That was better than expected... more competition

Yesterday I fought at the Samurai masters/high grade competition.

In the masters event I had 3 fights against guys around 140Kg. Beat one of them with drop seoi I've been working on, followed up with a waki gatame after scooting out from underneath. No idea where that armlock came from, took me by suprise as much as him I think! That was enough for a bronze.

Then later, a 3rd dan competition. Opponents closer to my weight, it was also my first test against just 3rd dans. Won 2 of 4 (enough for bronze), 1st with drop seoi for ippon, second win was uchi mata attack then ko soto ish sweep when retreating from the uchi mata attack, the sweeping leg being the same as the one sweeping up in uchimata.

Worked suprisingly well, Uke stood up straight to avoid my uchi mata my sweep took advantage of that perfectly for ippon :)

So I'm off the mark and on my way towards 4th dan with 20 points just a couple of weeks after getting my 3rd, go me!

BJA membership numbers are up....

http://www.britishjudo.org.uk/home/MembershipRise.php

So, the BJA has more members. The recent drives for recruitment seem to have worked.

What drives were they? I don't know about all by any means but directly affecting me and the students I teach are the BJA efforts to recruit at the universities and changes to the grading system.

The voucher scheme for students offering cheap kits etc are a nice idea, but I suspect a lot of those new members are transient. How many will continue after the social aspect of a uni club disappears (as they leave for a job)? Are the numbers of Judo participants really up or just the number that have BJA membership?

I'm still not wholly convinced on the switch to purely technical syllabus for kyu grades. It seems to be having the desired effect of reducing membership loss, but isn't Judo a physical sport? If physicality isn't someone's idea of fun, perhaps Judo isn't the sport for them. I wouldn't recommend they try Rugby either. Equally I've seen some frankly dire demonstrations of waza being passed both at kyu grade level but more worryingly also from candidates doing technical dan grades.

We (coaches/examiners) need guidance from the BJA as to what constitutes a satisfactory grading standard for each grade. The impression I've gathered from observations/announcements is that the BJA is pushing "get people through the grades" in the hope that apparent progress helps retain numbers. I naively thought grades were about ability in Judo, not how long someone had been practising/has paid?

For sure these changes will be heralded as a great success by the BJA, more members = growth = more money = safe jobs. Maybe too simplistic/cynical a view? Probably.