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.

Ronda’s MMA Match (12 August 2011)

Friday night, Ronda Rousey had her third professional MMA match. Her opponent was Sarah D’Alelio. It was a very quick match ending in 25 seconds by “verbal” tap out. Immediately at the stoppage, D’Alelio and her corner were protesting, declaring that she didn’t tap. Instant replay and slow motion confirmed that there was no physical tap. However, Ronda reported that D’Alelio made some sort of verbal groan and fighters were told prior to the match that such noises were cause to stop the match. The color commentator queried both fighters at the end and D’Alelio’s response was that she said “Argh!” (It is a little difficult to write what she said because it was some kind of noise.)

According to Rhadi Ferguson, on his blog for ProMMANow.com, “if you scream, you tapped!” I don’t know if this is written anywhere (if you know, dear readers, let me know!), but this is certainly reasonable to me.

If you haven’t seen the fight, here it is, courtesy of YouTube:

I think it was a wonderful fight with a very beautiful and rarely seen from Ronda, “flying armbar” transition. I know Ronda and AnnMaria have so much experience with and know so many entries to juji gatame this particular entry should be no surprise, but it was. The biggest reason for my surprise was that Ronda hasn’t shown this in any of the judo matches or other MMA matches (granted the MMA matches have all been under a minute, so…) and the transition was pulled off so smoothly, you would have thought this was a regular “go to” move for her.

I’ve done a lot of reading about Ronda over the last four years or so and, personally, don’t think anyone she’s fought in MMA since she started is really up to her level of competition. I think she’s winning these matches so quickly out of habit, but perhaps she could play a little longer with her opponents? I think if she does that she’ll be more prepared for some of the variety she should be able to expect from Carano or Cyborg. On the other hand, I’ve seen her run the beach in Cali and I sure don’t want to be on the other side of the ring from her!

To Ronda, good on ya! Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing great things about you in the MMA ring! (Maybe one day I can figure out a way to get you to come to Roswell to do a clinic?)

Judo as an Academic Pursuit

If you weren’t aware I just finished my Master of Business Administration degree (concentration in Marketing). It was a great experience, but let me tell you why I pursued it. When I started the Roswell Judo Club, I had no clue how to run a business or a club so I was just winging it. The first several years were difficult and I’m just now getting over that, but it is still slow going. About the middle of the third year I decided that I was ready to pursue further education and figured that if I’m going to run a judo club, then I should know how to run it as a business, especially if I’m going to run it as a non-profit.

Now that’s over and the real work begins. I’m planning on filing as an LLC (long overdue, I know), a non-profit in the State of New Mexico, and work towards 501 (c) 3 status with the IRS.

But what does all that have to do with “Judo as an Academic Pursuit?” A very little bit but it’s a little bit down in the foundation. In order for me to pursue judo as an academic endeavor, I have to be able to fund the operation sufficiently, which I haven’t been able to do to this point.

On to the meat of the topic!

As you may have gathered by now, Roswell is on the tail end of nowhere with a three hour drive to almost any major town and a lot further from many competitions. With that being said, I’ve concentrated on developing technically proficient judo players with a very broad base of knowledge. I’ve chosen to go this route because I feel that if I have enough people competent to teach judo, I can spread judo throughout Roswell and eventually create a significant population of judo players throughout the schools, and schools are the academic environment I’m targeting.

The first step is done. I have a college physical education class through Eastern New Mexico University – Roswell that is growing by leaps and bounds. (Perhaps in spring there will be enough to have two classes!) The second steps are classes at New Mexico Military Institute, which is proving a much harder nut to crack (a little alumni pressure might help – nudge, nudge). The third stage is involvement in either the elementary schools (which would require a lot of on-site instructors) or the high schools (which would only require two additional instructors). By that time we should have a very solid core of judo players in Roswell, but that will take time.

These plans require a couple of things. The first is a solid instructional program that is easily applicable throughout the programs. This is the hardest element to develop because of the great gaping hole in any universal curriculum plan based on educational standards and benchmarks. I have developed an entire set of standards and benchmarks based on the promotional guidelines I have.

Another element of the instructional plan, and one many experienced players/instructors bring up is what happens in a class with a lot of different grades? The solution for me seemed simple: set up multiple training plans with a similar thread for the different levels in any given class.

For example, on the first day of class, the population consists of brand new beginners, yellow belts, orange belts, green belts, purple belts, and brown belts. Obviously absolute beginners should be learning how to fall and be safe, perhaps even a simple throw to show what they can do. On the other hand, purple and brown belts should be working on harder techniques and applying them against significant resistance and drilling what they know. So a good instructor will organize the case with different objectives for every level while maintaining an overall cohesive theme.

So, one of the things that I did was to take my curriculum, the dates of the class as they’re spread throughout the, in my case, semester, and develop various training plans based on individual levels. Once that training plan is final, creating lesson plans that flow with the other levels is vital. Last semester’s Beginning Judo class at ENMU-R proved, to me, the effectiveness of this method.

So now I have the standards and benchmarks, a calendar for semesters 1 through 4 (for ENMU-R), and soon I’ll have the lesson plans for the entire spectrum. If you’ve got any ideas or suggestions, let me know!

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Judo Tip:

If you really want to be a good judo teacher, start going to coaching clinics and reading books about coaching. BUT! Don't forget to read about being a good teacher, studying learning styles, and planning lessons.