In the last year BJA policy to other Judo/Budo groups has changed and it is now possible for my Club, which incidentally is 50 years old this year, to belong to the BJA and the organisation I head (International Budo Federation UK). Several of my coaches have taken gradings and coaching certificates with the BJA because of his the club now receives various publications from the association, which I find very informative. In the January issue of MatSide, Sue Dawson’s letter does bring up some interesting points, which I would like to comment on. She is quite right in saying that Judo needs competition the educational system in this country over the last 10 years has let our youth down in particular the attitude to competition generally, so called educational experts are convinced that Sports Competition is bad for children, Judo is one of those disciplines that buck that idea in my opinion for the betterment of the youngsters. Yet I totally agree with the BJA that they should encourage more theory in the grading, I also applaud them for upping their standards for Dan Grading’s I refer to the increased interest in Kata, but to have a totally separate technical grade with out competition for Juniors I believe is a mistake. The only true way to understand a technique and improve its skill is for it to be used in a practical way and under stress i.e. contest. I am not suggesting children should be forced to enter competitions but they should be made to compete in a grading. After saying this I cannot agree with Sue that the majority of children want to compete on the contrary the majority want the opposite they want as do most adults to train once maybe twice a week in a purely recreational manner, this I feel is a very modern day attitude I know from my own experience that in the 70’s and 80’s this was not the case, I remember taking a 100 competitors from my club to the Herne Bay open but if Judo is to survive we have to adapt to today’s people as long as we do not drop standards.
One thing I do disagree with her is that she maintains Judo is a sport not an art, many years ago myself and the late great Geoff Gleeson founded an organisation called the “Academy of Coaching” sadly this is now defunct, the aims of the academy was to promote the Art of Coaching and attracted top coaches from all sports as well as leading figures from the arts and entertainment world one of the reoccurring topics was “Can Sport be Art” this caused a lot of heated discussion for and against with no real outcome. I expect what Sue meant Judo is not a Art in the terms of Martial Art, Judo loosely translated means “Supple Way” Way being a path or an ideology which to follow, Judo’s founder Jigaro Kano maintained it was an educational system a way to make better human beings. Sport is just one aspect of that education but it is not the be all and end all, those who treat Judo as a grappling sport like Sombo Wrestling, Kurash etc do not have long time in the discipline, I have been in Judo for 52 years starting at the age of 5 if it was purely about competition/sport I would not still be a Judoka. As a young man my only reason for doing Judo was to win medals and beat people, luckily enough I was at a period of Judo that insisted when taking a grading I had do all aspects of the discipline, as I grew older I began to understand a lot more and that what makes JUDO so superior to Combat Forms and Sports, Judo is a unique discipline and it must remain so.
Being an ex competitor I am still interested in finding ways to improve our countries competition standards for many years our IBF Holland have implemented No Sutemi Waza, No Kubi Nage, No drop Knee Seoi, No leg grabs I have always resisted implementing them in the IBF UK as I felt this was a coaching issue i.e. badly taught technique but I have to admit Dutch IBF Players do have a better rate of Ippons with throws and they have a lot more members, at last years IBF Nationals the Senior were staged before the Juniors who had to watch and the standard of Junior matches was the best I have seen for many years!, for over 10 years we have run the occasional Judo tournament where the only way you can go into Ne-Waza is for one of the players to make a scoring throw this produced some good Judo but was not popular with coaches who felt interfering with rules was not a good thing? On April 22nd at Sittingbourne the Young Judo Club will be holding there 50th anniversary Judo Championship entitled the “Old and the New” Seniors will compete under old rules dating back to the early 60’s and Juniors will compete under new rules i.e. score with a throw before entering Ne-Waza, a demonstration of Nage No Kata will demonstrated in honour of YJC co-founder Nobby Clarke 6th Dan 1927-1990 who was the first person to bring Kata to Kent, Ju No Kata will be demonstrated to honour Margret Clarke 4th Dan who performed this Kata at the Royal Albert Hall in 1964 and was considered at the time to be one of the leading exponents of that period. All associations are welcome. For more info go to http://www.youngjudoclub.co.uk/, youngjudoclub@yahoo.co.uk or Swale Martial Arts Club, 127 East Street, Sittingbourne, Kent. ME10 4BL
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