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On the structure of Judo matches.

Managing your Judo training partners.

In this article, we shall explore what Judo training is like and how you can get the most from your training. This covers both the short-term and long-term, for as we shall discuss there can be conflicts in this area that need to be balanced to ensure you progress optimally.

Judo training is hard, really hard. You need to be strong, supple, skilled, speedy; you also need to have stamina and your head in the right place (psychology). And this is just the broadest outline of what you need to train.

Within each of these categories (the 5 S’s) there are sub-categories. For example, you need to work on maximal strength and strength endurance. You need to have static and dynamic suppleness (aka flexibility), etc etc.

In our sport of Judo, “Skill” is arguably the most important and hardest area to train; it is the focus of this article.

When you train in Judo, you mainly work on tour technique. You will drill throws and groundwork. You will practice throwing people for hours upon hours. You will ratchet up the level till you are closely simulating contest and be knocking seven shades of heck out of yourself and your partners. This is what we shall talk about in this article, how to best manage this process.

I repeat myself here, Judo training is hard, really REALLY hard! It is not for the faint-hearted and it is not for those adverse to a little bruising and pain now and then. You can not train Judo and not feel pain; or inflict some.

For this reason it is essential that you approach each training session with a plan of how you will be training, why and what objectives you wish to accomplish. This must be within the structure of a long-term plan for your training.

Getting thrown hurts, we get good at not feeling it and taking the falls in our stride. But it hurts, so if you are perfecting your throws, you’ll be hurting your partners. You will bruise them, you will cause them to fall badly and get winded, you may even break them. This is something you need to accept and plan for. Your partners do not have an unlimited capacity to soak up the throws. They will smile through some of it, grimace through more, but eventually they won’t take anymore. At which point your trainig stops, even if you’ve not done all the training you need.

So, knowing this you need to plan out your training so that you do not wear out your valuable training partners. The concept you need to understand and implement is this, you need to cycle through partners to give them a chance to recover. This means inside a single session, within a training cycle and over the course of years too.

In a single session, you will want to limit the number of throws you do on each partner you are able to use. You may need to train with larger and smaller players; players of low grade etc. You have to use these people carefully, don’t smash the yellow belt! Use the big males for throwing with more commitment and power. Use the lighter players for speed and uchi komi perhaps. Make use of the crash mats and other training tools to limit the number of big falls you inflict on people.

Within a sesison you will also want to alternate your focus potentially. I.e. instead of “going hard” in every randori (or even within a single Randori), perhaps you can alternate between throwing and being thrown, or between grip fighting with the dan grades and playing a light game with a yellow belt?

You might chat and joke with a partner whilst lightly turning in for a new throw in one Randori, then “put on your game face” with them in a second randori (or perhaps go hard for 1 minute at the start of the randori, then relax and play for the next minute).

You need to give your partners a rest physically and mentally. For example, being good at grip fighting and being able to dominate another player is vital to winning a match. But it can be frustrating and annoying to partners in training. Don’t dominate the same people all the time, if you destroyed someones grips yesterday, maybe just take a basic grip and try and throw from there today? Don’t keep out-gripping them everytime you meet, else they will start to hate training with you and you’ll get less from them and your training will suffer as a result.

Variety is important for your partners, if you smash the same three partners for a week leading up to a competition they might love being part of your preparation. Do it the week after a competition and they are likely to hate you for it and not be there in the build up for the next big competition.

Hopefully, by now you have an feeling for where this article is going. You need partners to train for Judo. Your partners will need to take a hammering from you and will willingly do it… but not forever!

So the second part of this article is a bit more practical, how do you get the most from your partners without burning them out?

This comes down to periodisation and proper planning, plus a little bit of human empathy.
You will, I hope, have a good plan of when your competitions are and what types of training you need to be doing when. So you’ll have a strength development phase, speed phase, etc etc. You’ll have a competition preparation phase and through all of this you’ll have a technical development plan running also.

Now you need to look at your training schedule and consider who you will have available to train with. For example, lets pretend this week you’ll be training at a national training centre two nights for Randori and 3 days at your home club. In your weight there is usually 2 players in your weight and at your level at the national centre, 1 person at the club. At the national centre there are also 5 other players in your weight, but not at the same level as you. In your club, there are no other players your weight, but some 3 heavier players who are of a level comparable to your. Just to make things interesting, at the national centre there is another player in your weight who is better than you. They are a selfish bully, but very good at Judo.

So… who have you got to work with and how should you prioritise them?

The two players at the national centre at your weight and level are your #2 partners.
The person your weight and level in your club is #1 partner.
The 5 other players in your weight at the national centre are #4.
The 3 heavier players n your club are #3.
The selfish bully is your #6 partner.

The way I have prioritised the partners is based on how much training with them you will be able to do and also on their level and weight. Ideally you want lots of players of your level and above your level. But as this example shows, you need to be careful to factor in the personality of your players. The best partner might seem to be the player in your weight who is better than you; but if they are going to use you as “cannon fodder” or just use you to train their Judo then they are a poor partner for you.

Your #1 partner in this case is the person you have the most access to, who is also of the right size and ability to train effectively with you. The 2 players at the national centre you have less time with. The three heavier but high level players in your club are important as you have access and they are bigger so you can go harder with them than perhaps the 5 lower level players in your weight at the national centre. Again, the #6 player is the selfish partner.

Next look at your schedule and your #1 partner, you want to identify both the quantity (volume) and level (intensity) of the training you will be doing with them. You need to protect this partner as much as you can, so carefully manage your training around the idea of protecting them from overuse. The #2 partners you can afford to be less careful with, they are in a national centre and you’ll not have the same amount of time with them. The three larger players in your club are important, you can use them to balance against your #1 partner. If you did a hard session with your #1 partner yesterday, go light with them today but go hard with your three larger partners today.
The 5 lower level players in the centre are good for using when you need to let your #2 partners have a break or when you want to work a new technique or variation.

Now… partner #6. They are a challenge. You need to train with them, they are your weight and better than you. They are the perfect person to test yourself against and to push yourself harder with. If you need to up your intensity, they may the partner you need to try monopolize that session. BUT… if they are just about their own Judo, you may not want to train with them if you need a light session. You need to train with them, but you need to do it on your own terms so that you don’t simply become a crash test dummy for their throws and training.

How to manage the training and your partners.

Having identified your partners and prioritised them, looked at your schedule you need to start actually training.

And you need to start managing your partners around your training schedule (and theirs of course). Depending on your relationships with the partners, their coaches and your environment you may have a meeting and discuss this all out in the open. Often you’ll not have this opportunity and you’ll have to manage your partners by managing your own actions.

Here are some example to help you get started.

Alternate light jovial sessions with hard work sessions. Too often players forget that they need to have some fun on the mat. That goes for you and for your partners. Sometimes even if you are a deadly serious athlete, you need to share a joke or be a bit silly. You need to take a few falls and allow your partners to have some fun of their own.

Be sure, especially if some of your partners are at equal or lower level, to relax now and then and let them take their grip, try their throws and see you breakfall. Smile as you get up and let them go again.

Even with people like our hypothetical selfish bully, you sometimes need to go easy and let it be fun. Sometimes it can be invaluable for defusing some of the tension and emotion that can build up in a session or overtime in a training environment and between players.

You can have an entire session of light fun Judo (especially good after a competition), or alternate it during a training session. Or even within a Randori.

Part of managing your partners will be knowing what they are like as people and making training fun for them, within the confines of your plan. If you have a partner who loves high intensity, short bursts of hard work then use them in that way; maybe throw outs?. If they like long medium intensity, perhaps they are the person for uchi komi?

You will want to use the abilities of your partners carefully. If one of your partners is especially at kumi kata use them for this; not for nage komi. If one partner is especially good for uchi komi use them for this, not grip fighting drills.

You will also want to vary the amount of training and the intensity of the training you do with each partner; as your volume and intensity increases you may need to use more partners to protect them from burnout. Alternatively you may start using a smaller number of partners who are capable of helping increase your intensity.

The key is to plan this out in advance and to be aware of the negative factors that being one of your training partners can have. You must never forget that you need partners to train and that as such one of your top priorities is to ensure you have the right partners available, healthy and willing to give you what you need to succeed.

Please leave you comments on this subject here on the blog, or drop me an email to lw@judocoach.com
If you have any questions I would be happy to hear from you and will find answers if I can.

Lance

What are your targets?

In this article I want to talk about how and why you should have some targets in your sights Judo-wise. If you are the undefeated World and Olympic Champion or number 6 in your club, having target people you wish to beat can be a very powerful tool to help your progress.

Recently I was looking at a young athletes prospects for selection, which is what prompted this article. They are currently 3rd (potentially) on a selection list. Especially in today’s qualification by points systems, it is important to know who you have to be above on the list and how you can get above them.

This is the first reason to know who your target is: STRATEGY.
If you want to fight in an event and you know someone else wants that one sport, you need to understand what the requirements to be selected are and make sure you meet them better and/or before the other person, your target. If it comes down to something like the US Olympic Trials, where there is a selection event. You’d better know that and know that the one person you need to beat on the day is your target.

Perhaps, you need to have more points on a ranking list than your target. In which case you need to look at if you fight the same events as they do, or fight alternative events. If for example, you think you would lose to your target; you need to consider going to other events to get your points. This way you can earn more points than your target and get selected above them. Alternatively, if you are confident you can beat them you might want to have as many fights with them as possible, so that the selectors have evidence that you are the better fighter and factor that into their decisions. You will also presumably get more points.

But this is where it gets trickier, if you are preparing properly you’ll need a periodised plan to allow you to peak for events. Does your targets programme match yours. Is it better to focus on key events or fight everything going? This depends on how your selection criterion is defined and on your specific abilities and situation. The strategies involved are complex and need working through carefully.

The second reason is: MOTIVATION.
Kosei Inoue the World, Olympic and All Japan champion has spoken frankly about how he had his countryman Shinohara as a target for many years. He was deeply focussed on beating Shinohara at the All Japan Championships. You can listen to him speak about this in a recording from the EJU Level 4&5 course over at theJudoPodcast.eu. In the recording it becomes very clear that his desire to win a match against his target drove him forward. This acknowledgment of Shinohara as a great champion and identifying him as a target can be attributed with giving Kosei Inoue some of the spirit required to win all three of Judo’s greatest titles.

For you, identifying targets may act as milestones towards your larger goals. You might target a player in your club you wish to be able to beat. They are the first step towards winning your area championships. If you can beat them, perhaps them you are ready to fight the next event.

If you have a sequence of targets to fight and beat, then you give yourself tangible goals to achieve and objectives to work for. You most probably, will not be able to conceive accurately what winning the Olympic final will require. But you may be able to visualise what it’ll take to beat the person in your weight from the next city with great clarity. The more clearly that image of what you need to do, your motivation should be higher too. It’ll get you through that last mile of the run, or an extra Randori on Thursday night. Much more so than the blurry, far off idea of being an Olympic Champ.

The third reason is: TACTICS.
If you have specific targets that you want to beat, then you can develop specific tactics to beat them on the mat and train to execute those tactics. For example, if you know your target better than they know themselves, you will be able to define a way of beating them. For example, in my past I fought a player with an amazing Uchi Mata, he threw everyone with it! He was an older player and tended to catch “young bucks” who tried to rough him up a bit. When I fought him, I played a careful game. Neither of us attacked much, carefully gripping and testing the other. Over the course of the match we were both penalised up to KeiKoku for passivity. With 30 seconds to go I made a scrappy Ippon Seoi to Ko Uchi Gake combination attack which dropped my opponent on his butt/back just enough for the Koka that won the match.

Another example was a player I worked with who watched video footage of their target over and over (and over and over). Together we identified that their target had a distinct footwork pattern prior to attacking with their best technique. This allowed us to go to the dojo and rehearse that footwork pattern so that my athlete recognised it immediately. This progressed to then attacking during the footwork pattern (before the attack), which nullified the attack all together. Once the targets biggest weapon was neutralised, my player was able to control the fight and do all the throwing.

Tactical play depends on knowing yourself and your target(s) very well. It also requires practise and the ability to operate in a tactical mindset on the mat. Like any skill it is something that only comes with practise and experience.

Summary:
Identifying a “target” can be beneficial to your Judo career. It can give you focus and a face to aim for. Targets help you work on your strategy, tactics and help your motivation. Examples like Kosei Inoue show us the power that having targets can have on your Judo.

Getting started does not require much more than a little free time to sit and think through who your targets might be. You can think about strategically, who you should be fighting, when, where and why. Tactically, knowing your targets can guide your training and how you fight in competition. Targets also give your tangible, clear goals to aim for and give motivation as your work to beat your target and when you eventually do beat them!

Give it a go and let me know how you get on,

Lance
lw@judocoach.com

Managing minor Judo injuries.

Mat burns, bruises, scratches, black eyes, cuts, aches, torn nails, sprains, etc. Judo is a tough contact sport and as a Judo athlete you will get your fair share of minor injuries. In this post we’ll look at some of the common injuries, how you can treat them and why it is important that you do.

Every Judo athlete gets injured, some major some minor. Major injuries are the breaks, the concussions, torn muscles, damaged ligaments etc. These are very serious and need medical treatment.

But we also suffer from minor injuries, ranging from bumps and bruises, through to mat burns, cuts and finger nails being bent backwards. These are less serious medically but still need treating. Too often these minor injuries are ignored and can have a big impact on your training and performance over the long-term.

Many coaches and some scientific papers will tell you how much time athletes lose in their preparation due to injury. Injuries in training can ruin your peaking for competitions or take you out of events all together.

But minor injuries, the type described above that we often ignore can impact your ability to train too, possibly ruining your chances of winning. Because they are minor injuries however, the impact is often not given the attention it deserves and treatment provided often is of a lesser standard to that for major injuries.

Lets look at a common Judo example; mat burns. Mat burns are a minor injury, your average performance coach is not going to give you too much sympathy. However, it is very important that you treat a mat burn properly for both medical reasons and for training reasons. A mat burn is basically a graze, caused by the rough texture of Judo tatami (mats). You will normally get the “burn” on a soft piece of skin that is not normally in contact with the mat; for example the top of your toes or feet. The top layer (or two) of skin if removed and the flesh underneath is exposed to the air.

A mat burn stings, but generally is just a slight discomfort. Often a mat burn will simply go away as your skin naturally recovers and after a few days you’ve forgotten about it. Some times the burn causes a scab to form and these burns can take longer to heal and can be uncomfortable for quite some time. Worse yet, mat burns can easily become infected and become red and very painful. This in turn can lead to bigger issues if the infection spreads.

Mat burns need treatment, they need cleaning and dressing. You should wash every mat burn as soon as possible and you’ll probably not like this, but anti-septic (the stinging stuff) should probably be applied. You then want to cover the burn.

It’s important to consider the environment in which you got the burn. You got it off the mat, where lots of people have been walking/fighting, where people have been doing ne-waza and people have been sweating. There are a lot of bacteria potentially floating around, bacteria looking for a nice moist pace to live and grow… a mat burn is ideal. So cleaning and covering a mat burn is really important for you, it will hopefully prevent burn getting infected. It also prevents you spreading anything nasty around the dojo and infecting anyone else. We are all carrying our own fair share of bacteria, germs, etc. By cleaning and covering a mat burn you are helping ensure that both you and your team mates stay healthy.

Proper treatment will also help prevent your training being affected. Mat burns are not serious injuries, but they do hurt and can really put you off your training, especially if they get infected and sore! You won’t enjoy doing your Judo as much (if at all) if that mat burn you got on your elbow hurts everytime someone takes a grip there will you; so take care of them properly.

Bruises too are generally not a huge problem, but they are often not treated at all; which is not sensible as they again can affect your training pretty quickly. Take the classic Judo bruise… a heel direct to your shin, BANG! If you don’t follow the R.I.C.E. protocol a bruise can become much larger than it should be. This in turn will make it more painful and cause it to take longer to heal. So you will have a period of time where any contact with your shin is going to make you cringe in pain; which will distract you form your training and more often than not change the way you move, defend and attack.

So again, treating a bruise (or the initial bang/bump) as soon as possible with Ice or a cold pack and some compression will potentially save you lots of discomfort and disturbed training in the future. As with mat burns, taking 5 minutes out of a session to treat the injury and then getting back on the mat can save hours of lost training or lost quality of training over the following days or weeks.

The same advice of treating minor injuries promptly and properly applies to most injuries. The sooner you treat an injury, the less the injury is likely to affect you that session, that day and later on.

What can you do?

Firstly, be aware that you need to look after your minor injuries. Treat them as threats to your training. Time is precious and it is better to spend 5 minutes out of todays session than to ruin lots of sessions in the future.

Secondly, take responsibility for your injuries. Don’t “train on”, go off, get patched up, go back on and catch up. There is a fine line of course between being too quick to run off the mat and not looking after yourself. But it is your body, your career and your dreams at stake. So it’s up to you to make sure you look after yourself. Which leads us to…

Bring your own first aid kit to every session. Most Judo athletes will have some strapping tape in their bag; but you are unlikely to find one with anti-septic wipes, cold packs, plasters, compression bandages etc. So how about you be the athlete who came prepared and has a small first aid kit in their bag. We are not talking about a generic one from the pharmacy, rather a first aid kit designed for you and for Judo. So you want to try and find a box/bag and fill it with just the things you need for Judo minor injuries.

No need for a sling, thats for a major injury. But you will want anti-spetic wipes to clean scratches, cuts, grazes and mat burns. And ice pack or cold pack is a great idea and might just be a case of buy a bag of frozen peas and taking it out of the freezer before every session and wrapping it in a towel and bringing it to Judo, then developing the habit of taking it out and putting in in the freezer again.  You’ll want tape of course, plasters but also some of those larger sterile nonstick pads to put on grazes and mat burns. Maybe some of that “spray on skin” dressing stuff and maybe some of that great cold spray that seems to work magic on rugby players.

Put together your own little first aid kit and take it to EVERY Judo session. Then no matter what club you are training at, if you get a war wound you can patch yourself up quickly and get back into your training. It is really bad how often you will see a Judo player take a knock or twist an ankle and have to wait ages for some ice to be gotten from somewhere. They’ll often be sat off the mat for 10 minutes just waiting for the ice/cold pack before they get it and then have to spend another 5-10 minutes with the cold pack. If you have your own cold pack, you can just go off, ice it for 5-10 minutes and be back on the mat potentially before the other guy/girl has even got an icepack. Then you are getting more training in whilst they get ice applied. And of course, they’ve had 10 minutes of not treating the bruise/bump; so it’s had more time to swell and that’ll take longer to recover from too.

The same is true of cuts, scratches and even bloody noses. If you have everything you need near to hand in your bag, you can quickly clean and dress the cut, and be back on the mat in a few moments. Rather than sitting on the sidelines whilst someone goes looking for cotton wool or plasters. You have both decreased the risk of the injury getting worse and decreased the amount of time lost in your training.

Summary

So hopefully, this post has got you thinking about the minor injuries we all suffer from time to time in our Judo training. You’ll understand how not treating minor injuries can, when you look at the bigger picture; cause you to lose both time in training and decrease the quality and enjoyment of your training. And hopefully, you’ll consider putting a small first aid kit in your bag from now on and taking responsibility for your own injuries and minimising the impact they have on your dreams for gold medals.

Supplementary Training for Judo.

If you are a Judo athlete at some point you will need to consider supplementary training. This term refers to additional training you do that is not Judo. Generally it is such things as running, going to the gym, etc.

The first thing I would say is this, supplementary training is exactly that SUPPLEMENTARY. Your Judo training should be the number one priority with supplementary training being there to address areas in your training that can not be dealt with on the tatami.

As  Judo athlete, you need to have an understanding of the physiological demands of competing in the sport of Judo. You also need to understand your body and the reactions it will have to various types of supplementary training.

Judo is generally regarded as being a “power sport”, as opposed as to being an endurance sport such as distance running. Judo does however have an endurance element, so you need to get the balance right. Judo needs raw strength, coordination, balance, speed, suppleness and stamina and more. Judo training itself will help develop you where it is needed, but supplementary training can lead to bigger gains and/or balance areas that your Judo is not hitting. Supplementary training is also excellent for addressing physical issues unique to your body.

For example, you may have suffered an ankle injury in the past. This may have left that ankle weaker in terms of your ability to push through during your throwing action. Spending some extra time in the gym working on your lower legs may resolve this issue and help you deliver the power through your legs equally; improving your throwing technique.

So what supplementary training should a Judo athlete be doing?

What type of supplementary training to do for Judo depends on a variety of factors. Your age, your technical level (both in Judo and the Gym), your goals all need to be considered. You need to consider what demands Judo is placing on your body and what the type of training you are considering demands of you.

Running for example is a form of training that is both popular and controversial.
I ran when I was an athlete (I still do… sometimes). Most Judoka I have met run, road runs, hill runs, sprints. But I know that many people (including some researchers) don’t rate running as being relevant for Judo. I have a very middle of the road attitude to running, which is affected mainly by the level of the athlete I am working with.

I think most Judo athletes starting out could do with some running in their programmes. Distance running will help with your aerobic side and sprints can help with your anaerobic. Running is also good for calorie burn and  personally I think the most undervalued aspect of running is the mental side. Running can be mentally challenging and it can also be great relaxation, depending on what sort of run you go for.

Skipping / Jumping rope.
Boxers are famous for skipping, yet it is not as common in Judo circles. I think that skipping is a great exercise for Judo athletes. To skip well, you need to develop good posture and strong legs. Skipping also works the shoulders and back, whilst challenging the cardio vascular system. Skipping can be done inside or outside, it can be intense and short or gentle and longer.

Skipping is all about technique, I recommend  popping along to a boxing gym. Buy yourself a good rope, adjust it properly and learn the basics… then practise, practise, practise! You may also want to check out some online videos, like the one below by Buddy Lee for CrossFit.

Gyms
Okay, this is probably the place where you’ll do most of your supplementary training, the gym. First things first, find a good gym, even if it is not the closest one. Find a gym with a good set of strength equipment and a smaller range of cardio gear and classes. As an athlete, the chances are you’ll be looking for free weights and a great work ethic.

You might consider a body building gym. They often have the hardest workers around; my one caveat would be to discuss with the management that you are not a bodybuilder and that you’ll need programmes that are not about muscle hypertrophy as much as most people in the gym.

Which brings me to the main consideration, the staff. You will want some experts to help develop your supplementary training programmes. This may include visits to a physio to identify physical weaknesses. You’ll need to find people who understand sport and ideally Judo, not just helping people get fit and lose weight. As well as a programme, ideally you’ll want access to a strength and conditioning coach / personal trainer. Just like on the mat, a coach at the gym will improve the quality of your training so that you get more from less time.

Get the balance right.

For me the most important thing is to ensure that you get the balance of Judo to supplementary training right. I would almost always say that a Judo athlete should spend a majority of their time doing Judo. Your supplementary training should be targeted and tied to your Judo training and performance goals.

You will need to plan your training as you do all your training. It needs to be scheduled to match your competition schedule and life.

As always, discuss it with your Judo coach and get the best advice that you can.

What Judo elements should you train on next?

If you have ever watched a post match interview you will have heard a team coach or team captain talk about how their team simply did the basics right. What is good for team sports like Rugby or Football is good for Judo too. In this article we’ll talk about what are good Judo basics and how you might test yourself and assess if your basics are ready for competition.

What are the basics of Judo?
There are a variety of ways to  define good basics. There is technical, tactical, physical elements. There is Judo techniques, there is strategy, there is conditioning and not to be missed psychological factors. But, what matters? How do you want to define your basics?

Here is a simple way for you to define what you think are the basics for Judo.

1. Choose three of your Judo legends, the great champions that you admire most.
2. Write down three things about each champion that made them amazing.
- Be that if they were physically strong, had amazing grips, an amazing throw, never say die attitude, etc.
3. For each of these 9 elements, give yourself a score out of 10 for your own level in that element. (10 being best)

Now you have a 9 point list of elements you consider important, choose one everyday and work on it.

The next step would be to talk to your coaches and get them to do the exercise above, you might want to keep your results private until they do their version, then compare and contrast.

Opportunity for Hampshire (UK) Judo Athletes.

Dear Judoka,

My name is Lance Wicks, owner of www.JudoAdvisor.com, www.Judocoach.com and www.Judometrics.com, etc. I am also a EJU Elite Performance Coach (Level 5) and involved with a coach mentoring programme with Brian Ashton (former head coach for ENgland Rugby Union).

I am currently looking for 6 Judo athletes to work with here in Hampshire, England (UK).

The aim is to find Judo athletes who would like to take their Judo to “the next level”, by working in partnership with myself, your coach and others. We will develop a training programme and work regularly together to improve your conditioning, technique and contest performance.

This opportunity would best suit a dedicated athlete, who is ready to work hard and work smart. You do not need to be at the elite level already. Most probably you are between 15 and 22, though you might be a masters athlete too.

You will live in Hampshire (UK) and be ready and able to fit extra training into your timetable. You will be ready and able to approach new ideas and new training methods. You will be ready and able to work with multiple coaches and other support people, such as strength coaches, physios, psychologists, etc. (not forgetting you present coaches).

This opportunity will cost you nothing, except blood sweat and tears!

I believe I have enough time and energy to work with at most 6 athletes, so please contact me as soon as you can if you are interested in improving your Judo.

Please email lw@judocoach.com for more information. Those interested in being involved as athletes or as part of the bigger team, please send through you CV too.

Lance

The 2010 IJF Rules and you.

Most of you will be aware that as of January 1st 2010, the new Judo rules of the IJF have come into effect. These rules will have a big effect on how Judo is played, even if you are not yet n the international stage. In this article I shall talk a little about the new rules and how they affect you as a Judo athlete and some of the strategies already becoming apparent to adjust to the changes.

Leg Grabs.

Attacking below the belt with the hands is out! Don’t do it or you will be penalised by Hansoku Make!
This is the most radical of the new rules (argueably) and will impact the way Judo matches are played in ways that we can only speculate on, time will tell how players gain maximum benefit from these rules. We also don’t know yet how strictly they will be policed by referees in the longer term or how far the rule will be bent before an infraction is called.

Leg grabs are not banned IF, and only if, it is a continuation of a prior valid attack. meaning if you were to say attack with Ko Uchi Gari and then transitioned immediately into a leg grab that “should” be fine. This does depend on the referees opinion of your first attack, it has to be intended to throw your opponent, it can not just be a trick to make the leg easy to grab.

You are also supposed to be able to leg grab as part of defending an attack, say grabbing the leg (or between the legs) if you are attacked with Ippon Seoi Nage.

The problem for Judo athletes and coaches…

The problem here is that this is all subjective by the referees. The IJF posted online a selection of video clips of leg grabs showing Penalty or no Penalty. What that proved is that it is not clear! It is going to take a long while for the situation to stabilise and a consistent interpretation of the new rule be established. Till then, beware!

My suggestion for now…

For now, you need to exclude leg grabs from your arsenal, the risks outweigh the benefits too much! Leg grabs are a lottery, even if done from a prior attack. And the penalty (disqualification) is too much of a risk to be a good idea. If it was a Shido penalty, then it would be different, but for now avoid leg grabs like the plague in competition, it simply is not worth the risk!

The Future…

The rules are very new, and have yet to be tested fully by athletes. The interpretation of the rules will change with time and this will affect how you as a Judo athlete play your game. The rules may not even make it for all we know; there is a lot of negative feeling towards them out there.

But assuming they survive (and I suspect they will make it through to 2012), the way our game is played will change. The IJF wants this rule to encourage a more stand-up Japanese style of fighting. And this may happen… maybe. But, my suspicion is that it will not have the effect the IJF seem to desire.

More than one high level coach has said that Kumi Kata will become more important, especially for those without the style of Judo that the IJF wants to see. So I suspect we shall see these players get even better at grip fighting and spend more time negating the stand-up style fighters ability to throw with grips, strength and movement.

Players and coaches will work on combinations that allow them to transition into leg grabs and of course ways of throwing that previously have used the hands might be done without the hands to get around this new rule.

You will see also more strategic play from players. Perhaps just for a short period of time, but I think you will see players attempting to get the other player to leg grab for the hansoku make. For example, if you were to keep your opponent bent over and then attacked with an Uchi Mata or O Uchi Gari. Then the next time you just “twitch” your hips. There would be a good chance that your opponent will react and defend by grabbing your leg… easy hansoku make for you!

This is a really negative style of play, but I expect to see it happen, especially in the early days. It will also open doors for your throws. If you develop this twitch, your opponents will become wary of defending with the hands, which in turn will open an opportunity to attack.

The result may be that we have even more static Judo rather than active Judo. More cautious fighters taking less risks, fewer attacks, more defensive postures and movement… maybe.

To be honest, we and the IJF just don’t know what the result of this rule change will be.
What I know, is that all the rule changes between 1987 and 2008 had very little effect on the fundamental structure of a Judo match. I mean in terms of duration, number of attacks, number of scores, etc etc. So I predict that this rule will have a equally small effect on the grand scheme of the sport. You, the Judo Athlete, will find a way to make what throws you have work, no matter the rules. The IJF may have either helped your Judo or hindered it, depending on your style. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction and what helps you today I would expect to hinder later.

Again, we just don’t know what the result of this rule change will be, too little research has been done. Too little testing has been done. I wrote an article on my JudoCoach.com blog comparing the Judo rule changes to the Rugby Union rule changes and I invite you to read it as it highlights how rushed this rule change has been and how compared to Rugby how little thought and process has been put into play by the IJF.

Summary:

Judo Athletes have a turbulent year or two ahead, especially with the changes to repechage system, the leg grab hansoku make will potentially have a devastating effect on the results you can achieve. A simple mistake (grabbing the leg) will get you disqualified and out of the tournament most likely. A pistol grip mistakenly taken will give you the chance to make up for it and win, but leg grab is going to ruin your day.

As referees settle into a consistent (or at least consistent-ish) interpretation of the rules, you will have the opportunity to use this rule strategically to gain advantage against your opponents. Be that earning to use your leg grabs within the restrictions imposed on you or by inciting a leg grab from your opponent for the easiest of wins. Or using the fear of being penalised in your opponent to attack for Ippon.

What is important is that in the short term you allow others to be the guinea pigs, let them get caught by the new rules.
This in ways means that the IJF will win, at least in the short term; smart players will stop leg grabbing for now. But my prediction is that by the end of 2010/2011 those fighting regularly will have a good feel for how the rule impacts the game and will be using leg garbs and the new rule to their advantage.

So stay tuned and keep an eye on how the referees in your events are applying this rule, compare that to international events and try and see where the trend is heading. Then work out how you will apply th new rules effect to your best advantage.

Lance

[UPDATE: Neil Adams has just written a blog post on the new rules also, see it here: http://naeffectivefighting.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/the-new-ijf-rules-out-of-hand/ ]

Fitness testing for Judo athletes.

As a Judo athlete you need to be fit, that is obvious right?

What is not so obvious is how fit do you need to be, what sort of fitness you need, and how you measure it.

If you are a member of a national programme, then you may have access to this sort of testing, but the average Judo athlete looking to make it often does not. So in this post we’ll look at fitness in Judo and how you can start testing yourself without all the fancy equipment.

What is Judo fit?

If you have been doing Judo a while, you’ll know there is a difference between being “fit” and being “Judo Fit” or “Mat Fit” as some call it. You can run all the miles you like, or push and many weights as you like, and you will still get into a training session at the Dojo and be exhausted. And that is an important lesson to learn. Fitness is related to application. What matters is Judo fitness, not how far/fast you can run or how strong you are.

The reason for this is that the physiological demands of Judo are unique and rather complex. Unlike say a marathon runner, or their opposite the sprinter, Judo is not pure endurance or pure sprint. The demands of our sport are difficult for the body to cater for and as such your fitness testing will be complex too. A Judo fight is too long to be pure anaerobic effort, but too intense to be aerobic purely. We also have the issue of recovery and pacing to contend with. A fight could be a few seconds or upwards of 10 minutes, A fight is also broken into sections of action, interspersed with Matte breaks and gripping and other activities. So returning to running, it is not a simple activity of sprint or run long, it’s bursts of effort over time. With recovery required within and after matches.

So being fit for this is hard to get right and especially for those without access to experts in our sport and without access to sport scientists working within out sport.

What to measure?

There are some standard fitness tests in use today. Both across the general population, within sport and within Judo too.
Which one(s) to use is a tricky question to answer and will always be affected by your personal situation and requirements. Here we shall discuss some general fitness tests and also one Judo specific one.

We could talk about some of the more scientific fitness testing approaches, like VO2 max testing, lactic acid measurement etc. But these are tests beyond the scope of this article and beyond the access of a majority of Judo athletes. They are also impractical to apply yourself in your home or Dojo environment generally.

Aerobic, Anaerobic testing and recovery.

Your Aerobic fitness, Anaerobic fitness and your ability to recover are what you need to be able to measure. Judo is a mix of sprint and slow (aerobic and anaerobic) so you will want to know what levels of both you have the capacity for. Recovery is closely related to your capacity but given the importance recovering in Matte and between fights has in our sport, it is worth considering testing/monitoring specifically.

Breaking it down to bare bones (and this is far from the scientific perspective ok), your aerobic capacity is your ability to work in the heat of a fight. How long/hard can you fight in an intense burst? How long is it before you need to slow down and get your breath back? Aerobic is when you have your breath back, you’ll be puffing, but you are at a level where you can operate comfortably for a whole fight or night if need be. recovery it follows from this example is how long does it take you to get your breath back after a burst of activity, how long till you feel you could fight again at 100% after a fight?

For a Judo athlete with very few resources, your fitness testing could be as simple as timing how long you can fight at 100% effort, how long it takes to get your breath back and how long after a fight you feel ready to fight at 100% again. All you need is a clock or watch!

Popular Fitness tests

There are several popular tests you can do with very little or no equipment or assistance.

You might want to consider the multistage fitness test (Bleep test) or the 2.5km run test. Maybe step test and some strength tests like a pushup test for example. Maybe a sprint test, an ergo test or a recovery test?

Whatever tests you choose, the important thing is to try and understand what they are are showing and also how this applies to your Judo.

In terms of Judo specific tests, the one you probably want to look at is the SJFT created by Stanislaw Sterkowicz in Poland. This test is is the most popular and well researched fitness test for Judo athletes. You can visit my Judocoach.com website for normative data, excel spreadsheets and detailed instructions on how to conduct the test at http://www.judocoach.com/judo.html

The SJFT is pretty easy to conduct and only needs a mat area and a couple of other athletes to throw about really. That said, if you start trying to do that test you will discover that conducting testing needs more equipment and people than you might need. The SJFT is best done using a good stopwatch operated by a fourth person and a heart rate monitor.

Many of the other tests also need other hardware, the bleep test needs a CD (or MP3) and something to measure 20m of course.

Proper VO2 max testing or lactate testing needs a scientist and equipment, and there is no guarantee that they’ll give you useful results. The SJFT I can recommend as we know it has been used in a Judo context and you can measure yourself against other Judo athletes.

Home testing

In the text above I basically said that scientific testing is probably too difficult to accomplish realistically for the Judo athlete outside of a national programme. Especially if you are just starting out or a journeyman hoping to make that step up to getting onto a squad, you may want to create your own testing regime. You can use generic tests to give you a broad perspective of your fitness, which won’t be as accurate or applicable perhaps, but will give you an objectve measure of where you are and something to measure against.

Below are a few you might want to try doing:

The Beep test:

The Beep test or multi-stage fitness test has been used since 1982 and is relatively easy to do yourself. It is also rather popular, so the results you get you should be able to compare against others in and out of your sport. It is used for example by the Royal Navy for all Navy personnel. The things you will need are an audio track for the beeps (you can download an MP3 one from the excellent Put me in Coach! blog). Then measure out 20m.

Now the work begins… you run the 20m  you’ve marked out  in tempo with the beeps, running back and forth along the 20m.
Every minute, the tempo increases and the beeps come closer together. Jjust keep getting from one end to the other before the beep (and how many runs you’ve done). Once you can no longer reach the 20m line before the beep you are done, stop and work out where you are at.

This test measures your aerobic endurance but research has shown correlalations with things as diverse as body fat percentage. What is or is nota good level is dependant on who is being tested, but some example levels to use as targets are as follows: Women want to hit at least 7-8, men 9-10; of course as a Judo athlete you’ll want to aim higher and you can test yourself several times a year and aim to improve each time.

The 500m Rowing Ergo

If you can get access to a rowing machine (ergo), the 500m test can give you a good snapshot of your anaerobic power and is easy to do, even on your own. Just get on there and row 500m as fast and hard as you can from start to finish, and see how long you took. Again, how you know a good score from a bad one depends on who is being tested. I have seen male rowers in the 1:50 range, but your time is reliant on your body. So I would say test yourself a few times a year and see how you go. Then worry about what others are getting.

This test I like, in part because for some reason I have always liked rowing as cross training for Judo. The pulling action for me is more sport specific to Judo than say riding a bike or running. So a fitness test like this I think has merit.

The simple Push up test.

This is a test of your upper body strength endurance and again is simple to do; ideally with a partner who will do the counting and ensure your form is correct. The test itself is simple, just do as many press-ups as you physically can without stopping, simplez!

A good test result would be in the region of 40-50,  obviously the more, the better.

Phosphate Recovery Test

This test is another sprinting test but this time is designed to give an indication of how you recover from anaerobic work. You do seven sprints, each lasting seven seconds, with 23 seconds recovery between each. The normal procedure involves cones being laid out along a 60m straight line course. 10 at each end, 2m apart, so you end up with a 20m gap between sets of cones.

Whomever is helping you calls go (hajime!) and you sprint as fast as you can till at 7 seconds they shout stop (matte). They record the last cone you ran past and you jog/walk to the end of the course, turn around and your next sprint starts 23 seconds after the matte. You then sprint as before, just in the opposite direction, again the last cone you pass is counted. jog to the end and turn around ready for the next sprint.

As you fatigue, you’ll pass fewer cones, this drop off distance between sprints is what matters. Obviously the less the drop-off the more fully your body is recovering from the exertion. Again, as with all these tests, you will want to start off by measuring yourself against your past results rather than against other people.

Summary:

These four simple tests will give you an objective view of your fitness level. The Judo specific SJFT test is probably the most important one to do as you approach a level where comparing yourself to others matters. The others are not as specific and the normative data of results may not be entirely relevant as it is unlikely the tests were done of Judoka. for example the 1:50 time I used as an example for the rowing machine is a rowers time, you need to think that their technique and anatomical makeup might help them more than yours. Similarly the sprinting tests may be skewed by the fact runners were used to collect the data. The SJFT obviously has been tested on Judo athletes, so that variable is less important.

The other factors to consider are your age, your gender and your level. Don’t expect to beat a adult male push up test score if you are a young female athlete.

Most importantly, and I am repeating here, is to compare yourself to yourself. Look at your results over time and use this to decide if you are getting fitter. Then perhaps get some people you train with of similar level to do the tests with you and compare yourself with people you know. Last and least, compare yourself to normative data and higher level athletes.

The other important factor to consider is the learning effect. When you first start doing these tests you will see big jumps in results as you become familiar with the testing protocols. You’ll know what it feels like to complete a bleep test or a sprint, and be better able to pace yourself or endure the effort. You’ll be more familiar with how to be efficient in the tests and that will lead to better scores. Later, this will flatten out and you might think your fitness progress is slowing down, where in fact your fitness is improving at the same or better rate, but the learning effect makes it look like it is slowing. You also need to be prepared for the fact that fitness gains generally get harder and harder to gain after a certain point, you will plateau at a certain point and this may mean you have reached your optimal fitness or that you need to change your training.

I hope this is helpful to you. Fitness testing for a Judo athlete is something you will encounter eventually and if you have already been doing your own testing programme, you are a step ahead of the pack. It also gives you more data on your training and the more information you have the more informed your decisions will be. for example, if you aced the strength tests, but the endurance tests were not great, you can change your training to improve your endurance. You can also change the way you fight to match your strengths. If you have massive anaerobic capacity, then you may be able to fight harder for longer than your opponents, alternatively if your endurance or recovery ability is great, then maybe lots of consistent (but lower intensity) effort will win out against the opponents, death by a thousand cuts; so to speak.

As you progress, please email me any questions ( lw@judocoach.com ) or let me know what tests you are doing or how your experience of testing has been. You will of course reach a point where your area and or national coaches start testing your fitness, or even your Olympic training centre, I hope when this happens they use tests that by then you are familiar with.

To close, please watch this video of some EJU Level coaches performing the SJFT fitness test. The SJFT has been part of the EJU qualification since the course started in 2005. You can find out more about the EJU coaching qualification system at www.judospace.com where registrations for the level 3 course are open now (Disclosure: I am a director of JudSpace, who are the delivery partner for the EJU level 3 course).

Grip fighting / Kumi Kata – The start of our game.

Grip fighting (Kumi Kata) is the point at which in Judo we first make contact with the opponent. As such it is a vitally important section in a fight, one that needs to be assessed and developed by a Judo athlete to make your chances of victory as great as possible. In this post we shall discuss some of the elements of grip fighting in Judo and how you can improve your gripping.

Having a strong grip is a start, developing arm strength is important and can be achieved through dedicated grip fighting practice and also through strength building exercises in the gym. A popular exercise is rope climbing. Climbing rope is popular in many training venues worldwide as it is lo-tech and has some good parallels with Judo. The width of the rope is important as you would like it to mimic as closely as possible the width of the jacket you might hold in competition. Rope climbing will build up the strength and strength endurance in the forearms and also in your biceps, triceps, not to mention lats.

If done sensibly rope climbing is safe and effective. Be sure to try it and also be sure to try variations, such as not using your legs at all, climbing slowly downwards also (eccentric contractions are very powerful tools). And “jumping” up the rope, by releasing both hands at once and grabbing higher.

But grip fighting is not all about brute force, in fact it is far from it. As with all things in Judo, strength gives an advantage but technique is equally powerful. You grip pattern is also the start of your game of Judo.

In other words, the fight starts when you take your first grip. As such it is arguably the most important moment in the match. If you fail to get a good grip, you fight from a disadvantage, your opponent having their preferred grip is able to fight their game the way they have planned. So, by not training your gripping you are in effect handicapping yourself from the outset. To win you will have to do more than you should. This is against the spirit of our art, where we consider Maximum efficiency.

A good grip will give you the solid platform to start your attack from, without a good grip in Judo you will not be able to throw. This is easily demostrated, try and throw someone with no grip at all, then with one hand on your opponent, then with two hands. Obvious really.

The grip is a highly tactical and strategic moment in a fight, in part because so much rides on obtaining the dominant grip. It is interesting to note that in a majority of elite level matches the grips are kenka yotsu (right on left or left on right) rather than right handed versus right handed. Elite players are fighting against their natural hand preference to better establish a grip fight.

As a Judo athlete, you need to watch and understand kumi kata (grip fighting) and develop your preferred grip patterns to match both your own style and of course to negate the style of gripping and throwing your opponents have.

A good start is to look at other players who do the same throw as you. Especially elite players who throw with your throw. Now, rather than looking at the throw, rewind the tape and watch how they take their grips. Look at which hand they grip with first and where they grip. Look at the second hand grip. Consider also how their opponents are gripping, ask yourself what each player is trying to achieve.

You may want to consider the mechanics of your throw and look at your grip in that respect. For example, if you are a Taio Toshi thrower, where would be the best place to grip your opponent to create kuzushi? The traditional grip? Or perhaps a low sleeve grip and a high collar? or Vice Versa?

Work backwards from the grip you think is best for your throw and build steps to obtain that grip. Will you shoot straight for the high collar or grab the sleeve first, then go for the collar? Build a pattern and test it, see where opponents deflect your plan and adjust accordingly.

You will also want to consider what clues a players grips provide you, certain grips are effective for certain attacks. So you have a warning of the type of throw you can expect if you recognise a grip pattern. This is similar to the situation in chess, where certain openeings are well known and there are also well known counters to those openings. In Judo the same is true, there are a variety of well known grip patterns, and a variety of well known ways of beating those grips; now is the time to learn some of them.

As a Judo athlete, you can use strength to provide strong tools, however if you don’t know how, when and which to apply at the right time, you will not achieve all you might. Grip fighting in Judo is the same, you need to study, study, study! You need to learn the common “openings” and how to match and beat them.

Lance