Sometimes, a small group isn't a bad thing

More often than not, our training sessions involve small groups.

In general, it's better to have a bigger crowd than a smaller one when it comes to training. Everybody likes it when there's a big bunch of people to train with. More training partners means more variety when it comes to randori.

But sometimes -- actually oftentimes -- it's hard to get a group of judokas to assemble together for a training. This is especially true if you are talking about adults. And players in both Sunway Judo and KL Judo are adults. Unlike most other clubs in Malaysia, our membership does not mainly comprise kids and young teens. Our players are mainly university students and working adults.

University students have exams, assignments and social activities that sometimes get in the way of training. Working adults, meanwhile, have overtime, business trips and family obligations.

As a result of our membership demographics, we often don't have big groups in our training. But I always maintain that even if you have just one other person to train with, you can have a good training.

When there are fewer people, it's possible to give more individual attention to players. So those that do attend actually benefit a lot despite not having many partners to randori with. But I'd also argue that even when there are fewer randori partners, you can still make the most of the situation by adjust the kind of randori you do.

When there are lots of people on the mat, you naturally want to do free-flow randori where you fight within your comfort zone. You do the techniques you are familiar with and try to overcome your opponent. It's a test of your fighting skills.

When there are fewer people, randori can become more of a "drills" session where you set out to try stuff you aren't that familiar with but want to master. Of course you could do that even when there's a big group but when there's a lot of people on the mat you just want to have fun sparring. Drills, in contrast, are not fun. And randori done as drills are not fun either. They are designed to familiarize you with something that is probably uncomfortable for you to do (just because it's new stuff). But drills are necessary and good for your development.

So whether there's a big group or a small group, it doesn't matter. You can still have a good training!

KL Judo Open Day (Sunday, May 13)

We are pretty excited about our first Open Day where we'll have a bunch of visitors coming to train with us. Most of them are white belts but a handful are colored belts. It should make for a really good training session and hopefully a few of them will decide to join our club.

We believe the best warm-ups are judo games, especially ones that involve cooperation and teamwork. In the past year we have experimented with a few fun games and there are some that are particularly good for big groups. Two that come to mind are the "The Dojo Ball Game" and the "Zombie Game".

It's always a challenge when you have a mixed group of people with different experience levels but we believe we have a way to make it work. Before we start on technical training (for newaza and tachi-waza), we'll split the group into two with the beginners in one group and the experienced ones in another. The beginners will work on some basic forward rolls, backward rolls etc. The experienced ones will work on some gripping drills.

As usual we will begin our session with newaza. This will be done as a group. I'll try to pair each beginner with an experienced player. We'll work on the koshi-jime family of techniques. We'll start with the standard koshi-jime where tori secures uke around the armpit area. This is an absolutely classical version of the technique that still works even at the top level. However, the more common version involves tori holding uke's trouser area and we will work on that too. If there is time, we will work on an even more advanced version that involves tori inserting his leg across uke's abdomen, similar to a juji-gatame entry situation. So, for newaza it's:

a) classical koshi-jime (armpit grip)
b) modified koshi-jime (trousers grip)
c) advanced koshi-jime (leg insertion)

We will start with (a), then proceed to (b). If there is enough time, we will move on to (c), otherwise we will simply move on to tachi-waza.

Tachi-waza will also be done as a group. We will work on a trio of inter-related techniques centred around ippon-seoi-nage. From the ippon-seoi grip, it's possible to also do osoto-gari and kouchi-makikomi. Whether we get to do all three will depend on time. If we progress fast, we'll do all three. If not, just the first two. So, for tachi-waza it's:

a) ippon-seoi-nage
b) ippon osoto
c) kouchi-makikomi

We always end our sessions with randori. With a big group, we'll need to allocate at least an hour for this. The dojo is big enough to have six pairs (12 players) on the mat at any one time. We'll do a moto-dachi approach whereby six of our more experienced players will stay on the mat for three consecutive rounds of randori. Then we have a new batch of six players take their place as moto-dachi. And so on.

We believe even beginners should do randori (yes, on their first day). It's what we did at Sunway Judo Club and it's worked out really well. What's important is that they partner up with an experienced player who knows how to take care of them. So, on our Open Day, everyone will get a chance to randori, even absolute beginners.

Progressing at a steady clip

Our Sunway class is progressing steadily. This is only the start of the second month of training for these players and they've already learned some basic hold-downs, several throws and for the first time, a strangle.

I taught them the traditional form of koshi-jime, which is a pretty basic (although very effective strangle). Most of them managed to learn it quite fast. We also revised kesa-gatame and yoko-shiho-gatame before we moved to standing.

For standing, we worked on koshi-guruma, which is similar to ogoshi in a way except the grip is around uke's neck. The players took to that quite well too. They were told to do uchikomi followed by a throw onto the crash pad.

Then we moved on to randori. I am a big proponent of randori and I've had these students do randori from Day 1. We are very careful and always have an experienced player on the mat to partner with the beginners. So far, so good. The players get to try their techniques and they managed to get some fun out of the training. The best part of training is, after all, the randori.

The club has a steady group of enthusiastic members and that's important. I look forward to the coming weeks and months as the players continue to develop into strong judokas and as the club continues to grow from strength to strength.

Good showing at Singapore's Ikigai competition

Good work by our players in Singapore's. IKIGAI competition. #FlamesKLteam #KLJudo #MuayfitDP

A post shared by KL Judo Centre (@kljudo) on Apr 29, 2018 at 2:59pm PDT

I've long said that competition is an integral part of the judo experience. Yes, you can learn judo without ever competing but you would be missing out on a whole lot of experiences and life lessons without it.

Winning and losing is part of life. And nothing makes you confront the fear of losing like a judo competition. Judo not only forces you to deal with fears and anxiety but it also teaches you how to bounce back from setbacks.

Our team is a young one. As a competition team we have been together for less than a year. But in this short time, and over the course of the few competitions we've been to so far, I've seen our players grow.

One of our younger players used to say, "Why do you all get so nervous before your match, win or lose, it doesn't matter". This time around, this player said, "I'm so nervous," right before the fight, which shows that now, this person cares about winning.

Winning isn't everything but it's important to strive to win. If you don't care about whether you win or lose, that's not a good thing -- in judo or in life. We should all strive to win and be champions in whatever we do in life.

One of our players was so disappointed after losing a chance to get win the gold that this player wept after the fight. I told the player: You still have a chance at getting a medal because you are in a round robin situation. So go in there and win, ideally by ippon. And this player did just that.

The ability to pull yourself up and get on with the business at hand is an important quality, as much in life as in judo. In the course of our daily lives, we are bound to encounter some setbacks and disappointments but that doesn't mean we should wallow in self-pity. Rather, we must bounce back with the fighting spirit of judo to salvage what we can of the situation and make the most of it. This is what judo teaches you.

So, yes, there were some tears shed (I can tell you that more than one player cried and that's not necessarily a bad thing), a lot of good wins achieved, and plenty of joy and laughter that rang through the hotel, restaurants, competition hall and Grab cars. In fact, one of the best things about competition trips is the camaraderie and bonding that players experience. And we had a lot of that this time. 

Growing in tandem

KL Judo in its current form is two months old and going into our third month. Most of our players followed  us when we moved out of Cheras and into Damansara Perdana although it wasn't necessarily any nearer for most of them (and in some cases it's further than Cheras).

It was inevitable that some would not follow and also that some would drop out after the first month. That natural churn is only to be expected. But the important thing is that most followed us, proving that our methodology and system is good for them.

In the past two months, we've also picked up some new players, some of whom are absolute beginners but who are very keen, which is great. We currently have 20+ players. When we hit 30 regular members, that would be a great milestone for us.

At Sunway, we already have nearly 20 players although most are absolute beginners. That's pretty damn good considering we have just been doing this for half a month. What's interesting is that once we get someone to try out judo in one of our classes, they invariably stay on. Again, that goes to show how good our system is.

The challenge, I feel (whether it's with KL Judo or Sunway Judo) is getting people to try in the first place. Once they try it, they'll like it. My milestone for Sunway Judo is also 30 regular members. I think we'll get there (target milestones) for both KL and Sunway Judo sooner rather than later.

The start of the contest season

There are not a lot of judo competitions in Malaysia and if you want to get more judo competition experience you'll have to also look at contests in neighboring countries like Singapore and Indonesia.

Our boys and girls in Singapore.

This week we have a bunch of players in Singapore for the Ikigai judo competition organized by The Dojo. We have 8 players competing: 4 guys and 4 girls.

This is sort of the start of the competition season. After this week, we have a competition in Penang. Then it's a short break until July when there's a competition in Lumut, Perak.

After that we'll probably have to look to Jakarta for a competition likely to be held in August.

The big competition for local players is the Senior Nationals in October. Then, nothing till December when there are competitions in Penang, Singapore and Sabah.

Competition can be stressful and pressurizing but it's also a lot of fun and allows players to bond and get to know each other better. We encourage all our players to give competition a try and we believe most of our players will eventually do so.

Sunday (22.4.18) Training Report

We didn't get to do personal training. There just wasn't enough time. Another thing that went wrong was our TV USB port was somehow damaged so I couldn't show any videos. But that didn't deter us from having a good session.

For groundwork, I showed them kesa-gatame and kuzure-kesa-gatame. Then with the help of Nigel, I showed them three different types of escapes from kesa-gatame. We paired the players up and had them do kesa-gatame and escapes under full resistance.

Ippon-seoi-nage lesson in one minute. #FlamesKLteam #KLJudo #MuayfitDP

A post shared by KL Judo Centre (@kljudo) on Apr 22, 2018 at 11:18am PDT

After that we moved on to ippon-seoi-nage and morote-seoi-nage. I demonstrated ippon-seoi while Nigel demonstrated morote-seoi. We got the players to do uchikomi followed by nagekomi of these throws. Then we taught them the drop-down variations of both these throws and got them to do uchikomi and nagekomi.

Morote-seoi-nage the way it is done in competition. #FlamesKLteam #KLJudo #MuayfitDP

A post shared by KL Judo Centre (@kljudo) on Apr 22, 2018 at 12:31pm PDT

After a brief period of rest, it was onto randori for a full hour.

Takin' it easy... #FlamesKLteam #KLJudo #MuayfitDP

A post shared by KL Judo Centre (@kljudo) on Apr 22, 2018 at 1:11pm PDT

The turnout was pretty good although some players weren't able to make it. We also had some newcomers (teens) who look like they can integrate well with the team. Our regular players are also starting to get used to the training regime at KL Judo.