Category Archives: Judo Politics

Setting up a Promotion Committee

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In my last blog post, I offered up the idea that national promotion committees were not the only game in town, and suggested that those of you fed up with the politics of rank could and probably should look into creating your own promotion committees.  This resonated well with many of you.  Now, my fear is that some of you will engage in the behaviors, favoritism, and nepotism that have made national promotion committees a farce.  Here are my suggestions to prevent that.

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Show Me the Evidence!

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Several months ago, I had a heated discussion with my assistant coach who happens to be an international referee.  As usual, the conversation revolved around the silly IJF rules, and how he could not support my transition away from IJF rules Judo to my own version of Judo competition, which is similar to AAU Freestyle Judo.  Upon telling him that I needed to move on in order to keep Judo relevant, and that lots of people had similar concerns and had made the same decision as I had, he demanded that I show him the evidence. Furthermore, he stated that he wasn’t interested in Judo that can’t be done outside the dojo.  Small mind.

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More from IJF and WJF

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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.

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Notes from 2011 World Championships in Paris

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I had the pleasure of attending the first two days of the 2011 World Championships in Paris.  Here are my comments.

I ran into Michel Brousse, the French Judo historian (among other things) in the hotel lobby.  He was kind enough to acknowledge that my daughter Natalie was participating in the championships.  He also informed me that there would be an International Association of Judo Researchers symposium the next morning, and invited me to attend.  I did, and came away with lots of good information from the morning session, which was dedicated to Judo history.  Unfortunately, I had to miss the afternoon session as I was meeting my 86-year old father, whom I hadn’t seen in some twenty years.

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