Judo Manuals and Concepts

This past week at work I have been in training. Not the world's most exciting training, but very valuable for what I do in the real world. That being said, I went through most of a legal pad making notes...on judo.

Currently I have a small problem in my judo program. Its not a dilemma that my students face. Its a dilemma that I face in that I was brought up in judo from outside the "normal" process. I still firmly believe that the way I brought up was most prudent for my area and I believe it to be a very correct concept for teaching judo. This is a question of one's philosophy of judo and its purpose.

In judo in the United States, there exist three major national governing bodies and a variety of outside organizations. My club is affiliated with the United States Judo Association and is a Yawara Judo Association club. There are major disparities between these two organizations' promotional guidelines. I believe both have significantly valid points to consider. This is at the core of my problem.

My solution is to merge these two organizations' guidelines into one. Perhaps the best way to look at this is to use the USJA's Junior Guidelines. USJA uses junior grades 1-10. Each level adds 2 throwing techniques per level. This is excellent for the development of juniors, especially taking things like motor skills development of young students. By the time a student reaches the level of Junior 10, assuming they've started at age 8, the student has aged around 5 to 7 years and has 20 throwing techniques. USJA guidelines suggest that the conversion from Junior to Senior at the level of Junior 10 should go to Nikyu (Second Brown Belt). Yawara's guidelines for Nikyu are the first four sections of the Go Kyo no Waza (the basic curriculum of throwing techniques) which equates to about 32 techniques.

What I plan on doing is, for my juniors, require them to progress from Junior 1 through Junior 10 and instead of converting from Junior 10 to Nikyu, they will meet Yawara standards for Sankyu (Third Brown Belt, the first earned brown belt) which requires 24 throwing techniques and the first three sections of the Nage no Kata.

What I plan on doing for my seniors, which is mildly different as seniors learn four techniques per grade and only has 6 non-black belt grades. Doing the math, this equates to 24 techniques that need to be learned prior to black belt. The Yawara standard requires 40 techniques for Ikkyu (First Brown Belt, the last earned brown belt). So the big difficulty is between the brown belt level and the less-than-brown belt levels. There are three less-than brown belt grades, which means that the student who gains the belt right before brown belt has 12 techniques and with the Yawara standard for Sankyu being 24 techniques, the senior student has to double his technical knowledge from green belt to brown belt. I think that's a bad deal, but that's the deal.

That is why the juniors have a better deal, instead of having to learn 12 techniques to become a brown belt, they only have to learn 4 techniques. So that's what I'm working on.