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.