A place where visitors can train

Shin Inho (4th from right) posing with our senior players.

When I was a competitor in the early 90s, I trained in the UK. One of the clubs I regularly trained at was the Budokwai in London. What impressed me about that club was not only the fact that their membership was quite cosmopolitan, they also had a lot of regular foreign visitors. If a judo player from abroad was visiting London, they'd go to the Budokwai to train.

Well, KL Judo has a pretty cosmopolitan membership base (we have players from France, Hong Kong, Russia, The Philippines, Great Britain and the USA) and we also get a lot of visitors. Recently, we've had visitors from France, Australia and Brazil come train with us. I guess we're not doing too bad if we're successfully following the Budokwai's lead in attracting international judo players.

Yesterday we had yet another international guest, a South Korean player named Shin Inho, who was in Malaysia for just a short visit. He wanted to do some judo and we were delighted to have him do some training and teach us some stuff too.

Having international judo players train with us is good for our members. They get exposed to different types of judo and different types of players. Judo is an international sport. You cannot expect to become good at judo by staying insular. That's why we are so lucky to have international members and visitors at our club.

We are able to attract international players because of a variety of reasons. Firstly, we are active on social media. We post pictures, video clips, livestreams and blog articles on a very regular basis. Such information give people a really good sense of what to expect if they come to train at our club.

We have a very nice program, with lots of technical instruction and plenty of randori. We also have a critical mass of adult members. We have many beginners and we have many senior players too. Having that mix is fun for visitors. They can see all that through our social media postings.

Inho with his female fans!

There is also word of mouth. It's well known that our players are very warm and friendly. I have a judo friend from the UK who tells me he finds most judo clubs to be cold places where people don't warm up to you until you've been there for quite some time. Not at our club. Our players are incredibly welcoming in that sense. They're joking and laughing and taking pictures with new members and guests straight away.

A good judo program with lots of warm and friendly members to train with. And we're not shy about sharing our thoughts, pictures and videos with the world. And that's how we managed to attract international judo players.