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.

Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be doing judo in the US?

Whenever two American judo players get together it is required for them to discuss “what is wrong with judo” and contrast the support in the US with other countries.

Let me tell you a story about a young lady, Kim (The Small Miracle) Sandoval, who has been staying with me for the past three weeks. She is a boxer, from Chile. Despite having only turned 17 years old this week, she has had 24 fights already. She has won 21 of them. Her losses came from a woman who is 60 kilos (she’s 48), a woman who was in her 20s that she fought when she was 15 and in the finals of the South American championships.


So, she is young, she is talented and she is throwing everything she can into boxing. She even is on a modified home-school program so she can do well academically and train three times a day.

The support she receives from the Chilean government is - nothing.

She is in the U.S. because I bought her plane ticket and let her stay at my house. Although I am one to support people, I cannot spend four hours every day driving her to practice, waiting for her to practice and driving her back. I run a company that makes educational games, like our cool augmented reality app for kids, Math: The Universal Language.

I took her to three gyms here in Los Angeles and they all said the same thing, that she has a lot of talent, heart and physical ability. They all agreed that she has a good shot of making it to the Olympics.

Two out of the three clubs were willing to let her train at a very low cost, since she has no money to pay. One of the coaches went out of his way to meet her and give her extra training on his own time.

What she really needs is a sponsor to buy her a few plane tickets to come up here a few times a year and train. She could also really use some help getting to tournaments. She can’t even afford to go to boxing tournaments outside of Chile. (If you are going to ask why Ronda doesn’t fund her, just stop. If you are asking that question you obviously have no idea how much Ronda does to fund various charities and causes. It’s a lot.)

Despite her obvious work ethic and talent, no one was interested in helping her all that much.

Two of my daughters pointed out the obvious - there is no money in women’s boxing, so anyone who is helping her is just doing it out of the goodness of their heart.

Which brings me back to judo.

Most of us in judo in this country have parents who pay for us to attend tournaments. If you are very talented, there is usually someone in the country who will step up and pay for expenses your family can’t afford. For me, it was Frank Fullerton and Bruce Toups. Thank you.

Most successful competitors in judo in the U.S. have gotten support from individuals. Lynn Thursby is just one person who has been very influential in providing financial support. There are others but I’m not sure it would be okay with them to give their names, so I won’t.

Sadly, to me, most of those competitors seem to take it for granted. “Of course you should fund me. I am winning medals for this country. And the National Governing Body should fund me MORE.”

While the second part of that statement is probably true, the first is not. We, and I include myself in this, are all lucky to be doing judo in America where a sport that has minor participation and almost zero probability of making much money can still get sponsorships for our top athletes. It may not be as much as you would like and it may even not be as much as you deserve, but keep in mind that there are a lot of countries where no matter how good you are, you will get nothing .

I was nowhere near as nice a person as Kim when I was her age. I was dedicated, but not as dedicated as she is at that age. My mom was supportive but not as supportive as Kim’s mom is. To be fair to my mom, I was the middle of five kids, where Kim is the youngest of six, so it’s a bit easier for her mom.

Still, by the time I was her age, the Chicago Yudanshakai was paying my way to the national championships. Thank you.

Every now and then, I stop and am grateful for the opportunities I have been handed. Yes, I worked my ass off but so do other people around the world and they don’t all get the opportunities to train and compete that we do.

We are lucky.

Do what you can. Life lesson 1,012 learned from judo

World judo champions are a small club and I don’t fit in. Let's look at what some other world champions did post-competition

• Mike Swain - owns a company that sells mats
• Jimmy Pedro, Jr. - sells mats and runs a judo club
• Kayla Harrison - competes in mixed martial arts
• Yamashita - something judo with the IJF

Okay, I’ll be honest. I’m so not in with the cool crowd that I have no idea who won medals or what most of them are doing. Travis Stevens got a silver in the Olympics (I think) and now does judo and jiu jitsu clinics. Some guy in Canada got a silver medal a while back, I only remember he was nice because - Canadian  - and I think he does something with their national sports program.

Then there is me. After the world championships I went off to get a Ph.D. , specializing in Applied Statistics and Psychometrics. I’ve founded four companies and spent most of my days writing software, meeting with investors and potential customers, writing budgets or writing up results of quasi-experimental designs for grant reports or academic journals.

It’s not that I don’t like judo or think it’s a good thing for people to do but I’m pretty busy. You don’t see Bill Gates out on the mat, now do you? (No, I’m not Bill Gates but I’d kind of like to be, except I’d like to not be a guy and keep my kids.)

 

 This IS my day job. Check out Making Camp Premium for your iPad/ iPhone  or Google Play or on the web. You’ll learn about the Ojibwe people, brush up on your math skills and other useful knowledge like synonyms and idioms. Get it for yourself, your kids or donate to a school to help other people’s kids.

I’ve gone from doing judo every day and twice a day on weekends to once a week and now only a few times in the last year. 

Occasionally, I’ll wonder for a moment if I wasted all those years. Maybe I would have been better off taking more computer science courses, learning more about algorithms, practicing not telling people to go fuck themselves if they pissed me off (still not one of my better skills). Perhaps I really WOULD be running a business the size of Microsoft if I’d put my energy into that instead.

Oh, and don’t start with the “Look what great friendships you made.” I only like a few of you people and I haven’t even talked to you guys recently because I’ve been in Chile and my phone was stolen. (Yes, I owe a lot of phone calls to people now that I just got back.)

When I think about it for more than sixty seconds, though, I always realize that there is a great deal more I learned from judo than how to transition into an arm bar. 

DO WHAT YOU CAN

Some of this came about because I did NOT have the advantages that “kids these days” swear they need of just doing judo full time. Since I was working full-time during my competitive years, there were a lot of times I couldn’t be at the best judo club, or sometimes any judo club. I learned to do what I could.

• Can’t get to practice? Get up and run sprints in the morning before work.
• Can’t get to practice? Lift weights at the gym near my house.
• No one near my size/ age to train with? Ask the guys at the Naval Training Center to run matwork drills on them over and over.
• No one really interested in training seriously at the club? Ask each person if they’d mind taking 25 falls for in a line so I can get in 200 throws.
• Injured my knee and can’t do standing technique? Do dumb bell curls and exercise to build up my hands and arms for gripping and chokes. Do sit-ups. Do matwork drills.

I don’t remember anyone ever specifically teaching me this. I think I just figured it out through necessity of wanting to win and being in a lot of situations that were suboptimal for making that happen.

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO LIFE?

I’m writing this on a flight from Santiago to Panama City, after which I have to sprint to catch my connecting flight to Los Angeles. I’ll be spending 19 hours in planes and airports, none of which have wifi. What would be the optimal thing to be doing right now? Working on the new game we have under development for which my part is behind schedule. Unfortunately, the first thing I’d need to do is pull the changes from the other developers on the team, which I cannot do because of the whole no wifi thing.

So, what am I doing? Well, other than this blog post (seriously, it didn’t take me 19 hours), I’m writing up several lesson plans for the new teachers’ site we’re creating to go with our games. To do that, I’m playing the games that have an offline version, taking screen shots and writing the lesson plans, so when I do get back to Internet connection land, I can slap in some links and boom! have three or four ready to go with an hour .

Before I left, I downloaded two books on Wordpress and one on virtual worlds on my iPad and packed a book on game design (yes, an actual book on paper) so I can read up on some areas that will help with the various projects I’m working on.

What I learned from judo is not only that winning is a habit but also that WORKING TOWARDS winning is a habit. Even if conditions are far from the best you could hope for, there is always something you can do to be pushing forward towards your goal if you just cut the woe is me crap, find it and do it.

Supporting Judo by Making It Okay to Quit, Part 2

When I was in my teens and twenties, I realized there would be a day when I couldn’t compete any more and I expected that none of the rest of my life could possibly be as good as my competitive years. Other people competed to a much later age than I did but my knee was hanging together by a thread. I finally had a total knee replacement when I was 51 and my doctor said I could not put it off any longer.

So, I was done with competition after several knee surgeries, with many more in my future, after three national championships, three US Open gold medals, one world championships and some other stuff (as Lanny Clark would affectionately say, “you’re the bitch who would consider winning the Panamerican Games as some other stuff you did”).

Contrary to my expectations, life without judo was fine most of the time. I married a man I loved, had two more kids, got a Ph.D., had a good career, a few good careers, actually, but that’s another post. I taught judo here and there - class at the college where I was a professor, a class at the local YMCA, a clinic at one of my friends’ clubs.

When we moved back to Los Angeles after my husband died, I married another good husband, had another baby, started a business, taught at a few different clubs, some of them for several years each. I held several offices in state and national organizations. I spent A LOT of time on the mat and on the road with Ronda helping her develop into a great judo player.

Unlike some of my friends to whom judo is like a religion - some even jokingly refer to going to judo tournaments on the weekend as “attending church” - I’ve kind of dropped in and out of judo my whole life.

Currently, I’m splitting my time between the US where I run a company that makes educational games (you should check one out) and Chile where I’ve just opened a company that makes educational games.

 

Cajon del Maipo, Chile

I know plenty of people for who Judo is their exercise, their social life, their family time and their community volunteer efforts all in one. I’m not one of them. 

I could write a lot of posts - and I have - about all of the benefits I have gotten from judo and trying to give other kids those benefits is why I’ve taught fro so many years in so many different cities and states throughout my life.

Even holding all of those volunteer positions taught me a lot. I think I’m a much better manager thanks to the practice I got running things as a volunteer. ( I got to screw up some for free and now I make fewer mistakes with our investors' money.)

If you are one of those people that judo is your whole life and you’re happy with that, then I’m happy for you.

For some people, they have an abusive coach, unfair treatment by officials, a club full of cliques or other negative experiences and quit judo.

Most people quit judo to do something else, and that’s okay

Cerro de los condores, Chile

For me, though , and I think most people, it’s a matter of opportunity cost. In the last few years I’ve gone hiking in the Atacama desert, climbed a mountain and had condors fly within a few feet of me, gone horseback riding in Belize with a Maya guide as flocks of parrots flew overhead. You get the idea.

Sully's Hill, North Dakota

Tobago

Doing research in Belize, on a pyramid for Meet the Maya

Then, there is also the writing software and making one educational game after another , publishing scientific articles. Of course, that’s not just me. I know some people who were really good judo players and are now really good physicians or scientists.

I make games that teach math, in Spanish and English

I bring all of this up because I often hear people brag about having been doing judo for 30 or 40 years straight as if that somehow makes them better than other people. Not really the best idea if you want to get those former judo players who are the scientists or the business owners to give money to judo and bring their kids to learn judo if they get the attitude you think they are “quitters” and just not as good or tough as you.

One thing I’ve found in business is you’ll have more success if you honestly respect your customers, and potential customers.

I wonder if we treated quitting judo more like no longer playing for your college basketball team and less like no longer being a member of a church if we’d see more former judo players referring their friends and family.

I wonder , do many judo clubs have reunions? I’ve heard of one or two but it seems to be really rare.

To be honest , I probably wouldn’t go because I’d be in Santiago or Albuquerque or Grand Forks or somewhere when it happened but I still think it’s a good idea.

Wrong Turns on the Road to the Top of the World

I came across a file with three blog posts I had written years ago and never published. I must have jotted it down in when I was stuck in an airport back before they had Internet everywhere, and forgotten about it.

Here is the first one.

NOT THAT YOU ASKED ME: It’s a long road to the top of the world and most of you are making wrong turns

I have read a lot of the advice about winning at judo lately, and I find that much of it does not agree with my own experience. Below are my recommendations for the road to the top of the world.

1.    Under age 10: Have fun! Learn stuff! If you do start judo at this age, it will help you later on if you get a solid technical base and someone has an eye out to bad habits that will be hard to break and cause problems later. For example, being in the referee’s position from wrestling may not matter at this age, but at 17 it will get you a broken arm – and it will be a hard habit to break if you have been doing it seven years.



2.    From 10-13: By this age, you need to start attending judo practice three or four times a week. Enter every tournament in your local area. If you can beat everyone in your age group, enter two age groups. Do not be one of those people who avoid a person who can beat them. In fact, stalk people who can beat you.  Follow this advice now and for the rest of your competitive life. What I mean by that is, try to fight those people who can beat you at every opportunity. If they are a year older, when they go up into the next age group, be sure you enter both age groups every tournament. Losing means you have a weakness and you need to find it and fix it.

3.    Age 14-17: Make a commitment. Start doing judo at least five days a week, preferably more. Run every day. Start lifting weights. When you are young, try to go to a program for young athletes. A maximum weight-training program probably isn’t a good idea for most 14-year-olds.

4.    Age 17-20:  By the time you’re 17, you should be working out at least twice a day, every day. Some days you can do conditioning and judo, some days will be two judo practices or two conditioning practices. In my opinion, anyone who doesn’t work out at least twice a day is not serious. In the last few decades, there has not been an international medalist from this country that I, and people like me, did not know their name by the time they were 19 years old. This doesn’t mean that they won the U.S. Open at 19 (although I did). It does mean that by 19, and usually years before, there was a buzz going around – “Watch this Pedro kid.” “There’s this little girl named Liliko out on the east coast, coached by her dad, have you seen her?” You should be training hard enough that you stand out from  the crowd.

5.    Age 21-30: If you really want to win, the first priority every day of your life is getting your workouts in and making them harder. Here is where a lot of people fall down. They are training every day, sometimes twice a day, but they are not winning.

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My day job is making games that make you more than ordinary. Check out Forgotten Trail and see what I mean.

 

You Need to Change Your Focus from "Not Losing" to Winning

I had a long talk with Jim Pedro, Sr. yesterday. Since I am working on the West Coast Judo Training Center website and drinking cognac, I am too busy to write much today, so I thought I would just repeat here one point he made that I thought is probably really important for a lot of players and their coaches.

(Too busy, not too drunk. I didn't have THAT much cognac. Dennis drank most of the bottle. He says he feels no guilt about it, either, since he was the one who went to the store to get it, he paid for it and he brought me the glass upstairs while I was sitting at my computer doing "judo crap" as he so lovingly puts it.)

Jim was talking about one of the players he used to coach, who was a very successful competitor around my age. Let's call him Bob, because that definitely was not his name. Also, because if you spell it backward, it's still Bob. He said,

"You know, Bob would win all the local tournaments, throw everyone in randori and when he was younger he just could not win the junior nationals to save his life."

I said,

"And when he was in competition would he attack all of the time but he often came in too far away and did not pull it off the way he did in competition?"

He said,

"Yes, you remember him that well?"

I said,

"Nope, not at all. He reminds me of someone I know. Go on - what did you do?"

Jim said,

"The light went on one day when he was fighting some kid in the finals, someone who was really good, and he came off the mat and said, 'I only lost by a koka.' I was a pretty young coach back then and a lot of this was new to me, not like now when I have spent thousands of hours watching matches, and I grabbed him and said, 'You're playing not to lose. It doesn't matter that you lost by a koka. You lost. You didn't throw him because you were bent over and trying not to get thrown.' Now here's the thing - my kid back then and your kid now are not attacking in the match to throw, they are attacking not to get thrown. That is smart defense and it will keep them from getting a penalty, which is what a lot of defensive players get, and it is certainly better than not attacking at all. However, it is just that , defense. He may not realize it but he is fighting not to lose. If he was fighting to win, he would be extending on his seoi nage, not just underneath with the person standing over him."

I asked,

"So, how did you fix it?"

He answered,

"Well, come on, AnnMaria, it's not like it is a one time fix. I didn't have a talk with him and he was suddenly better. Some people fight that way their whole lives. You have to tell him that it is not winning and losing to focus on when you are young, it is doing things right. Talk about extending on his throw, throwing for ippon, scoring on the opponent and that is what he needs to do. Tell him to forget winning and losing for now. If he is kind of a macho kid, saying he needs to not be afraid to lose will hurt his pride enough to make him go out and take more chances. That is what it is all about you know, a sense of pride, not wanting to let your parents down, your coaches down. Change the meaning for him, it's not about winning or losing it's about scoring on the guy. It is not once you need to tell a person this. It is over and over, before every tournament, maybe even before every match. The good news is that he has the technique, the conditioning and the heart. You just need to change his focus and he's there."

Are you smarter than a fourth-grader?

As we were leaving for school this morning, my daughter, Julia turns to me and says,

"My coconut shampoo is good luck. Usually I have a great life, but lately even more things have been going good than usual. You should really try it."

Lessons learned from Julia:
1. Life really is great. We live in a beautiful place, the weather is lovely, the fires have been put out, we have more than any reasonable person could ever want.
2. When you find something that makes your life better, share it.

This is not going to be one of those syrupy sweet essays on "reasons to be happy." I read an entire book on that topic when I was in the middle of Indiana with nothing to do (I believe those last two prepositional phrases are redundant). The book should have been titled, "Reasons to be happy if you have the IQ of a pineapple."

Julia's advice was as different from that book as the difference between telling someone to be happy by thinking of puppies and actually giving someone a puppy.

Having learned this from Julia this morning, here are some things on the Internet that improved my day today.

Good blogs.
I confess. I rarely read blogs. Most of them are about the boring lives of people I don't know.

"Today it rained. I walked the dog and then I ate an apple. Then Al Gore came over and beat me with a stick for wasting all the technology that went into the Internet on drivel like this. "


The Savvy Entrepreneur - is a welcome change. The recent posts on avoiding procrastination are highly recommended. I agree completely with her take on marketing as well. I get so tired of these small business sites that act as if the key to business success is scoring high on search engines. If you are interested in small business, this blog is worth a read.

Tom Peters - is my favorite management author of all time. His mantra of,

"If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, cut it out."

has been a guide for how I run my business and for every judo organization in which I have held office. The world is full of people who are afraid to take action because the guy sitting next to them might give them a dirty look. Tom Peters is a breath of fresh air.

Great sites
I yahoo everything. I have been on yahoo so long I actually have my first name as an email address DrAnnmaria@yahoo.com .

If you aren't a member, go to My Yahoo and sign up.

Perhaps some background is necessary. My life gives real meaning to the term "Road Warrior". Between travel to conduct evaluations, review grants, do on-site training and for judo camps, tournaments, clinics and meetings, my longest single stretch at home in the past 19 years has been for six weeks. I go through about a laptop a year. In addition, there are three desks and six computers in my house.

So... the services yahoo provides on-line, like bookmarks of your favorite sites, a notepad where you can keep your to-do list are indispensable to me. I never know which computer I will be using or what city I might be using it in. I can't decide if the notepad or calendar is my favorite. I do like the fact that the calendar emails me to remind me about meetings and sends a text message to my iPhone. I like the local Yahoos so I can look up wherever I am. There is website hosting, an HTML editor, you can customize your page (so at least one thing will be constant no matter where I am).

Unbelievably, all of this is free!

-----------------REQUIRED JUDO TIP ------------------------------
Build a bigger repertoire, both standing and on the mat. Most people do the same two or three techniques over and over. When you come to practice and there is only you, a child two-thirds your size, an old man twice your age and two yellow belts, pull out a crash pad and do every throw you know on each one of them. Do moving uchikomi on each of them and see what throws give you trouble. Try to analyze what you are doing wrong. Do randori with each of them and try those throws that you usually cannot get on others of your skill and size. Do the same with your matwork moves. Let them pin you and you escape. Do matwork starting from on your stomach or all fours and attack from there. When you have weaker opponents, use this as an opportunity to work on your weak points. If you use it to work on your strengths then you are just a bully, plus you will still have those chinks in your armor.

Finals, Lunch and a Gold Medal (not in that order)

When I left off, we were hiding from Jim Pedro so we could watch the judo tournament ...
We got to watch Rick Hawn fight a few matches. Rick lost a match earlier in the day, but now he is on fire. He is behind by a waza-ari in the first match to a really young player from Spartak and keeps trying a drop seoi that doesn’t work. Arkady does a great job coaching those kids at Spartak. They look deceptively young and not so tough but don't let it fool you. Arkady's boys are good! Finally, after Jim has been yelling at him for two minutes to try a different throw, Rick comes in with o uchi and throws for a yuko. He is still behind and shortly before the buzzer, he comes in with beautiful standing seoi nage and throws for ippon.

We figure Jim is going to spot us and start yelling now the match is over, so we slip out with Michelle Toups for lunch. Michelle was a very good player back in the day, until she blew her knee out. During lunch, where we also met up with the team from USA Stars, Michelle tells a little about her career in commercial real estate and how her experience in judo prepared her to succeed in a male-dominated field.

Ronda talked about how much she did not want to turn into one of those awful, cocky judo players who just are such jerks.

Michelle, very seriously, in a soft, southern accent, says,

“My dear, there is a world of difference between self-confidence and cockiness.”

Not only did we just invite ourselves to eat with the team from USA Stars, but lunch for all of us gets paid for by their coach, George Stanich (who in one of those random six-degrees-of-separation coincidences was a brown belt at the Alton YMCA Judo Club where I started judo 37 years ago).

After sleeping at the hotel for a couple of hours until the finals, we head back. Jim calls me on the bus and says he wants to see Ronda before the tournament.

USA Judo has decided to give Ronda $10,000 for her world medal, right before she fights. Wisely, Jim does not want her to be distracted right before the match, so he tells her about it and orders,
“Now, you go out there, warm up with Kayla and FOCUS. When they call you, you come get the check and get back to warming up as soon as possible. You are here to win, not pick up checks.”

When they do call Ronda up, she comes up, gets her picture taken with a giant check and a bunch of officials and runs off to get back to warming up. They ask her if she wants to say something but she just laughs. Ronda is SO not the speech-making type.

Kayla throws Jennie Bossant (is that how you spell it?) from Canada with o soto gari. The referee calls “Ippon” but the judges change it to waza ari and everyone is yelling, ‘Get on her!’ but by the time she turns back, it is too late to get the pin. There are a couple of times Kayla is almost caught on the mat. Once it looks as if she might get armbarred. The American men around me are groaning because they think she is done. I disagree, women are much more flexible than men, and sure enough, Kayla twists around escapes. Less than a minute later, the buzzer sounds and Kayla has the gold medal.

Ronda has competed in the U.S. Open five times before and won it twice. I wasn’t there either of the first two times and I am hoping to get to see her win a gold medal. Adding to all of the things that have gone right this tournament, her godfather, Dr. Jake Flores, gets to the tournament site five minutes before Ronda fights. She has Gemma, from Great Britain, who is a pretty decent player. Left-handed, good counters, including to uchi mata. Ronda had a problem with left-handers at one point but she has really worked on it and they don’t give her so much trouble any more. The match starts and I can breathe a little easier. I have known Ronda since she was born and I can tell if she is going to have trouble. (And if you think I am going to reveal her weak points on the Internet, you are truly insane). Gemma has obviously planned how she is going to fight Ronda and is trying to keep her from getting a grip. Everyone on earth has probably seen that video of her throwing Bosch in the worlds with sode and they are really fighting for grips. Ronda does go for the sode a few times and tries a ko uchi when Gemma blocks by leaning back. Gemma gets a shido for not attacking.

Ronda goes for a sode (as if Gemma has not ever considered the possibility she might have done that!!) and then switches to uchimata. She only gets a yuko. She does the sode again and switches to o soto gari and slams her for ippon. Ronda gets her third U.S. Open gold medal in a row and I finally get to see her win one.

I would post a picture here of the awards but I couldn’t stay. I had 40 minutes to get to the airport and it was 35 minutes away. So, Jake and I give Ronda a kiss and hug and haul ass out of there. An hour later, I am on the plane heading back home to Los Angeles so I can teach judo at Hayastan in the morning for our first all-girls’ class and at the USJA/ USJF West Coast Training Center in the afternoon. (A practice, where, I might add, Tony Comfort jams my poor little 52 kg fingers during grip-fighting so I am typing this with nine fingers. Be appreciative!)

You're Not so Tough! (And I love you for it)

"Your children and, in fact, all of the young people you coach, need to believe you love them." - Dr. Jacob Flores, San Shi Dojo

"For a dad to spend time together with his daughter is very special. To spend it together doing Judo is a very special bonding time for the both of us." Paul Nogaki, Temecula Valley Judo

"To get to go on the mat and coach your kids is precious time. You go in the car together and have time to talk to one another, you are on the mat together, you travel together to tournaments. There is no real down side." Maurice Allan, Sport Judo

"It doesn’t matter if my child never goes anywhere in judo. My youngest is eight and if she gets to being a stronger, more productive more confident young lady out of judo and never becomes the national champion, that is fine with me." Gerald Lafon, Judo America

"What made me feel good is that I did something that mattered to the kids and not just something for myself. They feel that way about me, too." Jack Wade, Gardena Dojo

"I want what is best for my kids, not what makes me look good." Jim Pedro, Sr., Pedro's Judo Center

Fine bunch of tough guys you are! The coaches quoted above between them have represented the U.S., Japan and Great Britain in international competition. They have coached their own children to medals in Greece, England, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Brazil, Korea and all over the U.S.

When I decided to interview coaches for a special issue of Growing Judo magazine on coaching your own kids, I expected to run into those demonized Little League parents we are all always reading about. Funny thing, though, after teaching judo for decades myself, I have run into very few of those parents. Surely, though, parents who have coached their children who are now no longer doing judo, who have chosen some other activity or who are being coached by someone else now have their regrets. Right?

Couldn't be more wrong. As Jack Wada said,
"You know, as coaches, we never talk about these things, what judo had done for us, how we feel about it. We just talk about techniques and strategies for competition."

It turns out that these coaches all look back on their experiences fondly - and so do their kids. Those kids that quit judo were not their parents' failures but their successes. They are succeeding in other areas of life - working full-time, attending medical school full-time, succeeding in top music programs. None of their parents considered the years spent coaching their child in judo as wasted but rather as something that paid off then in time they enjoyed spending with their child and is paying off now in their child's success in life.

Did former super-star athletes, like Maurice Allan, shown above, named the Scottish wrestler of the century, ever feel as if their children needed to achieve to a certain standard?

"Not a t'all. I considered it a privilege to coach me daughter."

It often seems that the national past-time is putting people down, and that attitude hasn't left judo untouched. I hear comments all the time that people in judo are 'cheap', 'untrustworthy' and a host of other negatives. There are people like that in judo, just like there are in every other area of life. Most of the people in judo, though, are caring, giving, thought-provoking, insightful - and tough.

That's why I love them.