My Life: Not on Instagram

I lead the opposite of an Instagram life.

That’s not to say it’s boring because it’s not. So far this year, I’ve been in five countries, nine states and I’ve lost track of the number of cities. I’m also not opposed to Instagram. I do have an account and I post on it most days. No, what I mean is that while most people are posting things to make their life look more interesting than it is, I often forget or don’t have time to post because I’m too busy doing interesting things.

Been so many places, I couldn't remember where this was at first.
California, in the mountains.

Where I’ve been lately

Since the last blog post, a dozen of us from Gompers Judo attended Judo Con - which was GREAT. There were judo instructors and coaches from all over the country learning everything from teaching judo to children with special needs to jump roping for conditioning in martial arts to character development in youth sports. Every one of the presenters was my favorite.

I’ve gotten back to teaching at Gompers regularly. Thanks a million for the judo gi donations. It’s hard to believe that Gompers Judo has been in existence ten years now. We've had gis donated a couple of times previously but over a decade, things wear out.

It’s looking like Judo Con will be on the East Coast next year so next on my agenda is raising money for a dozen plane tickets to get some kids there.




I’ve also gone to Washington, D.C. twice because I was selected as an AARP Purpose Prize Fellow - which was also amazing.

 It is for people who have led a “purpose driven life” and have a noteworthy “second act”.  Many award winners founded charities, like The Pink Fund which pays the non-medical bills for women who have cancer (what do you do if you can’t work for 3 months?) , Starting Right Now which provides homes, counseling and academic support for homeless youth. I founded 7 Generation Games, which is not a charity but has helped 20,000 kids get better at math and English.

Along with that, I’ve been a speaker at the South Dakota Indian Education Association conference, National Indian Education Association Conference ...

Minneapolis: National Indian Education Association

Language and Learning Conference in Merritt, British Columbia, where I also had the opportunity to attend a joint workout of the Nicola Valley Muay Thai , then head to Vancouver to participate in a self-defense workshop offered by Protect Our People.

I put up another More Than Ordinary podcast, this one with author, long-time judo coach and budding YouTube celebrity, Steve Scott.

So, I have literally been coast to coast, from Boston, where I had a couple of meetings on our new Crossroads games and also got to see Julia play in her final season of soccer.

In case you haven’t been keeping up ...

This spring I was in Melbourne, Australia for a week and I started out the beginning of the year in Santiago, Chile.

There have also been a couple of short trips to Mexico.

Oh, and I did a month-long road trip with my husband.

Driving through South Dakota

Two big things I learned this year

Just say, “Yes”. 

From going to Melbourne to the Nicola Valley to teaching summer school at Spirit Lake, I did a lot of things this year that were only tangentially related to what could be considered our "core business" at 7 Generation Games. I did not regret a single one of them.

I've learned that life is far less predictable than we'd like to believe. I often think back to the fact that my husband died when he was seven years younger than I am now.  I absolutely guarantee you that if you went back to any of the teachers I had in junior high and high school and told them I was doing life in prison now none of them would be surprised. But I'm not. Not yet, anyway.

This isn't to say that you should spend your days lying on the beach or scrolling through Twitter on your phone because, "Life is unpredictable, why bother?"

What I mean is that you should not get so laser focused that you lose sight of opportunities that might not come again. That's why I went to Chile, why I started 7 Generation Games, why I do a lot of things.

Some people worry about dying without a full bank account. I think a bigger worry should be about dying full of regrets. 

NOTHING is more important than associating with good people. Nothing. 

 Explaining one of her business decisions, Carly Fiorina said,

"Once you sell your soul, no one can buy it back for you."

People make this mistake in judo, in other martial arts or sports and in business. Because someone has money to invest or donate, is good at a sport, is a successful coach, their character flaws are overlooked. Sure, I wouldn't trust Bob alone with my teenage daughter or my wallet, yes he is physically abusive to athletes and overly controlling but look at ....

I'm not looking at jack shit.

If Bob isn't a good person, if he isn't honest, trustworthy, brave - cut him out of your life. This lesson took me too long to learn and I am never, never going to forget it. I don't care if Bob's judo is so great he could defeat the entire U.S. Marine Corps single-handed. It doesn't matter how much money Bob has. Please don't make me vomit by asking me to think of how much good could be done for the athletes/ children/ investors with Bob's money.

Good people attract other good people. Bad people repel them.

If I know Bob is a lying, cheating douchebag and I see you hanging out with Bob, I'm less likely to have anything to do with you. If I don't know you from a hole in the wall and I see you with Bob and your cousin over there is hanging out with Sally B. Goode, I'm going to go see what Sally and your cousin are up to. Even if I DO know you, if I know that Sally is always doing something to help people, save the whales or find a solution to world hunger, I'm STILL going to go check out what Sally and Cousin Lou are up to.

When I started my first company, many years ago, I reached out to Bruce Toups for advice. I was still a young puppy and he was a successful businessman. He told me,

"Hire for character first. Everything else is secondary."

Apply that to everyone around you, not just hiring. It will improve your life.

Let the young people run judo

I said there were three reasons I am not involved in judo as much as I used to be - and here is the second one ...

We need to let young people run judo

First of all, I can't do nearly as much as I did 30 years ago. I have nowhere near the strength or speed. Yes, I have plenty of knowledge, but, especially for a lot of throwing techniques, you need SPEED to show how it should really be. You need to be able to BEND to get low enough to show how a throw should be done. I cannot do that nearly to the extent I did when I was young and neither can any of those other older instructors - they just don't admit it.

Years ago, I went to Valley Judo to watch a practice. Sus Kono is the head instructor there. He had Ross Nakamura, who was probably 16 years old, run the warm-ups. Then, he had Jason Uno, who was in his twenties or so, teach seoi nage. Then he had Ross give his take on seoi nage.  Giorgio Gazzani, who was around 18, ran the randori session.

At the end of the practice,  I said to Sus,

"That was great, but some time, I want to come back and see you teach."

He smiled and said,

"You just did."

Valley Judo Institute has grown amazingly since that day and I am not surprised.

We need to put younger people in front of the room

It always seems such a waste to me when I go to a club where I see six or eight young black belts and one (old) person is doing all of the teaching. How are these young people ever going to learn to run a practice, teach a class if we don't let them?

When we put together the instructors for Judo Con, we made a deliberate effort to have most of the sessions led by people under age 50. In part it is to give them practice in being leaders. Also, though, it's because I, and the other people who put this event together, really want to see and hear different ideas.

There's an old saying that,

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. 

I'm not saying an old dog can't learn new tricks, but heck, all the young dogs HAVE is new tricks (new to them, anyway).

People my age had our chance at running the judo organizations, running judo programs. Eventually, we should step aside and let the younger people give it a shot. Maybe they'll do a better job than us. I hope they do.

Think about this now, the people who say,

"I'm going to do judo until I die." 

To whose benefit? I didn't quit judo. I just agreed to start teaching again, once a week, in the fall.  I'm not saying you have to bury your judo gi in the back yard. However, there is that whole mutual benefit and welfare thing. Maybe it is to the mutual benefit if you step back and let other people step forward. You had your turn.

 Let the younger people give it a shot.

Maybe at first they won't be as good as you. They'll learn. Eventually, hopefully they'll be better.

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The Judo Advantage: The thinking person's judo book

I don't have time to read much these days that isn't technical books on things like PHP and I read The Judo Advantage because it was by my friend, Steve Scott. I would have had to come up with some excuse not to write a review if I hated it,  and I'm a really bad liar, so I'm relieved that I can honestly recommend it.

Who this book is for

I can think of four types of people who would like this book a lot.

First, coaches who have a more analytical approach to judo. I don't coach competitors any more, but when I did, this was totally me. When I saw everyone losing to a specific technique, say, sankaku jime, I would go home and work until I came up with a counter to it and my players wouldn't lose the same way again. I never could understand why other coaches didn't do this and their players lost the same way over and over.  This isn't to say the book is all discussion. I loved the section in Chapter 8 on using the head as a third arm and the section on combinations in Chapter 6.

Second, the competitor who has an intellectual approach to judo. That doesn't mean necessarily the player with the most education or highest IQ and it doesn't mean  that those competitors don't work out hard physically. Again, this was me when I was competing. I was always watching my own matches (once videotape became available), planning matches, analyzing why people won and lost. This doesn't mean I wasn't training my ass off, because I was, but the thinking about judo part and looking at it from every angle was yet one more tool to help me win. At the same time, I knew some highly educated people that just went into the dojo and did 1,000 uchikomis and ten rounds of randori and never got any smarter about why they were not able to throw their opponents.

Third, the older adult judo players - and by this I don't mean only senior citizens, but really, anyone who qualifies for masters divisions. These are people who have to show up at work on Monday and aren't doing the competitive circuit but they are interested in judo as an intellectual challenge as well as a physical one.There are a ton of people who love to talk about their ideas about judo. This book is for you, not only to give you more fodder for those discussions, but to enjoy when your friends aren't available and you still have judo on the brain.

If you are one of those people who talk about judo with your friends all the time - why person A is going to beat person B, what happened in the tournament last week and why the same team is going to win again - this is your book. 

So, am I saying  that this is "just a book for brainiacs"?  Well, no, I am saying, those people will LOVE The Judo Advantage.

The fourth group of people, though, are those who maybe don't read a lot of judo books, emphasis on the word "read" here and they probably aren't reading this blog. If that is you, though, mad props to you. If you are recommending this book to a friend who fits that description, my advice is to tell him or her to start in Chapter 3. That is when it gets really practical. Tell your friend to skip to the parts with lots of pictures. I don't mean this in a derogatory way but in dead seriousness. Those are the most pragmatic chapters of the book and the ones of most interest to people who don't care about theory but just want to win. Steve probably thinks you should read every chapter, but hey, if you buy the book, you can do whatever you want.

I liked this book a lot because, like Winning on the Ground (hey, I had to mention my own book on matwork here somewhere!) it's a book I wish I had both as a competitor and when I began coaching. I didn't live in an area where there were a lot of experienced coaches around when I started in Alton, Illinois.  Back then, I had a couple of judo books that I used for new ideas for techniques and to learn more outside of class. The Internet and youtube didn't exist back then!

So, Jimmy and I tried to write the book we wished we'd had when we were younger and it is pretty obvious from reading The Judo Advantage that Steve Scott did, too.

The three kinds of coaches

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a visitor, Miracle Kim Sandoval, here for the past three weeks who is an elite boxer from Chile. I know nothing about boxing but I called around and got some recommendations and went to a few clubs. We would have gone to more, but as I said in the previous post, four hours a day to take someone to practice, wait for practice and come home is really more time than I can spare on a regular basis.

It’s only been possible to do that for three weeks because I’ve been able to work during the practices. Being able to work anywhere is like a super power of mine.

I run a company that makes educational games, like our cool augmented reality app for kids, Math: The Universal Language.

So, here is what I have learned

There are people who love the game, people who love the player and people who love money.

I took Kim to Hayastan MMA several times where the coach, Roman Karmazin is a former world boxing champion. I’d also like to point out that when I asked Gokor Chivichyan and Gene Lebell if they could formally invite Kim to the US to train to help in arranging her visa, they didn’t hesitate to do so. Good people.

When we first arrived, Roman Mitichyan (yes, weird they have the same name) interpreted for us and warned me that Coach Karmazin doesn’t speak much English, but I told him that was no problem, neither does Kim. Random fact, Roman Mitichyan his amazing - he speaks English, Spanish, Armenian and Russian, as well as acts and sells real estate.

Roman Karmazin loves boxing. He spent hours helping Kim improve her form and even invited her outside of class to the park to give her a conditioning workout.

There are some professional and aspiring professional fighters in the boxing program at Hayastan but there are also just people who really like boxing. Everyone was super nice and welcoming, even though most of them were easily  twice her size.

Our next stop was Wild Card Boxing. Ronda recommended them as a place she was sure no one would behave inappropriately toward Kim. Let’s face it, she is very young and very cute and in some clubs that can make you very vulnerable. I have no problem with smacking someone with a chair if it is warranted but I’d prefer not to have to do it.

The coach we met at Wild Card, Sammy, clearly loves boxers, as do most of the other people I met there, from Freddy Roach’s nice sister and all the other people at the front desk to every trainer I spoke with in the gym.

The first day, they had Kim jump rope and shadow box for about 20 minutes and once it was clear she was pretty good and serious, Sammy worked with her extensively for the rest of the time she was there. He talked about his own experience being an Olympian from a small country in Africa.

The next time we came, he started working with her immediately. The entire atmosphere was super-focused and professional. We were mostly there when the professionals practiced, just because it fit in with my schedule.

Our third gym, which will remain nameless, charged me $100 for an hour of training that was pretty much the same as Kim received anywhere else. Now, that may be the going rate but I would point out that the other gyms did NOT charge that because it is pretty clear Kim is not from a situation where it’s feasible to pay that kind of money. It may be because that was the only gym that knew me as “Ronda Rousey’s mom”. At Wild Card, I was just some random lady that walked in with a boxer from Chile and at Hayastan, I have known Gokor since he was a teenager and Gene since I was a teenager.

The other gym was also professional as far as the level of training, although less gritty than Wild Card. Someone commented that at Wild Card “you can smell the sweat” (you could prefer that or not, depending on your taste).

It would have been more convenient for me but I really can’t afford thousands of dollars a month for someone else’s kid’s training. I still need to finish putting Julia De Mars through college.

Both Ronda and Maria pointed out that there is no money in women’s boxing so the gym was most likely not interested in Kim as a potential money maker for them.

All three gyms told me the exact same thing about Kim - that she has a lot of talent, trains her heart out and has potential to qualify for the Olympics and maybe win a medal. Having had some experience with judo coaches, I would have been skeptical if it was only the third gym that said that. I’ve found for $100 an hour, coaches usually tell everyone their kid has talent.

 They all identified the same strengths and weaknesses and areas she needed to work on.

Kim liked all of the gyms a lot.

Roman is what you think of as a Russian Olympic athlete - very serious, hard-working but also very good.

Sammy is also very hard-working but he is more personal.

In the end, I told Kim that I think coaches are like boyfriends or girlfriends. While a minority are abusive or toxic, most coaches are good for certain people and not others. If Kim was my kid I might pay the $100 to save driving 2 hours, but probably not. I’d want someone more personally invested., but if I was really driving 80 hours a month, I might change my mind about that.

Here is the thing - there is no right answer here. My own coach, Jimmy Martin, told me straight out that he wanted me to win because it made him look better as a coach. That was fine. I wanted me to win, too. As long as we were aiming at the same goal, we didn’t have to be best friends. When I had my knee replaced , I didn’t give a damn whether the orthopedic surgeon gave a damn about me or not. For other people , a personal relationship with a coach is important.

I think this is probably true in every sport. Some people love judo, some people love judo players and some people are in it for the money (not so much in judo, but there are some.). You just need to find what works for you.

Judo Drill Day and Assistant Instructors

On Friday, I have to be at a a company event in Santa Monica by 5:30 and it takes at least an hour to get from Gompers Middle School in rush hour. I hate to miss class. So, what do I do?

Here is my plan. Feel free to steal it. Half of it I stole from other people.

I'm going to run class from 3:30 - 4:15.  I plan to do is a series of drills for their matwork and throws. After I leave, the assistant instructors, who are all green belts, but certified teachers/ paraprofessionals which means they have superb classroom management skill, will go through the same drills.

I think repetition can be a good thing, as long as you don't over do it. It’s my same idea in math, to sometimes teach and then re-teach and students remember better.  Hopefully, we can get through this series three times in the 90 minute class. Even twice is good. Students will be able to see a noticeable improvement in their matwork skills particularly the second time around. With both math and martial arts I see instructors often move on too quickly to the next concept or skill before students feel confident in the first one taught.

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----- Back to our regularly scheduled program

Here is the drill series and how long I have planned for each one.

• The pushing and pulling drill. When I say, "Push!" you both push against each other. When I say, "Pull!" you I got  this from Jim Pedro, Sr. He does it for longer with his elite athletes. The main purpose is to build up strength and stamina in the exact muscles you use for gripping. A second benefit is that you learn to react to changes in direction from your opponent. Do this for 1 minute then switch partners. After another minute, switch partners again.  (3 minutes)
• Running back and forth in groups of 3 or 4 fitting into your throws. You have one person at each end of the mat. Either 1 or 2 people are in the middle. The middle person runs to one end and fits into a throw. Then, they run to the other end and fit into the same throw.  Do this for 2 minutes then rotate in so that another person from the group is running. I got this drill from Venice Dojo. It is primarily conditioning but it also lets you watch and see if the students are gripping correctly and placing their feet correctly when they step into the throw (6 minutes)  
• Another 3 person drill where one person fits into a throw, another is the person being thrown and the third is holding the uke (person being thrown) by the belt and the collar. In this drill the person throwing can go in really hard and the uke doesn’t get slammed. Each person goes one minute and then they switch positions. (We did this for something that was filmed recently on how I was training Ronda when she was young. It brought back a lot of memories.) (3 minutes)
• Matwork drill where one person is on his/her back and the other person gets as close as possible without touching him/her and when you say Go they have 10-15 seconds to pin that person. Do this 3 times then switch partners and do another 3 times. This drill develops reaction time and teaches both the person on the top and bottom to react right away to better their position. (3 minutes)
• Matwork uchikomis. Get a partner and do your favorite matwork move 15 times right and 15 times left. I've been doing these for 40 years and it is one of the keys to my success. (5 minutes)
• Spinning matwork drill. One person is on all fours (hopefully with elbows bent or they deserve to be armbarred) and the other person is on their back. When you say, "Spin!" the top person spins around in one direction, leaving all of their weight on the opponent. When you say, "Reverse!" they spin in the other. When you say “Attack!” they both attack. Give them 1 minute, then switch positions. After they’ve both done both positions twice, switch partners and do it again. I got this from Venice Dojo, too. It develops quick reaction from whatever position you are in and provides practice in matwork in a competitive situation (8  minutes)

Of course, those minutes don’t include the time to move between drills, get new partners, water breaks.

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Industrial Engineering Applied to Coaching

 Today, I was walking along the beach explaining to my lovely daughter, Ronda, about learning curves, a basic concept in industrial engineering.

 It's logical, really. The second time you build something, it is going to take you less time than the first. You've figured out that you need 12 widgets, so you get all 12 before you start, rather than making 12 trips to the widget cart. After turning your thingamajig over a few times and looking all over, you realize the 4 screws go on the bottom. The third thingamajig you build faster yet. Each one you make, you learn a little more how to make it better. Eventually, though, your improvements become so minor to be insignificant. The 11,001st thingamajig is probably not built appreciably faster than the 11,000th.

 How does this apply to coaching? Simply this -

 1. There is a finite amount any coach can teach you. 

When you reach that amount will vary greatly from one person to the next. When you start out, say the coach knows 4,500 knowledge units (KU, for short) and you, a recreational player, are learning at the rate of 15 per week. Your coach is busy, having to teach the same techniques to multiple people, maybe with other responsibilities, a full-time job, running the business side of a school, whatever. Plus, he or she is at the OTHER end of the learning curve, not learning as much from each new game or practice. If your coach is picking up 5 units a week, you are learning 10 more units than the coach. It will take you about 9 years to have learned everything from that coach. Wait, though. There are a few variables here. Let's say you are an elite athlete, training every day. In that case, you will learn 60 units a week, exceeding that coach by 50 a week and will have outgrown him or her in less than 2 years.

 2. An experienced player going to a new coach will almost always improve performance - for a while. 

 (In my experience, this applies to individual sports. I have no experience coaching team sports.) Go back to my point about the 4,500 knowledge units. Say you have learned 90% of what the first coach had to teach you. Let's assume, unlikely as that is, that you go on to another coach who has exactly the same quantity of knowledge. It is almost certain that the actual content of that knowledge won't be the same. Perhaps the first coach was better at standing technique and the second on ground work. Now, you are learning these new ground moves that you had not seen before and - remember the learning curve - you are improving at a rapid rate. Does that mean your old coach sucked? Nope. Does that mean the new coach is "better"? Well, if you define "better" as, "will help you improve faster", then yes.

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 3. When several players all go to the same new coach, they will all improve for a while - until they don't. 

Because of points #1 and #2, you may see several players 'jump ship' to a new coach and all of them improve. All of a sudden, that new coach is the flavor of the month - until those players are not improving any more and start losing. Did that mean it was a mistake for them to change from the original coach? Nope. Clearly, it helped for a while. What is a mistake is that often athletes stay with the second coach far too long. Their rationale is that "I improved so much when I came to Bubba and so did my friends, Billy Bob and Eustace. He must be doing something right." What they fail to realize is that they would have shown that same level of improvement at Mary Lou's Just-As-Good Gym down the road.

 4. Coaches who "take" champions instead of "make" them often have a better reputation than they deserve. 

There are clubs in every sport I know who make it a point to swoop in when a player starts to show promise and recruit the athlete to their "higher" level club. Because they have done this over and over, with most of the athletes initially showing improvement, they get a reputation as a top club. They find athletes who are already successful and bring them into a new place where there is a bump in performance, for a while. Since they do this drill over and over, the fact that the crop of recruits from 2 or 3 years ago is not performing so well is overlooked. The athletes who are performing below expectations are blamed because, after all, it can't be the coach. Look how much better they became when they came here initially

.... The moral of the story - you will often get better faster if you get out more.

Judo for Everyone

Recently, a high school student asked high-ranking judo instructors, (including me), for advice on how to make judo more inclusive for students with special needs. Since I put some actual thought into my answer, I thought I would post it here.

I have taught judo to students with Down Syndrome,  mental retardation, epilepsy, visual impairment and severe learning disabilities.
Now I teach judo at a middle school. I’d say the key to inclusion begins with the instructor.

There are a few things I do:

1. I have zero tolerance for any kind of meanness - teasing, bullying, and will call anyone on it in front of the class.
2. I watch out for cliques. If someone doesn’t have a partner, I will assign partners. When we go out as a team, if anyone is sitting by him or herself, I have them go sit with a group of other kids. I have a good idea of those who are the most welcoming to other kids. 
3. I publicly praise my students a lot, both individually and in groups when I see them helping or being kind to another student. I tell them a lot at the end of practice the many things I enjoy about teaching them, and that is one of those characteristics I often point out.
4. I recognize students for academics as well as athletic ability. I have friends from universities who send me college t-shirts. I give them to students who bring their grades up - these may be students who brought their grades from Ds and Fs to C’s and D’s or students who have all A’s.

After this answer, I received a follow-up question,

When dealing with such a diverse group of students how do you address the needs of an individual while trying to advance the entire group? In other words, how do you address individual needs?


One way to make sure that you address the needs of an individual while advancing the entire group is by making productive use of assistant instructors. Generally, I have from 1-4 additional instructors in the class. While many clubs have one “O-sensei” who teaches while the other black belts stand around, I think that is silly. Any time I can get a friend to come as guest instructor, I take advantage of that, and that leaves me free to help any students having trouble. Also, you don’t need to be a black belt to help out. I have three teachers from the school who are green belts. They can help a student learn how to fall or do a shoulder throw - and they do. One silly idea we have in judo is that you need to be a black belt to teach. Look how many soccer players learn from high school kids or someone’s mom or dad.

I think it benefits adolescents to figure things out on their own and get some practice in. I’ll correct one person, then move on to the next, letting the first person practice on his/ her own.

Another soap box of mine is that I think we try to teach far too many skills in one lesson and don’t give enough practice time.

Yet another thing I do is teach a basic skill to the whole group, say, a shoulder throw, and then split off the more advanced students and have them do a combination with that throw or a counter to it, while the less advanced students keep working on perfecting the first skill.

One last strategy is to have the more advanced students help a newer one. So, if I have three advanced students, I will put one new student in their group and tell them all to help the new person. All of my students are pretty nice people so they are usually willing to do it, and since it is 3:1 , you will have two students working while one helps the newcomer, and they can switch off, so each is only teaching 1/3 of the time.

What's the point of youth sports?

A black belt instructor and international competitor who I really admire wrote on her Facebook page,

I feel sorry for those athletes and parents who have nothing in their lives but sports and the desire to win.

I completely agree and I was discussing this exact point yesterday with someone, let’s say their name was Bob, because it wasn’t and the sport was the McCluskey, North Dakota pee-wee rugby, because it wasn’t that either.

Bob was upset because his team wasn’t winning and he fumed,

No one can train with a coach who isn’t an expert. Why can’t you support my position?

I told him with my usual sweetness and diplomacy,

“I’m sorry but I can’t vote for your motion on the grounds that it’s a stupid idea. “

First of all, I have trained under plenty of coaches who were not experts and a couple who were complete morons. It’s up to you to get better. It’s you out there on the field or mat or in the ring.

What’s the point of youth sports?

No one cares who wins the North Dakota pee-wee rugby state championships except for the people who competed in it. Half of them don’t care either and the ones who do will have completely forgotten about it two years later. I won hundreds of local tournaments in my life and I remember almost nothing about any of them.

The value in amateur sports is much more than getting in better shape and learning some skills handling a ball, throwing a punch or applying an arm bar.

One thing you should learn is to persevere in the fact of difficulty. A second is to make accommodations to overcome obstacles, to man-up, woman-up and suck it up when things don't go your way. A third is to develop independence. A fourth is work ethic.

Here is what you do if you are on the McClusky pee-wee team, you get up, go to practice, work as hard as you can and try to get better.

Another thing you hopefully gain is a realistic perspective on your abilities. Unfortunately, the opposite often happens. As I helpfully explained to Bob,

Contrary to your belief, the entire team of the New Zealand All Blacks is not currently engaged in a fist fight over who gets to have the privilege of coaching the McClusky pee-wee rugby club. You have a coach who shows up to practice faithfully, is not falling down drunk and makes your players work out, so just hush.

But I can hear Bob now,

Oh, no, how can you say that! The McClusky Pee-wee Rugby club has potential to be the greatest rugby team that ever walked the face of the earth.

If that is so, when it occurs, I am sure they will get better coaching.  For now, though, all I see is a bunch of whiners who have missed the point of youth sports.

Fact check and disclaimer: There is in fact a place named McClusky, which a woman from there I met last night explained, "is located in the geographic center of North Dakota, which makes it literally the middle of nowhere."  There is in fact a sport called rugby and it is asserted by people who edit wikipedia that the New Zealand All Blacks are the greatest team in the world. I do not know whether McClusky in fact has a peewee rugby team and a resident named Bob, nor do I care.

================= Shameless Plug============

For other amazing coaching and life advice, as well as how to choke and armbar people, buy Winning on the Ground. Jim Pedro, Sr. and I wrote it.

Less is More: Coaching Elite Athletes

I was talking to someone about coaching yesterday and I mentioned something I learned from Jim Pedro, Sr. many years ago, although he said it in a funny, Boston accent.

He was always saying,

"Mo-ah is not always bett-ah."

When asked how much coaching I do of Ronda these days, I was reminded of this remark, because I rarely tell her anything. When I do, I tell her once. She heard me the first time, so if she doesn't do it, then there is no point of telling her again.

Now, this does not apply at all to teaching kids, and not as much to teaching novices, but for elite athletes, there is a good deal of truth to the assertion that less is more.

We were at a camp with dozens of athletes, several of them national competitors. Watching many coaches who were not as effective, they were non-stop telling athletes what grip to get, how to place their feet, what direction and how hard to pull, what technique to try next or quit trying.

Jim probably made 20% of the comments of these other coaches, but when he did talk, the athletes generally listened very closely.

Here is what I noticed:

• When you are correcting 14 different things an athlete does, it is difficult for him or her to identify which is the most important to focus on.
• Constantly correcting an athlete can reduce confidence. If my coach tells me I need to fix 14 different things, I must really suck. 
• When you don't speak up very often, the times you do make suggestions athletes tend to listen. They are more likely to believe you have given some thought to what you are saying, because it doesn't come after 20 more ideas you spouted off the top of your head.
• Conversely, when you are constantly correcting an athlete, it loses its effectiveness. After a while, you just fade into the background noise.
 

SO, it seems to be true, less is more. Or, if you live in Boston, mo-ah.

Why I Am Doing More Circuits

I've written about circuits a few times previously and the longer my career in coaching, the more of a fan of the concept I am.

In brief, in a circuit, an athlete does a set of one exercise after another, without stopping. For example, we do 20 jumping jacks, 10 sit-ups and 5 push-ups. Then, we do it again. And again. We do this for three minutes, take a two-minute break and do it for another three minutes.

We often start practice with these circuits, for a few reasons:

1. It gets everyone on the mat and doing something at the same time. That makes it an easy way to get the whole class organized and paying attention.
2. After a few weeks, it is easy for kids to see progress compared to when they started. They get in better shape and can do all of the exercises with little effort.
3. In a very short period of time, there is a difference between the kids who have been coming, say for a month or two, and brand new beginners. It is clear that the experienced kids "know what they are doing" and they can generally do the exercises better than those who just walked in the door.

Reasons #2 and #3 make the class reinforcing for students who have been attending - they see their improvement compared to themselves and others - and are helpful in recruiting new students who see that their friends who have only been coming for a few months are ahead of them.

[Subliminal advertising - buy Winning on the Ground - the matwork book by me and Jim Pedro, Sr. ]

So ... I have decided to expand on circuits we do at the beginning of practice and do a "circuits day" when I get back in town in a couple of weeks. After we go through our usual exercise circuit, I'm going to have them do 10 turnovers (5 right and 5 left), then 10 throws, then 10 chokes and 10 arm bars. We'll do that whole circuit, then take a few minutes break and do it again.

I think doing this a couple of times a month will improve their matwork just like the exercise circuits improve their conditioning.

No, I'm not concerned about the fact that this circuit has very little in the way of throwing. Blinky (the other instructor who is there when I am traveling), focuses more on standing technique, so I focus more on matwork and it all averages out.

Coaching, Then and Now

Like many competitors, when I retired from competition, I was very excited about coaching, and particularly about coaching players like me - that is, national and international level competitors. Even though I had just come off of winning a world championships, not too many people were interested in hearing anything I had to say. Part of it was sexism - thirty years ago, not many men or women gave much respect to female coaches. I can only remember two female judo coaches in the U.S. - Rusty Kanokogi and Diane Pierce. If women black belts were "allowed" to teach at all, they taught kata.

Part of it, though, was although I was a great competitor (come on, if you won a world gold medal you get to say you were a great competitor), I certainly was not a great coach, I was just a beginning coach. I didn't totally suck - I knew a lot of judo, especially matwork, I was in good physical shape to demonstrate, and I honestly wanted to help athletes learn the techniques that I was good at. I had a GREAT time at every practice and I couldn't understand why everyone else didn't, too.

Several things are different now. I'm certainly not in the same physical shape. I want to help everyone learn the techniques that will benefit them. Not everyone wants to be an international athlete. Some people just want to get in shape, have a good time, maybe compete in a tournament now and then. Even the people who are athletes are not all best suited doing the techniques I did as a competitor.

On Sunday, I was watching Bradley work out and it occurred to me that a particular entry to an arm bar would work really well with the way he does judo. It's not something I ever did personally, but Ronda does it. So, we spent some time working on that and he did it really well. I thought Marcello was not advanced enough to do the same technique, but he came over to watch us, and it was obvious he wanted to try it, so I invited him to join in. I was wrong, he actually did the technique better than I expected.

My point here is that when I was younger, I focused on what *I* wanted to do, what *I* was good at, what *I* thought a player should do. Now that I am older, I've learned to focus more on each person as an individual. So, you could say I have gone from being "coach-centric" to "player-centric".

I didn't show that armbar here for the same reason that I did not include it in Winning on the Ground and that I asked Bradley's mom not to post any video of it. Tune in to the fight December 28th and maybe you will see it then.

Drills to push a little harder

Every competitor, every coach, at sometimes has the dilemma of how to push a little harder than usual to step up training. Especially if you have a group that trains together regularly, there is a tendency to get too comfortable. Bob has accepted that he always gets thrown in practice by José and has just come to accept it. Meghan knows that Francesca's armbars aren't that good and she doesn't have to worry about getting armbarred. Everyone knows that Eric is the best in the dojo.

One simple way to upset that comfort zone is to have Eric tired out when everyone else is fresh. Here is a drill we did today that does just that.

1. Put the class in groups of three people approximately the same size and skill level. Just get as close as you can, it doesn't have to be perfectly equal.
2. Designate one person in each group to be out in the middle of the mat. If the groups are not equal, pick the strongest or most experienced person in the group. This person STAYS OUT THE ENTIRE TIME.
3. Start randori with the person who is out and a second member of the group.
4. After ten seconds, call "Switch", and have the third member of the group go out.
5. After ten seconds, call "Switch" again and have the second member go out again.
6. Keep doing this for five minutes.

Depending on the conditioning of your class, you may want to take a break and do it again for another five minutes, and maybe take another break and go for another five minutes after that.

I'm going to say this again - the first person stays out the ENTIRE TIME. So if you do it three times, the first person should be in the center every time.

The point is, after five minutes (or 10 or 15), that person is going to be a lot more tired than the other two. Even if he or she normally dominates in practice, it is going to be a lot harder. As for your other players, if they are the teeniest bit competitive, they are going to see their chance to get even and go harder than usual.

Coaches ask,

Shouldn't we rotate the person in the middle so everyone gets a fair chance?

The answer is,

No!

The entire purpose of this drill is that everyone DOESN'T get a fair chance so some people have to work harder than others. If you feel that the two members who were not in the center got left out, let them be in the center another day, two weeks from now. Practice shouldn't be like Groundhog Day, where you always do the same thing.

If you just can't accept that one person got more practice, at the end of this drill, do a second one where you do the exact same format with the same groups but this time do matwork. Have a second group member in the middle this time.

Seriously, though, it's okay that not everyone gets the same amount of practice every day. Sometimes the focus can be on Meghan and other times it can be on José . Everyone should get their fair share of your focus overall, but it doesn't have to be an equal share every day.

Practice shouldn't be like Groundhog Day, where you always do the same thing. I said that twice because it was important.

Four keys to building trust in your team

Someone on twitter (I apologize I cannot find the tweet now) asked me how do you build trust in a team. I said I'd have to think about it and get back to him, so here you go ....

1. Be consistent

This is most true for the coach. I feel bad that I can only teach at Gompers Middle School on Fridays but I try to be there EVERY Friday and if I cannot, I let everyone know in advance and arrange for a substitute.

If people can't trust you to show up for practice, what can they trust you to do?

2. Have clear standards

You might say having favorites is bad, but not necessarily. I know judo coaches who definitely favor the team members who win the most and they explain it by saying, "I like the players best who train the hardest. That's why they win." If getting more attention, funding, rank, whatever is based on how many practices you attend and how hard you practice at those, fine, but just make sure that applies to EVERYONE.

I know college coaches who favored players who were both good athletes and good (as in, at least not academic probation) students. They believed in the "student" part of student-athlete.

I don't believe that you need to treat every student or athlete the same, but I do believe that everyone needs to understand why certain people might be getting favored and they should have equal opportunity to be at the same level should they decide to practice more, study more or whatever your requirements may be.  In other words, you don't have to have equal results but you need to have equal opportunity. More than that, people need to understand what the opportunity is.

For example, at Gompers, if you make a grade below a C, you can't come to class any more and we don't care how good your judo is.

3. Don't talk trash about each other - ever

I don't care who you tell that you suspect Emil faked his injury to get out of fighting and almost certainly losing in the final or that Betty is having an affair with Jo. It WILL get back to your teammates/ fellow coaches. Just keep it to yourself. If you must tell someone buy a goldfish and tell him/ her (not really sure how you tell the gender of a goldfish).

4. Help your teammates train when it matters

When I was a member of LA Tenri Dojo "back in the day", we always had dozens of players going to the national championships who had a good shot at placing, and there were usually several of us on any U.S. team going to any tournament. One time, though, it just so happened that only the number one player was selected to go to a particular tournament and due to injuries, a bad day at the nationals and one thing and another, I was the only person who made the team to go overseas. I was a bit concerned about how I was going to train without the extra practices we usually had for the players gearing up for international tournaments. Then, my teammate, Steve Seck, arranged to have the dojo open extra days so I could train. About a half-dozen of my teammates who were around my size showed up regularly until I went off to Hongkong, where I won a gold medal.

I've seen far too many clubs where, if players aren't competing in a particular event, they don't bother to show up to practice. The message that sends is that if there isn't anything in it for me, I'm out.

So ... that's my advice on the four key points. Anyone else, feel free to jump in.

Practice Escapes from Armbars

This seems like a no-brainer, right? Honestly, though, how often do you practice escapes from arm bars? Daily? Weekly?

How often do you practice escapes from pins? From chokes?

Watch this short video. There will be pop quiz at the end of it.




The most interesting thing I hope you notice here is that she is doing the arm bar on his left arm. At the beginning of the clip, I say,

"Now we're going to practice on the OTHER side!"

Just to show you that I practice what I preach, having written a post earlier about being sure you practice arm bars on both sides.

Also notice that while the player on top is practicing the arm bar, the player on the bottom is practicing arm bar escapes.

It just so happens that the day we did this drill we had a fairly mixed group - some big, strong guys, a couple of teenage girls and some kids under 12. How to make sure that everyone gets a productive work out? On that particular day, those big guys, like the one on the ground above, only practiced escapes. It was good for them because they got into a dangerous position and then got out.

The smaller, younger people practiced arm bars. They got most of the way into the position and then had to try to finish it.

Everyone had to work hard and everyone got better.

SHAMELESS PLUG

Learn more matwork from our book, Winning on the Ground, available as an ebook and in paper book.

Simple little anti-groundhog drill

One reason I think a lot of people who are initially excited about judo eventually quit is that it gets to be like Groundhog Day - remember that movie where he woke up every day and had the same day over and over? So, the first time you learn a shoulder throw or even how to fall it might seem cool but after having had essentially the same lesson twelve times during the year, it gets old.

Here, pulled out of my bag of tricks is a really simple thing. Instead of practicing back breakfalls or side falls, have your partner grab both lapels and lower you down close to the mat, then, without warning, let go. You practice turning out of pins.

When Erin and Bradley are doing it in this video, I am telling him to let go but that's just for a demonstration. You really just let go whenever you feel like it.

Some older instructors are opposed to turning out of throws because they are worried people will get injured. My answer to that is:

1. People are probably going to try to turn out in competition anyway they're less likely to get injured if they practice it.
2. I'd rather get injured than lose (says the woman with a total knee replacement). Still, most the people I know who won far less than me got injured at some point, too, including people who just did kata, so I don't think it's fair to blame my competitive streak.

Yes, this is just a simple little drill that if you practice it a few times each takes about a minute.  Here's the thing, though - I have a very large bag of tricks, so I can pull out five new ideas every practice.

Shameless plugs - you can find more cool stuff like this in the book from me and Jim Pedro, Sr. WINNING ON THE GROUND

for the Kindle, here
the Nook, here or
Sony or other ereaders, here

You can get it in the iTunes store, too. And it comes out on paperback in March, those of you into dead tree media can order it in paper back from Black Belt here 

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Punching the bitch card

Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch, no this is not due to any specific thing Ronda or anyone else did. It just happened to be what I was thinking about today. In fact, I was really thinking about what great people my three friends, Dawn Beers, Becky Scott and Laura Brown were for putting up with all of my shit all of those years.

When someone is getting ready to compete in the Olympics, for a world title or other super-fight type of event, you need to cut them a little slack. Let me give you my own perspective:

I have been training all of my life for this moment. Yes, there have been other events, national championships, other international events, but those are in the past. As my coach always said, you're only as good as your last match. At that moment, that's how I feel. The world as we know it is going to end - at least for me - if I don't win. It's the first thing I think about when I wake up at 5:30 in the morning and run sprints up that God damn hill, combine two of the things I hate most, getting up early and running sprints. It's the last thing I think about before my head hits the pillow after three workouts - God, I'm sore and tired and I have to win. All one thought without a breath. And I'm hungry. It's been so long since I had ice cream, I've forgotten what it tastes like. To hell with ice cream, I'd like to be able to just sit down and eat a meal without worrying about how much weight I'll have to run off at the last minute. I've got it all planned out in my head, what I need to weigh when, how much I can sweat off in the sauna. I've watched videos of my competition until I know her game plan better than she does. One more workout for the day and then I'm going to drink some water and go to bed ...

And then some cheery voice says .. .

Hey, do you want to go the mall and get frozen yogurt with me?

And I reply

What are you crazy? Fuck, no, I don't want to go to the mall and get frozen yogurt with you!

or

Hey, are these your nasty, sweaty shirt and sports bra on the floor?

And I yell back,

Who the fuck do you think they belong to? Do you see anybody else sweating their ass off in here?

The fact is that super-competitive elite athletes, as a general rule, are at the absolute heightened edge of anxiety in the few weeks before they compete. Coaches or parents who point to that one person who is calm as can be before their match are not helpful. That person is no more normal than someone who eats all they want, never exercises and is skinny as a rail. Good for them but don't plan your training by their experience.

No, I say that you have to give athletes a bitch card to punch, like those things you get when you buy lots of yogurt. After the tenth you get a free one. Except this is the opposite. You get so many punches on your bitch pass. When the match is over, you have used them all up.

To people who say this is treating athletes by special rules, I say, not so much. Look at it this way, if your spouse or child was about to go into an interview for a terrific job, is that the point when you would ask him or her to stop and pick up the milk on the way? No, you'd give them a pass. If your child has the SAT tomorrow, do you make them clean their room? No. You're not spoiling them. You are recognizing that doing well on the SAT is probably more important than giving them a life lesson in responsibility at that precise moment.

If you understand this, you and the athlete in your life will both be a lot less stressed. You will also understand why, when 17-year-old Ronda walked in the door, back from the Olympics in Athens, her sister, Jenn didn't even get  up off the couch and instead said, 

"I don't care where you've been or what you've done. It is SO-O your turn to change the cat litter."

Her bitch card was full. 

---------------------------- READ THIS DOWN HERE --/

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Buy our book, Winning on the Ground. It's out as an ebook and it will teach you to - win on the ground, duh, what did you think?

How much does strength matter in learning martial arts?

Let me just call bullshit right off the bat on those people who say size and strength don't matter in martial arts. I cannot speak for all martial arts but I can tell you having competed in or coached judo for 42 years, that damn, I am really old! Well, in addition to that, I can tell you that size matters. Of course a very skilled 110 pound female can beat an out-of-shape unskilled 145 pound male. That same female will get crushed by a very skilled, fit, 145 pound male and that same 145 pound male will get slammed by the 230 pound male.

If Ronda and Julia got in a fight, I would not say size and strength don't matter. I would say, "Ronda! What the hell is wrong with you?! Leave your little sister alone!"

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I have said that - about seven hundred times.

Don't even start telling me about Moshi-moshi sensei who won the all-Japan championships in 1928 and only weighed 76 kilos (see, I can do metric weights just like the rest of the world).

A. Even the small people who won the All-Japan championships were significantly larger than the average Japanese person, especially of that time. Random diversion here - even more random than the rest of this blog - there has been a significant increase in height of Japanese people over the past 100 years, as noted in this article from the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In other words, Sensei Moshi-Moshi was pretty damn big for the time.

B. Even though there may be an occasional outstanding smaller man beat a much larger man, that is not the way to place your bets. This is why we have weight divisions.

I was wondering about this the other day when I was trying to teach tomoe nage (a circle throw) to one group of students and they were having trouble. The next day, I was trying to teach a matwork move to another group that involved scissoring your legs to lift and turn your opponent, and this group was having trouble.

So, I called up Jim Pedro because I hadn't bothered him recently and asked his opinion,

Do you think that people need a certain level of conditioning before they can do techniques effectively, and that is why some beginners have difficulty? Do you think that maybe it's necessary to say, do exercises to develop leg strength before doing throws that require lifting with your legs?

He said, "No." Well, actually, because he has a funny Boston accent it sounded more like, "No-o."

He brought up that when we were kids, everyone had the same rule,

"Be home when the streetlights go on."

And we were out ten hours a day running, jumping rope, climbing trees and playing in the park.

Now, kids watch vampire shows, play on the Wii and text their friends all day during the summer.  I asked Jim didn't that mean that it would be a good idea to work with them on getting strong enough to actually do the techniques but he thought it was coordination as much or more than strength.

So, his idea was to just have them to do whatever technique it was, a throw, or a turnover, and do lots and lots of repetitions. As they do the repetitions, they'll develop in coordination and strength and they'll learn the technique, too.

Interesting theory and I don't really have any better idea, so I'm going with that for now.

What do you all think?

How you,too, can be awesome at matwork

The lesson for today is that Ronda is awesome at matwork and I am awesome at teaching it and how you can be awesome, too.

While we were walking down to vote this morning, we were discussing my recent blog on doing matwork to the opposite side. Ronda objected,

"What do you mean opposite side? There are no sides in matwork! You taught me that ever since I was a kid."

I agreed with her noting that she had armbarred Miesha Tate's left arm.

But that she had armbarred Sara Kaufman's right arm

Ronda laughed and said,

"That's because I'm so awesome and you must be an awesome teacher because you taught me to always, always practice both right and left. You had me do everything to both sides and so now I'm always ready to catch whatever is there, which is why sometimes I get their right arm and sometimes the left."

All you people who call her a one-trick pony, hey, there are at least two tricks right there!

As I mentioned, when I was doing the opposite side day, I found it was NOT equal for me, I had to think a half-second longer on the left side. It occurred to me that since I have not been competing for a long time, or even doing that much other than teaching, I have gotten into the habit of always demonstrating on the right side. If I am demonstrating a drill and show doing ten of a technique in a minute, I do all ten on the right side.

My point, which you by now have despaired of me actually having, is that no matter how old and experienced you get, you need to constantly evaluate yourself. Even if you have good habits from the start, it is easy to get lazy or forgetful and fall into an easy rut if you are not evaluating yourself.

Why bother? It's not like I'm going to be competing again in this lifetime. One reason is because as an instructor you are a role model. If you only practice one-sided, only demonstrate one-sided, that's what your students will do. A second reason is that you don't want to get in so much of a rut that you forget.

Those people who say,

"I've forgotten more judo than you'll ever know!"

Well, that's bad that they've forgotten it. Don't be them. Be awesome.
From now on, I'm going to make a conscious effort every practice to demonstrate and drill techniques to both sides.

So .... what have you forgotten that you used to know? I'm working on a list to post tomorrow. Ideas welcome.

Maybe Sports Ruin Character

In touting the benefits of martial arts - or sports in general - we often use the phrase, "It builds character. It will teach your child discipline."

Does it? I can certainly think of some dishonest, lazy, jerks I know in every martial art and sport I've ever experienced. Of course, I can think of some really good people in all of those, too.

A person less impervious to haters than me might just mouth some platitude like,

"Sports, like adversity, don't build character, they reveal it."

And leave it at that.

Personally, I think minor sports - like U.S. judo, all high school teams - can actually produce human beings with worse character.

Here is why - you have someone who, in the grand scheme of things, is not doing all that much. They are better at judo than the other 20 or 30  junior players in the country at their weight who care enough to bother training seriously. They are a better football player than the other 30 kids in their school they beat out for that position. You get the idea. They are certainly something, but they are not brilliant or talented beyond all others.

Let's take judo as an example, not that it is special in this regard but it is something I have a lot of experience with. You have a kid who is ten years old, matures a little early for his age, has parents who take him to extra practices in addition to his own club. With a combination of a little extra training and a little extra physical development, he beats the three other kids in his division at a local tournament. The next month, he beats the same three kids, plus a new white belt kid that joined.

His parents take him to all of the tournaments - all nine a year in the area - and then to the national championships, where he gets a bye the first round, wins three matches and is the national champion.

This can go on for a few years and our little guy is now the three-time national champion. What has he done, really? He's worked out maybe three times a week, probably not that hard (come on, he's ten) and beaten a total of perhaps two dozen kids, several of whom have been in judo for six months or less at the time he fought them. However, everyone is super-excited to have a three-time national champion at their club.

All of this is good, working out three times a week, winning versus losing, all good. The problem is that Junior now goes around with the attitude that he is a THREE-TIME NATIONAL CHAMPION. He tells you that. His coach tells you that. His parents tell you that.

If he doesn't want to learn a new technique, he doesn't have to because, as his coach explains,

"He's three-time national champion, he must be doing something right."

His parents send him to international tournaments in South America, where he places third in a division of seven. Two of the kids in his division are green belts and had to borrow gis to compete, but no matter, he is now an INTERNATIONAL MEDALIST. He certainly doesn't feel the need to listen to any old coaches or instructors. After all, even if they were international medalists, it was long ago.

Kids who start at 13 or 14 and maybe even train seriously still lose to Junior because by now he has a four-year head start on them.

Eventually, though, it falls apart. Those kids who started younger and trained seriously catch up. Those kids who matured late and who were weaker and smaller than him are now grown and can put up a fight. Junior is getting bored. He hasn't learned that much in the last couple of years, just doing his favorite technique. He places second, and then third in some of the tournaments. Sometimes he doesn't place at all. Eventually he loses interest in competing. Maybe he goes back to his old club as an instructor, where he tells every new student that he was a THREE-TIME NATIONAL CHAMPION and INTERNATIONAL MEDALIST. Now he is in a position of authority because he is a BLACK BELT which he received because of his tournament record.

What has Junior learned, really? That you can get an impressive title without doing all that terribly much work. That you can get away with being dismissive to your elders if you have mediocre accomplishments? That if you get a head start in life, you can coast for a long time? That you can get a permanent symbol of authority even with only minor knowledge?

It's like the guy who played football in high school and is still telling everyone in the same hometown bar about the time he scored the winning touchdown that brought their school the Class B state championships - and he's 40 years old.

I just can't help but feel if he'd built up all that much character he would have come up with something more worth talking about in the last 22 years.

I'm NOT saying that sports don't often build strong bodies and good people. Obviously, I believe that or I would not still be coaching.

What I am saying is that it doesn't always turn out that way. Sometimes sports can make your kid into a worse person than he would have been otherwise.

Now, isn't that a cheery  thought?

When is "coaching" just ego?

So, the nice people from NBC are doing some show on Ronda and they wanted to watch me coach her at practice. I explained to them that I very seldom coach her at practice and it would be really boring.

Ask anyone and they will tell you that this is what me watching Ronda at practice looks like.

I sit there and I read a book on statistics or programming, and occasionally glance up to see what she is doing.

Ronda is an adult. More than that, she is an adult who has won medals in the world championships, Olympics, Panamerican Games and now the Strikeforce world title. She doesn't need to be told all that much.

It was a very different situation ten or fifteen years ago. Of course, back then, no one had much interest in how I was coaching her or what I had to say.

Most of the time, I don't even go watch her practice any more. Once in a while I will drop by Hayastan when she is there, and say hello to Gene and Gokor.

Even less often, I might go up to see her at Results Fitness, where she is training with Leo, or at some place she is visiting.

I'm most likely to do that if I think she is on the wrong track and I want to see how she is doing. Mostly these days I think she is doing things right so I don't go at all. I'm teaching at Gompers Middle School on Fridays and at the West Coast Judo Training Center most Sundays, so, I'm busy.

Funny thing I have noticed, though. The more successful Ronda has become, the more people are eager to be seen coaching her. Even people who have never won anything or coached anyone particularly successful will try to pull her aside at practices, at tournaments and say,

"Let me teach you ...."

It's my opinion that the most verbose coaches are those who are trying to stroke their own egos, PARTICULARLY those who insist on "coaching" very successful athletes in a very public way, and going into great detail on "turn your finger this way, stand with your foot like that", etc. etc.

Leo, Ronda and I were discussing this at the gym the other day and we all agreed that when we had hit the international level of competition, ESPECIALLY right before a major competition, what we needed was not teaching so much as suggestions or reminders - "When she comes in like this, be ready with the hip throw"

Even when I do have something to say to Ronda, I'll usually do it privately, after practice or on the way home. Being Ronda, she will almost always argue with me about it. I will say what I have to say and then I'm done. "You should practice more on transition."  or whatever.

She's an intelligent, experienced young woman and she can consider whether she agrees with what I say and do it, or not.

Occasionally, I'll see her getting technically sloppy and say something like, "You should have that arm locked against your chest."

My point is, there isn't much to say, and I think I know a fair amount about judo and training. You know who there IS a whole lot to say to? The kids at Gompers who are just starting judo and the 12- and 13-year-old kids at the West Coast Training Center who need to drill matwork combinations. You don't see hordes of people coming to give them detailed free advice, though, because there are no cameras around filming it, no crowds watching.

All of which leads me to the conclusion that when I see a coach going on and on and on coaching an elite athlete it is not because the athlete needs it. It is because the coach's ego needs it, to be seen as important because "I coached Ronda."

Good for you. I read a chapter on odds-ratios, relative risk and other measures of association of categorical variables. 

Guess which one of us was more productive?