A few days ago, I stumbled across a review of a coaching conference, at which I was one of the technical, on-the-mat clinicians. The author gave a fair assessment of the five presentations that were offered. I thought his comments on my presentation were positive, except that I was labelled one of the most ‘controversial’ figures in U.S. Judo, and that some of my ideas were “outrageous” by conventional ideologies. Both perhaps true, but nonetheless bothersome. What gives?
There’s an old saying in team sports that good defense wins games. I’ve never heard any similar statement applied to Judo but I think it should. If good defense does win games, why shouldn’t it also apply to winning matches in Judo? I can’t come up with a rational reason why it shouldn’t. To be more competitive at the international level, it’s time we change our training paradigm on a national scale to reflect this adage.
Back in December when I wrote Hansoku Make, IJF!, I had trouble understanding why actions in certain video clips merited hansoku make. Well, apparently now, so does the IJF. According to a report by USJF Referee Development Committee Chairperson Joon Chi, twelve of the twenty-one clips that I called into question no longer deserve hansoku make. Instead, the IJF being the IJF, half of those twelve now require a shido to one of the players for what I can only guess is illegal gripping or defensive this or that. Clear on that?
I believe that each community in America could support a Judo club if only we had enough coaches. Since we don’t have enough coaches maybe we should take a page from the American Youth Soccer Association (AYSO) when it set up shop almost fifty years ago. The AYSO recruited volunteer parents, mostly with little knowledge of soccer or coaching, provided them with a manual, a brief coaching clinic, a few balls and cones, and then cut them loose to coach their child’s soccer team. Many of these neophyte volunteers actually developed into relatively good soccer coaches after several years, in spite of knowing little initially or never having played the game themselves.
Just when I thought we had seen the end to the political games being played by members of the USJA Board of Directors, reality quickly reared its ugly head again. In a last minute gambit to protect her presidency, AnnMaria DeMars nominated Jim Pedro as vice-president and forced him to accept being nominated in spite of declining three times to accept it! More surprisingly, and shamefully in my opinion, a majority of board members voted for Pedro rather than Gary Goltz, the former USJA COO. Continue reading
This past weekend I was in Las Vegas attending the All Women’s Judo Championships, a USJA board meeting, and the USJA National Coaches Conference. Here are my thoughts on what I saw and heard.
When I was informed about the All Women’s Judo Championships, my first thought was why do we need a special tournament for such a small segment of our already small Judo population? After attending my first All Women’s Judo Championships as a spectator, my opinion hasn’t changed. But that’s only because what Deb Fergus, the founder of this event, wants for women, I want for all Judoplayers, namely special development events held for the benefit of the players, not the officials and especially not the referees. Continue reading