Adult Beginners Courses  

, 06/02/2012 | Source: Vale Judo Club

 

Vale Judo's Beginners courses for adults start again on the following dates - come and give it a go!

  • Women & Girls (teenagers) - Wednesday 22nd February 2012 - 6-7pm
  • Men & Boys (teenagers) - Friday 24th February 2012 - 6-7pm

£50 course fees include: Eight 60 minute lessons, hire of judo suit, BJA Judo licence and first grading.

Sportivate funding subsidies available for 14-25 year olds until 31st March 2012.

Southfields BJC Invitational 2012  

, 06/02/2012 | Source: Vale Judo Club

Well done to all of the Vale Judo players that entered this event - medal tally below:

Primaries:

  • Morgan Kilburn - Bronze
  • Izaak Cole Wallace - unplaced
  • Ryan Doyle - unplaced
  • Jorge Cole Wallace - Silver
  • Georgie Lamb - Gold
  • Ella Warwick - Silver
  • Hermione Lanyan - Bronze
  • Bryony Cutforth - Gold

Juniors:

  • Callum Rowley - Gold
  • Ben Buckby - Gold
  • James Reseigh - Bronze
  • Alec Cutforth - Silver

Midland Area U20 Age Banded Championship January 2012  

, 06/02/2012 | Source: Vale Judo Club

Well done to all those who took part:

Callum Rowley, Daniel Bennett, Alex Cutforth, Emma Philip (bronze), James Reseigh, Ben Buckby (7th), Oliver Blake and especially Megan Rowley who kept us all on the edge of our seats as she battled her way though a three way tie to win a silver medal.

 

This was a tough competition, but a good warm up for the British Schools Championship in March.

WJA Primary School Ages Holiday Training Camp  

Welsh Judo, 06/02/2012 | Source: Welsh Judo Association

The Welsh Judo Association are running a school holiday camp for primary school aged children during half term week (13/2/12 - 17/2/12). The camp will be coached by Dave Spettie the Schools Development Coach and will run from the National Dojo at the Sport Wales National Centre in Sophia Gardens.

The cost of the camp is as follows;

1 day - £16
2 days - £32
3 days - £48
4 days - £59
5 days - £65

For any further details please contact:

Tom Wood - Performance Development Coach, Welsh Judo - 07827 444168

or

Office - 029 2033 4945

We look forward to seeing you on the camp.

Regards,

Tom Wood

Another thought on Freestyle Judo  

Chad Morrison, 05/02/2012 | Source: Akari Judo Blog

When I first heard about Freestyle Judo, I was a fan.  Not completely sold on the rules, but I was happy to see that someone was actively trying to undo some of the garbage that the IJF was pushing down, and glad to see someone trying something new.  After my interview with USJA president Gary Goltz, however, my feeling was that since the USJA would back a tourney with decent rules, I would prefer people to go that route (using non-IJF rules in a USJA/F sponsored tourney) rather than requiring people to join another organization (the AAU) to compete...

Thinking further about it, though, I think the distinction between "allowing" and "promoting" a decent rule set is really important.  JA/JF will allow different rules, but they promote the IJF nonsense.  AAU and Steve Scott actively promote the different rules, and I think that is what our dedicated Judo organizations should be doing, as well.  So, until they do, I'm all for AAU and Freestyle Judo.  Maybe the competition (if there turns out to be some) will get these organizations' heads right.

Score or no score?  

judobob, 05/02/2012 | Source: judobob


Judo Dad - My first judo club, US Coast Guard CPOA, Portsmouth, Virginia circa 1974  

Anonymous, 05/02/2012 | Source: JudoForum Blogs

I was digging around in some old photo albums a while back and I found this--a picture of my old judo club and my first sensei, John Peters. The club was sponsored by the US Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers' Association at the now defunct base in Portsmouth, Virginia. Peter Sensei is in the back row on the far left. I'm the third one...

Booking-in & Weighing-in Times for Mon & Kyu Grade Competition February 12th  

judoclub, 05/02/2012 | Source: Kendal Judo Club

Boys - Under 16 years -- 10.00am

Girls & Men - 11.00am

First contests 10.30 am

Paris Grand Slam 2012  

, 05/02/2012 | Source: judo-sport

This weekend was held Paris Grand Slam 2012, and I just want to underline:

No one Japanese player in the men's finals!
Five gold’s for Japanese women's team!
Two gold’s for Uzbekistan, Mongolian and for the French team!
Good performance of Uzbekistan judo player Rishod Sobirov winning final under 60 kg for 11 seconds, and Telma Monteiro from Portugal beating Japanese Aiko Sato for gold under 57 kg in 9 seconds.
No sport attitude of French player David Larose, by the way winner of gold under 66 kg.
Good attitude and excellent performance and superiority of French champion Teddy Riner winning all by ippon over 100 kg.
Defeat by decision of the judges of Lucie Decosse in final under 70 kg against Japanese Haruka Tachimoto actually fourth on the IJF World Ranking List.
Gold medal under 81 kg for German player Ole Bischof.
And no podium for Henk Grol, actually first on the IJF World Ranking List in the category under 100 kg.

Passion Assassins: Watch out for them  

Marcinek, 05/02/2012 | Source: Disabled Grappler

What’s up Guys?

A lot of times when people ask me what DisabledGrappler LLC is about, what its mission is, and I tell them the focus in on “athlete development through, training, coaching, and motivational speaking”  I get this response “oh, that’s nice, what do you want to do when you get a real job?”…..

These people are what I like to coin Passion assassins. What exactly are passion assassins? These are people who, after hearing your thoughts, hopes, dreams, and aspirations, sneak up behind them and take them out without ever giving them a chance to develop.  Now please don’t misunderstand I know that their intentions are good, they want to see me make a good salary and have a stable income and so do I, I really do, but we just have a different view on things.

Passion Assassin: Scary huh?

I look at things like this,  I can have a multimillion dollar job, cars, houses all that good stuff but if I don’t like what I’m doing,  if I’m not passionate about it, What the hell is the point? I know that might seem really idealistic, and it is to a point, but if I don’t enjoy what I do?  Who am I working for really?  I also realize it’s easier for  me to say because of the situation I’m in, I don’t have  a wife or kids or a house to worry about, if I did, the situation would be totally reversed  and I would do whatever I would need  to do to make sure  that they were taken care , but I don’t so this is where I’m at.

This next line might sound like I’m looking for sympathy but I’m not, I’m just telling the truth  finding a job in this country is hard. We all know that, finding a job while disabled is Damn near impossible. Employers can say whatever they like, but I know they hate the fact that I can’t drive, I can almost tell you that every interview I’ve been on that’s been a deal breaker or that the building my office was going to be  in wasn’t handicapped accessible, of course they can’t say that, but  you get the feeling.

I’ve tried different things to get income, web design, grading English papers, etc  etc  and they were fine in the short term but In the long term, I just wasn’t going anywhere. So, I sat back and thought about what truly brings me the most happiness in life and literally about two seconds later the answer came back..The combat sports. So, I started this company and I’ll be honest, I’m still not 100% sure the direction I want to take it in, I do want to do more things grappling oriented. The business is called DisabledGRAPPLER after all  not disabled motivational speaker but that is part of the fun, the challenge and if things really take off, I’ll be making a living doing something that I LOVE  and to me, that would be the greatest thing in the world.

Until next time, keep the passion assassins at bay,

Matt