Two weeks ago, I emailed four IJF officials asking what prompted the latest IJF edict against coaching from the sidelines. Marius Vizer, IJF President, and Vladimir Barta, IJF Head Sports Director, responded to my inquiry, for which I am grateful. This is what Mr. Vizer had to say:
Every now and then, I stumble across a concept that is so obvious that I wonder why I hadn’t thought of it myself. Last week, I read that a good portion of a student’s non-compliance to directions is caused not by his defiance, but by his incompetence: the student misinterprets or doesn’t know how to follow directions. Honestly, it had never crossed my mind that incompetence could be the root cause of not being able to focus or follow directions. ADD, ADHD, yes. Incompetence, no.
In my last post, I suggested that we should be concerned that national federations would jump on the bandwagon and start implementing the latest IJF rule concerning matside coaching. This new rule states that coaches will only be able to coach between ‘matte’ and ‘hajime’. Well, it took less than 24 hours to find out that Canada had already issued the command to go forward with the rule. According to a Canadian colleague, the new rule will be enforced in November at a local event in his province of British Columbia (BC).
The heavy hand of the IJF has once again come down hard on coaches. Good grief! Why the continued assault? While the new directive applies only to IJF events, we must be concerned that national federations will jump aboard and start enforcing a similar rule for national and perhaps even local events. Here’s the IJF ruling, which I only found out about because my American colleague received it from a Mexican colleague.
According to Greek philosopher Aristotle, “Education is the process of creating a sound mind in a sound body.” Mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a healthy body), a famous Latin quotation, supports that concept. Yet centuries after these pronouncements, what’s the first thing that gets axed or limited, or is used as a form of punishment when a child falls behind in his schoolwork or grades? Extra-curricular physical education. In other words, sports like Judo. And the reason for sports taking such a big hit is that in spite of all the positive information available regarding the value of participation in sports, physical education still gets no respect.
Winning on the Mat: Judo, Freestyle Judo and Submission Grappling is the title of Steve Scott’s massive (over 400 pages) book on Judo. Scott, a key leader in AAU and Freestyle Judo, is like me a rebel with a cause and admirer of Geof Gleeson. He feels that Judo gets no respect and is headed in the wrong direction. About a month ago, out of the blue, Scott was kind enough to send me a copy of his book. In return, he asked for nothing.