“As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” So spoke Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, back in 2002, regarding our knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. He could have been talking about Judo, too.
One of my favorite sports movies is Miracle, the story of the 1980 U.S. hockey teamâs gold medal win at the Lake Placid Olympics, and in particular our improbable 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union, winner of the previous four Olympic golds. Miracle is also about the superb coaching of Herb Brooks- his game plan, his outside-the-box ideas, and his drive to transform a mediocre national program.
Stubborn is an adjective that is sometimes used to describe me. After years of futile attempts to get some of my kids’ mothers to try Judo, I decided that a different approach was needed. One thing I was convinced about was that my moms did want to do Judo, in spite of saying they didn’t or that they would never do it. Yet talking to them and observing them as they watched their kids perform in class only reaffirmed my conviction that all we needed to do was change the setting before some of them would actually get on the mat and roll around with us.
One of my readers is a father of four young, dynamic Judoplayers, who have great potential as Judo competitors. His kids have been to my practices and have competed in my in-house tournaments. He has participated in a USJA Coach Education Program I’ve run. He hates the new IJF rules. Who can blame him? So now, in addition to Judo, his kids are doing jiujitsu. His latest comments to my posts have encouraged me to address issues he brings up.
Although I’ve been coaching for over 38 years, this year was the first time I decided to run a week-long summer day camp. We ran not one, but two week-long day camps from 9am-3pm within our own facility. I came away physically drained, but feeling good about our decision to run these camps- so good, in fact, that I’d like to share our experience with you.
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
Carol Dweck is a leading expert in motivation and personality psychology. I stumbled across her research while reading The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. I was fascinated by her findings, especially this one: praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance! Piqued, I needed to find out more, so I wrapped my arms around Dweck’s own book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.