule. So, what can we do? The answer is we make the most of her one off day per week and make that judo session really count.

Some people like to do things only when the conditions are ideal or "perfect" but in judo, as in life, there's no such thing as perfect conditions. Some situations are better than others but it's never perfect. Whatever cards you're dealt with, you play them the best that you can.

If you've got only two days a week, you train hard during those two days. If you've got only one day a week, make that one day the best session ever. Make the most of your situation, always. If you do that, you'll be much better off than someone who does things just as a matter of course, without any thinking, without any focus, without any intent. Just simply going through the motions. Such a person will gain little to nothing from training.

I always like to say that whatever we learn in judo is applicable to real life and this thing about playing the cards you're dealt, it really applies to real life as well.

Growing a judo club

While I was in Sandakan for the Borneo Cup, I had conversations with two other judo coaches about how difficult it is to grow a judo club. Anybody who has ever attempted to start and run a judo club will know this to be true.

One of the coaches, from a nearby country, had an interesting membership demographic. Like ours, his club has mainly adults as members. We have kids classes now but we started out as purely an adults class and today, our members are still mainly adults (which is an anomaly here in Malaysia).

He said they don't have many members, which sounds very much like how we were just a few years ago. I told him how important it was to post pictures and videos on social media. It's amazing to me that other clubs don't do it. Social media has brought us most of our members. It's how people get to know about our club.

Yes, editing video takes time. Writing blogs takes time. Even taking pictures and writing interesting captions take quite a bit of time. But we do all that because we realize how important it is. So, I really tried to emphasize this point to the coach.

I told him about how small our membership base was at one time but we slowly grew it with the help of social media. Now, thankfully, we have entered a virtuous cycle whereby when people check out our club, they are pleased to see that there are other adults to train. For beginners, we have many other beginners. For experienced players, we've also got a decent number of players with experience. But to get to where we are today, it took a long time and plenty of social media postings.

Another coach told me the problem he has is that most of his players are juniors who eventually go to college or start working and they leave their hometown to do so. Many go to bigger cities for these things. I told him this is not just a problem he faces. Many clubs face exactly the same problem. That's why I always say that Malaysian judo has an "seniors" problem. We have lots of kids doing judo. By the time they turn to cadets, they start dropping off. By the time they are in their late teens, there's only a few of them left. And by the time they are in university, most of them would have dropped out. Don't even talk about what happens when they graduate!

I told this coach, you've got to recruit some working adults to your club. Adults who take up judo want to do judo. Unlike kids, who are sent to judo by their parents, with adults it's 100% voluntary and you can be sure they are doing judo because they want to, not because somebody told them to. So they tend to stay a bit longer. They are also less likely to suddenly move away to a new city.

Yes, it's easier to recruit kids. Judo is a fairly easy sell to parents because they know judo is a good sport with a strong moral code. So, many parents like the idea of their kids doing judo. It's much, much harder to recruit adults because adults are so busy and caught up with so many "adult" things like work and family obligations. But they are a more stable demographic than kids when it comes to sticking to the sport.

So, in a nutshell, my two pieces of advice to anyone who wants to start a sustainable judo club are:
i) be active on social media
ii) recruit some adults to be the anchor or backbone of your club

Being a good host

Recently, we had some visitors from Jeju come to train at our dojo. It wasn't something we planned or expected. In fact, it literally came out of the blue for su. Apparently the organizers didn't plan their trip properly and as a result, when the team arrived in Malaysia, they had nowhere to train. Somebody gave their facilitator our contact details and we were happy to play host to them.

As with all our guests and visitors, we tried earnestly to provide them with a good experience. They were high-level athletes -- many of them had competed in top-level international competitions -- so we didn't have the same level of athletes to offer them. But we certainly tried our best to call up some coaches and judo friends to try to get more players for them to train with. With such short notice (or rather, no notice at all) it wasn't surprising that nobody could send their top athletes to KL to train with the Jeju team.

So, we had to rely on our own membership to offer them a worthwhile training session. Many of our members showed up, including some who couldn't train but helped take pictures and videos. The Jeju team seemed to appreciate the effort we had put in.

You would think any guest would appreciate it whenever a club takes great pains to ensure a decent crowd. But over the years, we have had a few people who said they wanted to visit our club, only to  cancel on us in the very last moment (after we had called in a lot of players to specially come for training). Some people had postponed their appointments and other activities just to be there for the guest. And what happens? The guest stands us up! It doesn't happen often but it's happened enough times that we are aware this could happen.

They say once bitten, twice shy. Well, that's true to a certain extent. We certainly won't care about people who have stood us up. That's just rude and ungrateful behavior on their part. But the bad behavior of a few rotten apples should not color our judgment of other, new guests who want to visit us. We should not have a cynical view of guests who say they want to visit. Instead, we should assume they are sincere and we should plan for them to have a great, memorable session with us.

It's basically the Golden Rule at play here. If we were to visit another club, we'd certainly want to see many players on the mats. How disappointing it would be if we went all the way to another city or country only to find very few players on the mat. It would mean the host took no effort to ensure that we would have a good session.

If we don't want people doing that to us, we should not do that to others. That's why I always believe if we have guests, we owe it to them to get as many players on the mat as possible. It's the least we could do.

It's a small world after all

From the start, we have always been a very diverse judo club, not just in terms of ethnicity but nationalities too. Our club has always been cosmopolitan. Even back in our first dojo in Cheras, we had members from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and different parts of Asia.

Through the years, we have had members come and go but our club continues to remain very diverse with members from all over the world. As we head into the new year, our membership is as multicultural as ever.

A look at our demographics reveals an interesting statistic: We have 20 Malaysian members and 21 foreign nationals!

Among the Malaysians we have representation from all the major ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese, Indian, Sikh as well as players who are natives of Sabah and Sarawak. We are very proud of our muhibbah team. Among the foreign nationals are players from China, France, Great Britain, Indonesia, Ireland, Russia, the Philippines and USA.We are delighted they feel comfortable and welcomed in our club.

As we head into the new year, we hope to get more Malaysians from all backgrounds and more international players joining our club. It's a small world and judo helps to bring all of us even closer together.

Continued growth

Our growth has been good

The end of the year is fast dawning upon us. It's a good time to look back at the growth and evolution of the club.

Although we lost a few members along the way (three dropped out shortly after we moved to our new place), we have gained quite a few new members so the net effect is positive. We have more members now than we did at the start of the year. Hopefully this growth trend will continue next year too.

In the past, when we were still finding our footing, there wasn't a clear demarcation of competitors and recreational players. But today, we have not two but three distinct group of judo players at our club:

a) competitors
b) recreational players
c) kids

Interestingly, the numbers are fairly equal with 15 who can be considered competitors; 15 who can be considered recreational; and 11 kids. That's a healthy mix.

In the coming year, we hope to continue to grow all three segments. It'll be interesting to see which one grows fastest. It's actually very hard to say. Conventional wisdom would say it's the kids segment because traditionally that is where the growth is. Most judo clubs in this country have more kids than adults. This is a clear indication of where the demand is. So, it stands to reason that that segment should be the one to grow the fastest.

But our club is not a typical judo club and our main demographic has always been adults. The fact that we have so many adults training at our club has created a virtuous cycle situation whereby the critical mass of adults that we have is in itself a strong attraction for other adults who want to do judo, to join our club.

No adult judo player likes going to a club and finding only one or two other adults to train with (or in some cases, no adults at all). Well, they won't find that problem at KL Judo Centre. It doesn't matter which session you attend, you will always have enough training partners to have a good workout.

The fact that we have a critical mass of adult competitors and adult recreational players also adds to the virtuous cycle situation. Imagine if a club had mainly recreational players. A competitive type would not like to join such a club. Conversely, imagine is a club consists of only competitors. A recreational player would feel intimidated and not want to join. But at KL Judo, we have a healthy mix of recreational and competitive players so nobody feels left out.

So, will the kids segment experience a boom or will the adults segment experience a growth spurt? Maybe both? Let's see.