I would come to judo practice if they had free cheese (West Coast Judo Training Center is BACK!)

I was talking to Ronda the other day about someone who I had once thought would be a good judo player and turned out to never win anything past the junior division of the state championships. She said,

"I TOLD you that kid would never be any good."

Then I mentioned someone else who had placed once or twice in senior nationals and she said,

"They're never going to amount to anything either. You know why? Because they always have an excuse not to come to practice."

She is right, too. The biggest deciding factor over the years I have seen between those who made it - by which I mean in this case winning senior international medals - has been their ability to take an adult perspective of judo.

Let me give you an example. As an adult, when was the last time you said to someone at work,

"I'm not going to work with you on that software design because I don't like you."

You are supposed to get over behavior like that by the time you are sixteen, and that's if you're a slow learner. I teach graduate school and I also run a small business. I give less than a damn whether employees or graduate students on a team are BFFs or hate each others' guts. You don't come to work for love and friendship, that's why they have to pay you to show up. You come to achieve a goal and you are expected to act like an adult while you work on it.

People don't come to practice because:

1. I don't like Sensei Schmoe.


2. I don't like that guy in the smelly gi I have to work out with sometimes


3. They spend 20 minutes on conditioning and I can do that at home. (Note that I have seen the people who say this and none of them look like they spent three hours on conditioning this morning. It is possible they have a perfect body and just keep it covered with a layer of fat to protect it, but I doubt it.)


4. I have to study. (And none of the other 160 hours in the week are available for you to study.)

I have heard a thousand excuses for people not coming to the West Coast Training Center. If it was closer to my house, on a day besides Saturday, in a regular permanent gym, in the morning, in the afternoon, served free cheese because I am lactose deficient.

Well, thanks to the generosity of one of our parents, we now have a new location in a permanent gym, with practices on Saturday and Sunday. Both Saturday morning and afternoon. It is in West Covina so it must be closer to SOME people's houses. We still don't offer free cheese so people who were looking for an excuse will still have one.

Please share this invitation with your club members. You are very welcome to attend.

GRAND OPENING - New Location

West Coast Judo Training Center
537 Vine Ave.
West Covina, CA 91790

Saturday, October 24
Practice 10- 11:30 and 1-4 on Saturday
Cost $10 for the whole day !


Sunday October 25
11 a.m. - 2 p.m.