Sunday’s Events (As Promised)

Sunday was a long day! Eight different topics were covered by eight different clinicians. That may sound like a lot and if it doesn’t, I don’t want your idea of a lot! Each clinician spent about 45-55 minutes on their topic and covered it as thoroughly as possible within the allotted time frame. The morning was broken into a more academic side to clubs while the afternoon was dedicated to helping those coaches in attendance learn how to be better coaches.

The lead-off clinician was Paul Nogaki of Temecula Valley Judo started with how to run a judo club as a business. Mostly the early aspects covered keeping the dojo doors open. After all, if the doors aren’t staying open month to month, where will you do judo? The deeper the topic went the closer we came to discussing ideal business structures for judo clubs. Paul appears to be of the opinion that the average judo club should never be run as a partnership or a sole proprietorship, but as a corporate entity, an LLC, S-Corp, or C-Corp with LLC being the easiest to become. Finally, Paul closed out his session by discussing Risk Management and independent insurance policies even suggesting that a $3,000,000 should be the minimum a club should have.

Gary Goltz filled the middle of the morning sessions with a wonderful presentation of marketing. The PowerPoint presentation Gary used was shameless self-promotion and a fine example of how he and Goltz Judo Club have made use of marketing, networking, the internet, and all the aspects of his discussion. Besides, what is marketing besides shameless self-promotion? Gary appears to be a master of this as he has one of the largest judo clubs in the United States Judo Association! If you’re interested in the PowerPoint presentation, Gary may be willing to let you in on it, but you’ll have to ask him. Maybe you can suggest that he put an article in Growing Judo! (I highly recommend the PowerPoint and going to any kind of seminar or clinic where Gary is presenting!)

The final morning presenter was Hal Sharp presenting the USJA/USJF’s new Modern Kodokan Throwing Technique (21st Century Judo) Certification Program. (That link is a pdf file discussing the program.) Hal discussed the book upon which this is based, Daigo’s Kodokan Judo Throwing Techniques, and what makes this book so different than every other judo book out there. This book, according to Hal, is a book not of how to do this or that technique, but when to do this or that technique. Every judo student begins by learning a rote technique in a static fashion. Eventually the student is lead to randori but not taught how to apply techniques in a dynamic or randori fashion. This book, if used by competent instructors and students, overcomes that obstacle. The problem becomes a concern when people buy this book and let it collect dust up on the shelf (I’ve been guilty of buying really neat judo books and never getting around to them, myself!). The USJA and USJF decided that this book could be a foundational book helping students to learn how to apply techniques. Thankfully somebody understands American motivation and decided that just having a book that helps someone to learn is fairly pointless in the US, but if you create a carrot, in this case a certification program, then some people will head toward the book and what it has to offer.

Okay, I thought I was going to be able to cover the whole day’s events, but I’m out of space for now. Next time I’ll try to get through all of the afternoon events, but I might not be able to…or it’ll be a really long post!