Category Archives: Judo Development

What’s Up With The USJA?

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AnnMaria De Mars and Jim Pedro, respectively the president and vice-president of the USJA, resigned a few weeks ago. Pedro did so during a conference call meeting of the USJA Board of Directors, and De Mars resigned the following day.

Emotions are running high. Some USJA members are threatening to pull out of the USJA and join USA Judo.  Makes sense to me- NOT.  If there was ever a dysfunctional, worthless group to join, it would have to be USA Judo. So guys, knock yourselves out and join USA Judo if you think it’s going to care more about your opinions and welfare.

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Youth Technical Director

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“Player development continues to be the core of what we do. By its very nature it’s a long-term process, so it may not be as sexy as announcing a national team competition or coach or winning medals, but it’s actually probably the most important thing we do.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if this were coming from USA Judo? Well, it didn’t come from USA Judo. It came from U.S. Soccer’s president, when he introduced the federation’s newly appointed youth technical director.

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Tournament Stuff

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Several of my blogs have generated some great information from my readers, so this blog will be devoted to sharing that information with you.

Mike Darter, the founder of the Judo Podcast, was kind enough to introduce me to Score Judo, a Judo scoreboard for PC, which was developed in Australia as an application for use by all bona fide judo clubs anywhere in the world free of charge.

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About Promotions

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My daughter Valerie, who started a Judo club last month, is now addressing the one thing she had not yet tackled or thought of very deeply- rank promotions. Like many elite players, she is so oblivious to rank that periodically she’ll ask me, “What rank am I, dad?”  Now that she’s a coach and responsible for the development of her own students, rank takes on a whole new meaning, even though she couldn’t care less about her own rank.

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Breaking Out Of Our Comfort Zone

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Comfort zone: [definition] a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk.

One of the reasons progress has been so slow in coming to American Judo is that we are deeply happy and comfortable with the traditions and training model of our sport, and we don’t want to be the nail that gets hammered down. By golly, if it was good enough for my sensei and his sensei, then it’s good enough for me. Unfortunately for us, progress comes from stepping outside our comfort zone just long enough so that new skills can be learned and better performances can be achieved.

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This is Developmental?

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Back in January 2010, I announced that the USJA was going to create new rules for “developmental” tournaments. That was great news. I thought that some sanity would return to our sport after the IJF’s latest, and drastic, rule changes were announced. Well, the results are in, and I am very disappointed, but not totally shocked.

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