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).
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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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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.
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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.
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U.S. Tennis Association is the latest group to change the way things are done in its sport. Coming to the conclusion that American tennis is at its sorriest state ever- no American player is ranked in the top ten- it has launched a multi-million dollar development program called Ten and under Tennis.
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My colleague Steve Scott, recently wrote in his newsletter, “As an interesting sidelight to how history repeats itself, a variety of these techniques are used in various forms of submission grappling and mixed martial arts, although they continue to be illegal in judo competition.” He was talking about various forms of shime waza or constricting techniques, not necessarily neck chokes. Not very long ago, one of my readers commented, “Please correct me if I’m wrong; wrestling, Brazilian jiujitsu, and competitive sambo will allow all Judo throws of the Kodokan in competition. With the IJF rules, Judo does not. This is a disgrace.” I couldn’t agree more.
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Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful is the title of Yuriko Gamo Romer’s still-in-progress documentary film chronicling the life of Keiko Fukuda. Ms. Fukuda, the last surviving judoka to have studied directly under Jigoro Kano, was recently promoted to 10th Dan by USA Judo. She remains the highest ranking female judoka in the world, and becomes the first female 10th dan.
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While growing up in Secaucus, New Jersey, I started collecting stamps as a project for a Boy Scouts badge when I was eight. My Czechoslovakian grandmother and French father were good sources for foreign stamps. Dad worked in the restaurant business in New York City and had access to lots of customers from all over the world. When I moved to France at age ten, my stamp collecting took off like a rocket.
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This past Sunday, I ran another quarterly in-house developmental tournament using what I call Judo America rules- no penalties, no terminal ippon, and no banned techniques. As players started filtering into the dojo, one of my dads approached me with his young son. He told me his son had fallen off his bike the previous day and skinned his knee. He brought his son to the tournament hoping that his son could compete, but was worried that he might bleed all over. I took a look at the “wound” and told his son to get on the mat and be ready to compete. It was pretty superficial.
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If there was any doubt that the IJF, and by extension the national organizations, didn’t care for the athletes, here’s proof that the only thing that matters is how much each organization can make off rank and file players, coaches, and officials. I call this highway robbery.
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