Developing a Lesson Plan: Ukemi

This time, we’ll talk about Ukemi, especially as they relate to the Weekly Goals. Again, as I mentioned the first time, I’m going to use my templates (PDF or XLSX). If you have Excel, I suggest downloading the XLSX file (if you don’t have Office 2010, you can still use it, you just have to get the patch from Microsoft to open the file), otherwise use the PDF and hand write out the guide. One more suggestion before we get on to the meat of the project: keep records of your guide it can help for future classes covering the same or similar topics or as necessary in other situations.

AnnMaria once (I know, I know, I take forever to write my blogs. ... ) said to me, “I have always considered ukemi a necessary evil.” If you look at ukemi this way as well, that’s your prerogative. My take on ukemi is that ukemi helps the student’s safety and ability to take any throw that comes at them.

This is my smallest section because I don’t personally feel that an instructor should devote all their time to ukemi in any one class. I believe, however, that they should devote some time to ukemi in every class even if they only teach ground work during a class. The flexibility and reaction development from ukemi help tremendously.

Now ukemi should be taught in a progressive manner developing skill without creating excessive trepidation. My method of teaching ukemi sees the greatest success when I start from the ground up. I start all of my students on ukemi, at least the back and side falls, by having them lay flat on the ground with their arms crossed over, but not touching, their chests. Once they have this position I have them swing their arms to slap the mats to get the feel of the slaps.

The next stage of my progression is from a sitting position. Here is the first real coordinated motion. From the seated position, the student’s hands are in the same position, chins tucked and all, then they roll back while simultaneously swinging their arms for the slap. This helps their body get the timing right for the motion and position of their bodies.

Subsequent stages, in progressive order, include squatting, standing-to-squatting, standing, and finally leaping. You may ask why I require my students, by green belt, to learn leaping falls. I do this because I want my students at green belt or higher to be able to save themselves in any circumstance, competitive or otherwise, where the very real possibility exists that if they don’t jump they may get hurt. I would rather they lost the match because they jumped than broke a knee or an elbow because they couldn’t.

Front falls are a fall of a different design. Competitively, you can’t throw someone on their face, deliberately. But it does happen, especially with turnouts and such. No one wants to fall on their face and the injuries are frequently to the wrists or hands of someone falling to their face. Instead, at my club, we teach front falls from the knees first, leaning forward at the knees. As students gain greater confidence with front falls the altitude gets greater starting with very wide legged front falls and eventually with leaping front falls.

A note on the wide legged aspect: people can adjust their height two ways: bending their knees or spreading their legs. Bending the knees is not helpful for front falls, but spreading the legs is. Early stages of front falls, after being on the knees, should have very wide spread legs. Once the student gains greater confidence, the spread should narrow progressively.

The last instructional element of ukemi is zempo kaiten ukemi (rolling falls). Everybody has a different style of teaching these. My personal favorite, with which I see about a 90% success rate, starts from a kneeling position with a specific hand placement and knee width. After the student is comfortable with the kneeling method, I have them straighten their back leg and perform. Eventually we add two-step then roll, walking then roll, jogging then roll, running then roll, and, you guessed it, leaping rolls. The reason for the leaping remains the same throughout, although it can be quite impressive to see someone leap over an obstacle 5 feet high and land safely.

These are the ways I teach ukemi. However, there are a lot more ways to make ukemi fun and interesting for students and I highly recommend them, especially if you view ukemi as a necessary evil.

My students like games. I bet yours do too. Anytime you can make ukemi a game you will find students having fun. One game we like is “bouncing ukemi” where the students start in a squatting position and bounce a little. On command they slap hands and do whichever fall they’re supposed to do. This can get to being a race against the clock to see how many they can do. With slight modification to standing it can even be a race for zempo kaiten ukemi, as well!

One game that works really well is ukemi tag or ukemi dodge ball tag. The principle on these is the same the difference is that with dodge ball the person who is “it” can reach out and touch someone. Essentially the game is freeze tag, but to unfreeze a frozen player (and I got this idea from the 2008 Judo Forum Clinic and Camp), another player must crawl through the legs of the frozen, pat hands, and do whichever ukemi you call for.

There are a host of other games and you can certainly make up your own. My advice is very simple, whatever you do or want to do for a class, write it down so you don’t forget it or use too much time on one topic to the exclusion of another.

Next time: Technical Instruction!

What do you think of it so far?

Developing a Lesson Plan: The Warm-Up

This time, we’ll talk about Warm-ups, especially as they relate to the Weekly Goals. Again, as I mentioned last time, I’m going to use my templates (PDF or XLSX). If you have Excel, I suggest downloading the XLSX file (if you don’t have Office 2010, you can still use it, you just have to get the patch from Microsoft to open the file), otherwise use the PDF and hand write out the guide. One more suggestion before we get on to the meat of the project: keep records of your guide it can help for future classes covering the same or similar topics or as necessary in other situations.

Here’s the most important question you can ask yourself before you decide on the warm-up for the class: What are we teaching this class? Once you can answer that question, you can develop your warm-up plan. My theory on warm-ups, mostly developed from people like AnnMaria, Gerald Lafon, and a variety of clinics and clinicians, is that the warm-up should prepare the student/athlete for the activities of the class and not be there for the sole purpose of developing an athlete’s strength or endurance at the expense of the lesson.

So, let’s say our lesson for the day covers Seoi Nage, Transition to Hold-down, and an Escape from that hold-down. What sort of warm-ups should you do? How long should you do the warm-ups? These are important. They are also questions I can’t answer for you.

Here’s what I can do: I can provide you with a number of references and books. My top leading references include Drills for Grapplers by Steve Scott (ISBN 978-1-934903-04-9), Martin Rooney’s Training for Warriors (ISBN 978-0-06-137433-3), and Martin Rooney’s Ultimate Warrior Workouts (ISBN 978-0-06-173522-6). These are great references that are currently in print. There are a number of out of print references as well.

Now, here’s how I would cover the example lesson I referenced earlier. I like somersaults and backward somersaults because of the disorienting effect of those and how they force the body to keep working even when confused. Further, I like to put in turning side jumps to help the student get their turns for the seoi nage as quickly as possible, it also increases the heart rate, which I’m told is good. I like to do “judo push-ups” and “Kimura sit-ups” as well, to help develop core strength and use their entire body in exercise. Finally, I add a “Bridge and Reach” exercise to help the student develop their skill and explosivity in bridging while trying to push a body off of them. For more advanced students, modifications, like medicine ball tosses or multi-person variations, can be added to the exercises.

Thinking about warm-ups, one of the most important aspects of warm-ups is that they aren’t there to wear out the athlete. Warm-ups are there to get the body warmed up for exercise. Do not overuse warm-ups in the false notion that your athletes will train better if they are tired. Your athletes need to be warm, not dead tired. Use your technical instruction time to wear them out, not your warm-ups.

Next time: Ukemi!

What do you think of it so far?

Developing a Lesson Plan

Last time I discussed creating training plans in general. This time, I’m going to break down developing a lesson guide in specific. I’m going to use my templates (PDF or XLSX). If you have Excel, I suggest downloading the XLSX file (if you don’t have Office 2010, you can still use it, you just have to get the patch from Microsoft to open the file), otherwise use the PDF and hand write out the guide. One more suggestion before we get on to the meat of the project: keep records of your guide it can help for future classes covering the same or similar topics or as necessary in other situations.

 

This is my standard template for my lesson guides. As you can see, at the top, I identify which class. For me the class name is “Roswell Judo Club, Adult Class” (or one of the other classes I run). Below that is the “Class:” section, here I identify what level class, such as Junior 1, Rokyu, or Semester 1, for example. This helps me identify what the group of students is the target for this lesson guide. Finally, for the header section, I identify the date for this lesson. This helps me know when I will teach or have taught this particular lesson. If I have to be away for a lesson or several, this helps the assistant instructor know what the plan for teaching is for whichever day he or she teaches.

Weekly Goals. These are very important. Without goals, as I’m sure most have heard, you haven’t any idea where you’ll go. I only have three weekly goals for any level of student. Three goals, for two to four hours of class a week, are about as many as an instructor or coach can truly impart. Choose the three most important things for your students or athletes for that week. Anything more and you’ll spend more time doing less important activities.

Let me talk about goals for just a minute or two. In judo you have two major types of students: the Competitor and the Non-Competitor. How you treat these two doesn’t matter to me at all. At Roswell Judo Club, we have more students learning about judo rather than competing. This means that most of my lesson guides emphasize learning techniques and practicing rather than developing athletes to win tournaments. You may have the opposite. Whichever direction you go, make sure your goals are appropriate.

Back to Weekly Goals, let’s look at examples of a weekly goal, in my class, the goal for my first semester college students (this week) is learning Kesa Gatame, how to Bridge and Roll Escape from Kesa Gatame. So, for this week, even though we’re off for Labor Day, I have to concentrate their classes on getting into Kesa Gatame from standing, Bridge and Roll, then escape. That means that I shouldn’t concentrate on any one throw, just any throw into Kesa Gatame. Nor should I concentrate on other hold downs. Nor should I concentrate on other escapes than the Bridge and Roll. If I waste what little time I have in class on developing their Seoi Nage or some other throw, then I’m wasting their time and no instructor or coach should do that to their students.

Well, I hate to do this, but I’m going to break this up into three more sections, one on Warm-ups, Ukemi, and Technical Instruction.

What do you think of it so far?

Training Plans

I’ve said before that I’ll write up how to develop a training plan, including calendars and lesson plans. So here we go.

The first thing any club instructor has to do before they think of calendars or lesson plans is to figure out what exactly they want to do and when it has to be accomplished. Because I can’t give you all the possible variables, I’ll tell you what I did and why I did it that way.

My perspective is based on a lack of competitive opportunities within three hours of Roswell, NM. Since there aren’t very many, I’ve decided to concentrate on developing technical proficiency and knowledge with emphasis on developing instructor training for higher levels. I also have a very specific set of promotional requirements for both juniors and seniors (available at http://www.roswell-judo.org/promotion.html). We hold classes on an academic schedule at Roswell Judo Club because of the ease of scheduling for youth, parents, adults, and college students. The academic schedule and the promotional requirements provide the backbone for developing the class calendars.

Each level, from beginner to ikkyu, has a separate calendar because they each have different promotional requirements. Classes are held on specific days and only those days, so every promotional requirement must be covered on those days. While it makes for a lot of initial work for the instructor, it makes future planning and class planning very easy. All of my calendars are online at http://www.roswell-judo.org/promotion.html under each grade.

Once you have your calendar for your time frame, you must have some kind of lesson plan or guide to keep the class moving in the right direction. One thing about lesson plans, really quick, a lesson plan is a guide it should never be seen as a non-adjustable procedure. If you look at it as inflexible, you’ll either rush over something that needs more time or you’ll put too much time on something your students grasp quickly.

Here are the first six days of my lesson guides for my junior beginner class (I'll post those a little later) and my college class (http://roswell-judo.org/ENMUR_Begin_LessonGuide.pdf). As you can see, I identify what class, what level, what day, weekly goals. I further break it down into the three class elements: warm-ups, ukemi, and technical instruction. I like weekly goals because they give me an idea of what is really important for my students’ learning that week.

I use the warm-ups based on the activities to be covered and to develop my students’ conditioning. Ukemi, to me, is one of the most critical elements for judo players. My expectation for my students is that if they get into a tournament and they get into a very dangerous position, some position where the execution will result in bodily harm, I want them to be able to save themselves even if it means losing the match. With such an expectation, I place great emphasis on ukemi training.

Finally, the technical section is where I line out the general flow of technical instruction for the class. In this section I tend to break down the instruction into essential elements when I start teaching the project. Once students have learned the fundamentals of the technique, I tend to bring in greater drill practice and practical application to ensure that not only have the students learned the techniques but can also apply them in randori or shiai.

This is just a brief overview of developing calendars and lesson plans. I’ll put together something on developing lesson plans later on. Calendar programs are all over the place on the internet, but I tend to use http://www.pdfcalendar.com for my preliminary scheduling. After I have the preliminary done, I use Microsoft Publisher because they have an easy calendar creator and it produces a nice, printable calendar that I can print to PDF format which is then easily distributable. For my lesson plans, I use Microsoft Excel which allows me to set up a template that is protected from adjustment of the non-adjustable elements like the name of the class and the names of the segments. The inputable segments are not protected because they change with each class.

So those are the basics of how I create training schedules in the rough. What do you think?

Fall 2011 Judo Sign-ups

We’re going to be very busy this semester. We have four classes, three of which are at the Yucca Center and one is for the cadets at New Mexico Military Institute. So far we have right around 50 students signed up, a little over half of whom are at the Yucca Center.

This semester the college class doubled in size with about four students returning for the class, but most all of them returning for judo. We have a lot of brand new people to martial arts, one with some experience in Brazilian JiuJitsu (and Gracie Combatives), and so far, after four classes, they are all having a great time.

The youth classes are growing slowly and steadily with about half of them being new to judo, although one of the new ones has had a little bit of experience. The others are continuing through, we should have our first Junior 4^th in December as well as a couple of new Junior 3^rd’s. It looks to be a lively time with them.

Our adult classes are growing as well with a healthy dose of brand new students and students mixing in from the college class. We should have a quite a few gaining ranks by the end of the semester, especially considering the amount of hard work they’re putting in.

The NMMI class has a lot of returning cadets, thankfully enough it’s not an exclusively Sunday class this year, instead it’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays (3:30pm to 5:00pm). They should all do nicely. We have a few more sign-ups than the facilities will allow, but we’ll make it work somehow.

Competitively, I don’t expect we’ll send very many to tournament in the fall, but we will probably be sending a few in the spring. I’m hoping to take a few to Dallas in January/February for the Okuri Judo Club’s Lone Star Classic. I’m also hearing tales of NMSU’s Judo Club sponsoring a tournament with the City of Las Cruces in the spring which would be a great place to send students for tournaments, from all four classes!

As for what we’re planning, I’m hoping to hold a coaching clinic, maybe with clinicians that will teach the ever-elusive “Kelly’s Capers,” to bring at least two of my students into the certified coaching fold. Our last clinic, the one in June, brought in 20 participants and was quite well received. (I’m still working on the DVD’s for that, but it turns out that the HD DVD program I have burns Blu-Rays, not DVD’s.) So I expect that the spring clinic should be quite well received.

We’re also looking for a volunteer willing to coordinate fundraising efforts for the club. We still need new mats and if we can come up with the funding for the mats, I’d like to put in a spring loaded floor and have tentative approval for all of that.

And one final announcement, for parents or adults over 16 years old, if you would like to learn Gracie Combatives with us, I’m willing to run the program (no cost) on Tuesdays and Thursday evenings from 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm as long as you’re willing to make a commitment until May to come to practice. The only catch is that I need six people to make that commitment.

Growing Judo in the United States

One of the big concerns I hear a lot online about judo in the United States is its lack of growth. Most of the time, the concerns are expressed in tones of distress as though there’s nothing that can be done to grow judo or that the concerned don’t feel that national organizations are doing enough or are just doing the wrong thing. The lack of growth is a great concern for judo in the U.S. but one of the problems with that line of thinking is that it removes the individual coach from any responsibility for growing judo. That’s the wrong thinking.

The first thing we have to do is develop judo students into good judo players. That means we don’t concentrate on making champions before they are safe. We concentrate on developing their basics like falling, throws, and hold-downs before we teach them how to grip fight or competitive rules and variations. Once they’re safe, then we start teaching them how to randori, maybe “Kelly’s Capers” will help that, and from randori to shiai.

That’s just the first part of growing judo: develop the players. After the players are developed, then we develop the coaches. A good coach knows how to compete and has been on the mat fighting for the win. They know what training has to happen for success. They know how to motivate their fighters in training and on the mat. This is not an easy thing to teach, but it is seriously lacking because too many don’t see their players as individuals, but copies of themselves. The coach emphasizes what works or worked for the coach while ignoring the player’s needs and abilities.

Our current coaching education program is definitely a work in progress, but they’re being very close mouthed about it. I can’t find much in the way of information, the program, apparently, changes every time a new chair comes in. It happened when Big Jim took over and it seems to be happening now that Bill Montgomery has the chair. Personally, I don’t care, but this kind of constant flux for an education program is foolish. Certainly updates should happen, but complete overhauls should be rare.

The last time I looked at the program (http://www.usja-judo.org/GrowingJudo/GrowingJudo2009_01.pdf) the only real references and resources were incredibly limited. However, when I went to the clinic in Las Vegas more references were provided and some mention was made of modifications of the program. Unfortunately, I’ve heard naught since then. It would be nice to hear about some updates.

After coaching, we need to develop teachers. Coaches are not teachers and teachers are not coaches in their duties. While one person may be both a teacher and a coach, the roles are definitely separate. A teacher teaches, a coach refines and develops for sport. USJA doesn’t have any teacher development program. That’s absolutely not any good.

I’m not sure how to formally teach teachers, but I have a process that I use and it’s a lot of hands-on teaching. It’s been successful for me, though I haven’t produced any black belts, yet. On the other hand I have some very exceptional teachers of whom I am very proud (Alana, Rolando, Eddy, Ashley – this means you!). One of the things that I use is a very thorough and detailed standards and benchmarks, promotional standards, and calendars. I also teach my students about lesson planning, scheduling, and interpretation of standards and benchmarks toward application. Mostly, though, I teach the how to teach by having them teach others that are junior to them, in some cases Juniors. My method is definitely not the best; however, it is very effective for me.

The goal for me is to build a cadre of effective teachers and coaches to place in every school in my town. I think this is one of the keys to growing judo. The more emphasis we place on youth programs, the better off we’ll be by developing judo players from the beginning and developing ways and means to keep them integrated and involved in judo. I expect this will take awhile because I have to develop a number of instructors because I just don’t have very many.

The first stage was actually creating the club itself. I started that in 2007 and we’ve been slowly growing every since. After that was to start a program at either the military school or the local community college. Unfortunately the local military school still hasn’t decided about judo as an academic class, although it has allowed me to create a club (thanks Ron), though growth there is tenuous. However the local community college has allowed me to teach a credit course in beginning judo which has really taken off (10 signed up first semester and 11 signed up for this semester).

The next stages involve taking some of my instructors and branching into the high schools, then middle schools, and finally elementary schools. These programs will be after-school activities rather than academic classes in the public schools based on public school standards and benchmarks, though I will certainly be working to figure out a way to implement judo as a high school class at the military school and the local high schools.

So, that’s my theory on how to grow judo in the United States: Build a good youth program and get judo in the schools! Build good coaches and help them become good instructors!

Extra Resources:

• Successful Coaching - 3rd Edition by Rainer Martens (ISBN: 978-0736040129
• Growing Judo, January 2009 (p. 13-22)
• Growing Judo, March 2010 (p. 12-14)
• An introduction to the USJA Coaching Program
• Searching for Judo Blog, Sundays Events (As Promised) – 8 February 2010
• Searching for Judo Blog, The Last of the Las Vegas Clinic – 26 February 2010

Personal Work This Year

I have some grand plans for myself this year. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last five years teaching judo with very little time dedicated to my own personal growth. I’m not going to change that either! But I do have some work I’d like to do and three major goals by May. The first is to finally get my Yawara rank and USJA rank in synch and finally get ranked as a Nidan in USJA! I’d also like to move up to a Level C Coach certification through USJA and, in conjunction with that, learn what all the hoopty-do is about the “Kelly’s Capers” program.

If you don’t know yet, I’ve not always been associated with the USJA. As a matter of fact, I’ve only recently (since about 2002) become minorly involved with regard to ranks, though in 2007 I really started getting more serious about national organizations. I grew up in Yawara Judo Association and still believe that the Yawara standards are far more important and thorough than USJA’s, although one could hardly tell prior to my re-write of the requirements (by request of the senior leadership of Yawara). So my grades have never coincided yet, but come November they will!

But to get this rank situation dealt with, I’d really like to have some time to work on the two kata Yawara  requires (Nage no Kata and Katame no Kata), work through the various nage waza, and a host of other things, but I need to coordinate with my Nikyu about that.

Now, I do have a little bit of a thought to ponder regarding Time in Grade and exceptions for competitors. Competitors are frequently given exemptions for their time in grade based on competitive success and I think this is acceptable. What I find unacceptable is the lack of exception for club leaders, especially junior black belt grades, who have to start clubs because, for some reason or another, no other clubs exist in their area. Why should a competitor who is, arguably, working harder for their competitive success than a non-competitor who just comes to class be able to ignore time in grade requirements while a club leader who is, definitely, working hard than a non-club leader who just comes to class cannot? (I may expand on this topic in the future.)

Either way the wind blows, and I don’t expect it to blow towards alleviating that concern, come November or October I’ll have satisfied the ridiculously long three year time in grade requirement for USJA Nidan and then I’ll be eligible. Once that’s done, I’ll just have to carry through with the promotional requirements and process the paperwork.

The next major goal this year is the Level C Coach certification. I don’t even know if this is still the coaching certification scheme, but I don’t know where to find out more information about it. So, instead, I’ll just keep trying to find some good coaching clinicians and try to attend. Although, if things go well this year, I’ll hold a coaching clinic in March to bring out one of the clinicians that can teach “Kelly’s Capers” and certify about 10 or so coaches.

About “Kelly’s Capers” I know an extremely limited amount because the USJA is being extremely tight-lipped about what it entails, however they are claiming that it is a remarkable program for bringing students into randori and from there shiai. I think it would be a good deal if they released some teaser trailers of clinics or what Kelly’s Capers is all about, that might drum up some more interest in attending these Kelly’s Capers clinics.

Personally, I think every coach or educator or sensei or however you want to think of yourself, has the responsibility to constantly update, learn, steal, or whatever to keep their students interested in and learning new ways to learn and apply techniques. If the coach doesn’t constantly update, stagnation begins and clubs start running into problems with retention because it’s always the same old thing. I try to make sure that I’m looking at new methods, teaching techniques, theories about why something works, or what they’re doing in the rules/matches today. If all the coaches out there subscribed to that theory, maybe we wouldn’t be so far behind? By the way, one of the best resources is reading AnnMaria’s blog about judo.