Motivating students at your club

Last night's session was hard work. Not in the sense of me getting tired and sweaty but in trying to get the students to put some real effort in. In a class of around 20-25 (uni) students only a few looked to be really trying, the rest just going through the motions of the exercises.

With a few competitions coming up soon I've been picking up the pace and working on sweatiness more than technical/grading stuff. Last few sessions went down really well with everyone giving their all but for some reason there seemed to be a large group that were feeling lazy/seemed more interested in socialising than training :(

How do you snap your students out of it when they get like that? I tried my usual switching tempo to try and wake them up, tried couple of minutes of slower stuff, I tried doing the 4x30seconds circuit style work outs that usually gets them going (or knackers them out!), tried talking quietly and loudly but nothing.

So frustrating. I can only assume I lost them early on with too much breakfalling/gymnastic type exercises and didn't get them back :( One day they might understand that being able to fling yourself about without fear is good for their Judo!

On a side note, I've just offered the Leeds uni club to take a couple of one off sessions. As some readers will know I set up the club as coach a few years back after it was missing from the uni for a while then got unceremoniously removed as session times changed to some I couldn't do.

Seems one of the guys involved in that removal has given up his part of the coaching ( session a week) after just 4 or 5 months so they are down to 1 session a week and it seems there are a few who want more than that. I keep inviting them to Sheffield uni but it's a bit difficult as I don't think any of them drive, £10 return on the train + £3 tram + £2 mat fee for a 2 hour session is understandably a bit much for students to be committing to.