The other morning my much anticipated order for Gracie Bullyproofing finally came to my door. You’re probably wondering why I mentioned the Episcopal Church and Gracie Bullyproofing without tying them together.
When I was young my father was heavily involved in the Episcopal Church and we all went to church regularly. Eventually this declined and, being a kid, I never wondered why. Several years ago, my father and I talked about that. His reason for our withdrawal was, among other reasons, because there was nothing for the youth! If the youth have nothing to engage or challenge them, they will fall by the wayside and the group’s growth will falter.
Now what does that have to do with judo or the Gracies?
When was the last time, coaches, that you lost a promising student to soccer, football, wrestling, or (dare I say it? DARE DARE) karate or tae kwon do? They came to your class looking for something like Karate Kid or UFC and they tried it for a week or two, maybe a month, and then disappeared. If you got the chance to ask them why they left, they said they didn’t have any fun.
Guess what coaches, if you’re teaching kids you better have FUN as your overarching goal. I know it’s judo o and it’s a “traditional” martial art which requires discipline and such, BUT that doesn’t mean you have to be stodgy!
That’s where DVD’s like the Gracie Bullyproofing and 101 Judo Games come in. They emphasize making learning fun! 101 Judo games is a great DVD that has a lot of games and training methodologies designed to help coaches and judo students have fun in judo classes. Unfortunately it is judo not complete. We judo instructors need more, especially in the United States.
Now, the Gracie Bullyproofing DVD set may be anathema to traditional judo schools and teachers because it’s (GASP) Brazilian JiuJitsu and has joint locks. BUT! And that’s a very big but, they tell parents how to teach, correct, and emphasize the fun when training. No matter your perspective on armlocks for kids (they eschew chokes for safety reasons); this program provides valuable insights applicable to any martial arts instructor who teaches children.
How can all this change judo in the United States? I believe too many judo teachers put tradition and ritualism in front of fun. Don’t get me wrong, the rituals and tradition have their (very important) place, but why can’t we teacher these rituals and traditions with fun in mind? To put it simply why can’t USJA, USJF, USA Judo, USMAA, Yawara JA, or the host of other judo organizations in the US develop a full curriculum and training program where the goal of students learning judo is achieved using 100% fun training?
Here’s my advice, go watch the Gracie Bullyproofing series. Your kids and/or students will love it, especially if you incorporate it into your judo teaching!
10 January 2011
05 January 2011
Kayla Harrison, PR, and Judo in the United States.
I checked my e-mail yesterday and received a press release about Kayla Harrison. If you don’t know who Kayla Harrison is, well, let me tell you she is the current World Champion and only the fourth World Champion from the United States (AnnMaria DeMars, Mike Swain, and Jimmy Pedro are the other three). I’ve never met her, but I’ve watched her (search for her on YouTube!) and I can’t wait for her to rock on through this year and next in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics.
That being said, apparently she secured a public relations manager to put out information about her. Some judo people might think this is a bad thing. Personally, I think it’s a great idea and more of our USA Judo athletes should! Look at someone like Michael Phelps a guy who won like 8 gold medals and got hordes of endorsements. Do you think he has someone to help build his image? Especially after the whole bong thing…
I really hope that the PR works out for her and for judo in the United States. I hope that any little bit that I can do helps her to get what she needs to get to the Olympics. I also hope that the PR helps judo grow in the United States, especially to reduce the confusion between judo, karate, tae kwon do, and all the other martial arts. (You notice I didn’t mention Brazilian or Gracie JiuJitsu – I think they have a good enough marketing scheme going for them!)
That being said, apparently she secured a public relations manager to put out information about her. Some judo people might think this is a bad thing. Personally, I think it’s a great idea and more of our USA Judo athletes should! Look at someone like Michael Phelps a guy who won like 8 gold medals and got hordes of endorsements. Do you think he has someone to help build his image? Especially after the whole bong thing…
I really hope that the PR works out for her and for judo in the United States. I hope that any little bit that I can do helps her to get what she needs to get to the Olympics. I also hope that the PR helps judo grow in the United States, especially to reduce the confusion between judo, karate, tae kwon do, and all the other martial arts. (You notice I didn’t mention Brazilian or Gracie JiuJitsu – I think they have a good enough marketing scheme going for them!)
31 December 2010
2011 Gracie Combatives Program
We’re going to do it!
Do you know who the Gracies are?
Did you know they have one of the best self-paced street defense training programs available for at-home study?
They do.
If you’re like me, though, self-paced and at-home mean I buy it and play with it for a while and never do anything with it. As a matter of fact, and you can check out my other blog post for a review and an idea of when I got them, I did do just that! So what I’ve decided to do is simple: We're going to use the DVD’s to learn the entire 36 techniques in the Gracie Combatives DVD series.
All 36 lessons. We’ll cover them three times each between January 4th and July. The best part about it? All you have to do is show up and be ready to work.
What’s the catch? Why is it free to you? Simple: I don’t have the money, the time, or the rank it takes to become a certifed instructor now. I also want to know if enough people really want to learn what they’re teaching before I plunk down the cash to take their course. We're just a judo club that's working on our ne waza and using this program to help us get better!
I hope you’ll come by and check it out. We can always use more partners and friends! They’re going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:15-8:30pm and Fridays from 6:00-8:30pm.
Do you know who the Gracies are?
Did you know they have one of the best self-paced street defense training programs available for at-home study?
They do.
If you’re like me, though, self-paced and at-home mean I buy it and play with it for a while and never do anything with it. As a matter of fact, and you can check out my other blog post for a review and an idea of when I got them, I did do just that! So what I’ve decided to do is simple: We're going to use the DVD’s to learn the entire 36 techniques in the Gracie Combatives DVD series.
All 36 lessons. We’ll cover them three times each between January 4th and July. The best part about it? All you have to do is show up and be ready to work.
What’s the catch? Why is it free to you? Simple: I don’t have the money, the time, or the rank it takes to become a certifed instructor now. I also want to know if enough people really want to learn what they’re teaching before I plunk down the cash to take their course. We're just a judo club that's working on our ne waza and using this program to help us get better!
I hope you’ll come by and check it out. We can always use more partners and friends! They’re going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:15-8:30pm and Fridays from 6:00-8:30pm.
It’s the End of the Year as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
What a wonderful year we had! 2010 saw our first students entering tournaments and bringing home medals! We gained a number of new students. We expanded our class offerings to two different adult classes and one youth class. Our students are staying longer and doing more in and out of class!
I think 2010 was one of the very best years ever for me and for Roswell Judo Club. I went to a number of clinics and even held a few! Learning from Hayward Nishioka, Gerald Lafon, and Lynn Roethke (among others) in Las Vegas was a rare and wonderful opportunity. Being uke for Paul Nogaki in Albuquerque was an awesome experience and one I’d like to have the opportunity to do again (maybe 2011?)! Teaching my first clinic to Rolando and Eddy on Tai Otoshi was quite a humbling experience. Having Tony, Cody, and Daniel come in from Daniel to work with my guys was another great experience, especially with Tony validating my opinion on Rolando!
Next year promises to be a banner year as well with quite a few inquiries for the youth and adult classes. I’m also planning on offering the Gracie Combatives DVD course as a no cost opportunity (more details in the next post) for adults only.
I really and truly want to thank everybody who helped Roswell Judo Club. The Yucca Recreation Center, Ms. Lynn, Ms. Linda, Sergeant Bell, Mary, every single student whether you’re still with us or not, Toby and the entire NMSU Judo Club, Oscar and his crew from Mesilla Valley Judokai, Tony, Cody, and Daniel from Dallas, and everybody else whose name escapes me right now. Thank you so much for supporting us!
I think 2010 was one of the very best years ever for me and for Roswell Judo Club. I went to a number of clinics and even held a few! Learning from Hayward Nishioka, Gerald Lafon, and Lynn Roethke (among others) in Las Vegas was a rare and wonderful opportunity. Being uke for Paul Nogaki in Albuquerque was an awesome experience and one I’d like to have the opportunity to do again (maybe 2011?)! Teaching my first clinic to Rolando and Eddy on Tai Otoshi was quite a humbling experience. Having Tony, Cody, and Daniel come in from Daniel to work with my guys was another great experience, especially with Tony validating my opinion on Rolando!
Next year promises to be a banner year as well with quite a few inquiries for the youth and adult classes. I’m also planning on offering the Gracie Combatives DVD course as a no cost opportunity (more details in the next post) for adults only.
I really and truly want to thank everybody who helped Roswell Judo Club. The Yucca Recreation Center, Ms. Lynn, Ms. Linda, Sergeant Bell, Mary, every single student whether you’re still with us or not, Toby and the entire NMSU Judo Club, Oscar and his crew from Mesilla Valley Judokai, Tony, Cody, and Daniel from Dallas, and everybody else whose name escapes me right now. Thank you so much for supporting us!
17 December 2010
The Latest News That Is News!
Roswell Judo Club held its last promotional for the year on the 16th. This promotional raised three of our juniors to their next grades. Now our junior class has a Junior 3 and two Junior 1’s.
There won’t be any classes for the next two weeks. We’ll be starting up again on the 3rd of January for the Adults and the 4th for the Youths. Keep close tabs on the club website and the blog for the schedule and the events! When we start back up, we’ll have a lot of work and fun, so be prepared!
There won’t be any classes for the next two weeks. We’ll be starting up again on the 3rd of January for the Adults and the 4th for the Youths. Keep close tabs on the club website and the blog for the schedule and the events! When we start back up, we’ll have a lot of work and fun, so be prepared!
16 December 2010
Now Taking Requests
You've been reading my blog, maybe for a long time maybe not. I'd like you to keep coming back. So I'd like to ask you to tell me some of the things you'd like me to write about. Post a comment about what you'd like to know, and I'll see what I can do to find out about it and write something up!
03 December 2010
Teaching with a Plan
A lot of things have happened for the Roswell Judo Club since August, but first I want everyone who reads this blog to know that the most important thing an instructor can do is teach the fundamentals of whatever it is they are teaching. In my case it is teaching people how to be better people through judo. Over the last several months I’ve learned a lot, especially about making sure there’s a plan in place for every single class.
Tonight I had a plan. It started with warm-ups, moved to ukemi, then on to technical instruction. I expected about six students, but when I walked in only two were there. So much for the plan. I started with the contingency plan of having the two run the mat, forward, shuffling facing in, backward, and shuffling facing out. Then I got creative and ran them through somersaults, backward somersaults, shoulder rolls, somersaults with back, right, and left falls, and even front falls diagonally across the mat. When they did one diagonal event they bear-crawled, frog-hopped, crab-walked, and so on back to their starting place. The best part of the warm-up was that they had fun doing it.
Then we moved on. It’s getting time for promotionals so I wanted to make sure they know their stuff so we started with a diagonal ashi-waza drill I learned from Paul Nogaki. We moved from that into learning how to turn. While turning is a seemingly dynamic exercise, it’s only turning about an axis rather than turning about an axis while moving linearly. Since no judo happens standing in place, we practiced walking down the mat and turning around. As the students were doing this, I had an epiphany! If they could do this walking down the mat, why not have them do O goshi with a partner walking down the mat? They did. And they did it great!
What’s new since August?
Eddy and Ashley are our newest green belts (Rokyu for us). We went to Las Cruces and they tested with the New Mexico State University Judo Club students for them. I must, personally, say that they were absolutely fabulous with their techniques. Most impressive was Ashley’s left-sided from a right-sided grip Tai otoshi (a throw she can’t hardly do “normally” from either grip)! Great big thanks go out to Toby Rue and Oscar Tinajero for holding the event. Thanks also go out to Nadia and Carlos as well!
Rolando fought in his first tournament at the Denver Classic, though not a medalist he did get out there and show he was willing to work. A few weeks later Ashley and Loren IV went to their first tournament (Rolando came down for this as well). Everyone medaled (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) and, most importantly, had a great time! Many thanks to James Lloyd and LC-Grappling.
A couple of updates were posted tot the club website (http://www.roswell-judo.org/). Most helpful are video clips of club members doing almost all of the throws required through Rokyu.
Tonight I had a plan. It started with warm-ups, moved to ukemi, then on to technical instruction. I expected about six students, but when I walked in only two were there. So much for the plan. I started with the contingency plan of having the two run the mat, forward, shuffling facing in, backward, and shuffling facing out. Then I got creative and ran them through somersaults, backward somersaults, shoulder rolls, somersaults with back, right, and left falls, and even front falls diagonally across the mat. When they did one diagonal event they bear-crawled, frog-hopped, crab-walked, and so on back to their starting place. The best part of the warm-up was that they had fun doing it.
Then we moved on. It’s getting time for promotionals so I wanted to make sure they know their stuff so we started with a diagonal ashi-waza drill I learned from Paul Nogaki. We moved from that into learning how to turn. While turning is a seemingly dynamic exercise, it’s only turning about an axis rather than turning about an axis while moving linearly. Since no judo happens standing in place, we practiced walking down the mat and turning around. As the students were doing this, I had an epiphany! If they could do this walking down the mat, why not have them do O goshi with a partner walking down the mat? They did. And they did it great!
What’s new since August?
Eddy and Ashley are our newest green belts (Rokyu for us). We went to Las Cruces and they tested with the New Mexico State University Judo Club students for them. I must, personally, say that they were absolutely fabulous with their techniques. Most impressive was Ashley’s left-sided from a right-sided grip Tai otoshi (a throw she can’t hardly do “normally” from either grip)! Great big thanks go out to Toby Rue and Oscar Tinajero for holding the event. Thanks also go out to Nadia and Carlos as well!
Rolando fought in his first tournament at the Denver Classic, though not a medalist he did get out there and show he was willing to work. A few weeks later Ashley and Loren IV went to their first tournament (Rolando came down for this as well). Everyone medaled (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) and, most importantly, had a great time! Many thanks to James Lloyd and LC-Grappling.
A couple of updates were posted tot the club website (http://www.roswell-judo.org/). Most helpful are video clips of club members doing almost all of the throws required through Rokyu.
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