We just aren’t very good right now!  Countless reasons have been put forth to explain our repeated failure at international tournaments, so here’s another one- a lack of intelligence!  The previous sentences were gleaned from two different articles.  You might guess they were talking about American Judo, but in reality the first comment is about U.S. tennis, and the second is about British football or soccer.  If these two powerhouses are having trouble, what can we expect from American Judo, which has never been a big medal winner?

It’s important we look at what ails other national sports programs around the world.  We may actually learn something that could set Judo development on fire in the U.S.  Or we can continue to use our current model and hope for the best.  Not!

In the case of tennis, the article makes some interesting points.  Its lays the blame for our poor performance on our lack of physical education in schools.  Amen to that.  Angel Lopez, director of tennis operations at the San Diego Tennis & Racquet Club states:

The big problem is physical education…I see kids who can’t run and can’t jump; I see kids with no ball skills. American kids are softer. A South American coach told me, ‘You want entertainers as coaches; what we do you’d call child abuse.’

For those of us who have been teaching over 30 years, it’s not a surprise that our current crop of kids has gotten softer and less physically adept, and needs to be entertained more than past generations.

American tennis great John McEnroe claims that mentoring and coaching are not what they used to be, and that too many kids learn the techniques of the sport, but don’t know how to play the game.  Ditto for Judo except that mentoring and coaching were never fully developed to start with.  Not knowing how to play the game is the result of faulty training models, and reliance upon a technique-based curriculum rather than on more functional models such as a situation-based, games-approach, or decision training.

Lopez also deplores that the U.S. is a follower rather than a leader in international tennis, and it hasn’t develop an American style of tennis.  Same for USA Judo.  We’re meek sheep that follow rather than lead.  As to American style, we’re imitators rather than visionaries.

Belgian coach Michel Bruyninckx is developing a “brain centered learning” model for soccer to help players develop a sport IQ.  Some of the features of his training model are multitask the brain, challenge players’ focus, play simple math games while doing conditioning work, and constantly work on new exercises to challenge the brain.  It’s reported that while players on UEFA Cup Champions Barcelona touch the ball 100,000 times a year, players trained by Bruyninckx touch it 500,000 times!

Judo coaches might want to see if Bruyninckx’s system has any applications to Judo.  What can we do to get our players more touches or more throws on their training partners?  How do we pack more functional training in the same amount of training time?  How do we get our players to learn not only the techniques of Judo, but how to play the game of Judo?

I think it’s safe to say that our training model must be revamped.  There’s simply too much valuable information out there to ignore it.  Better training models are worthless without better coaches.  Thus, I appeal for a “Manhattan Project” type effort to develop better-educated coaches.  The sooner we get the majority of our coaches updated, the quicker our national program can make strides to excel at the international level, or simply keep Judo alive.

Finally, let’s keep our eyes and ears open so that we can learn from the mistakes, and successes, of other sports.