If you’ve ever had to control a group of 3-5 year old lil warriors on a large Judo mat, you know how great they are at running around, fidgeting, and not paying attention. Coach Yuki at Judo America found a convenient way to corral her charges. On the command “Get back to your spot,” her lil warriors move back into their personal ‘ring.’
If you follow international sports as I do, you probably know that a nation of 330,000 just qualified for the 2018 World Cup in soccer, while a nation of 330 million failed to qualify for the same event. Why did Iceland qualify while the United States failed? Who cares, some of you might be thinking? Well, the answer is simple. There’s much to learn from Iceland’s success in soccer, and from America’s failure, because Judo in the U.S. suffers from the same problems when it comes to national development.