Coaching and Ego

The fact that I'm writing this at nearly 1 a.m. gives you some idea of my current schedule. However, I often run into people who tell me they noticed I am not writing in my blog very often, so, this one is for you ...

At practice yesterday, two points occurred to me about coaching and ego. Ronda and Eric were doing randori and Gary Butts made the comment,

"AnnMaria will go stand there to make sure they don't go through the window."

One of the black belts who was visiting for the first time laughed, but I went and stood by the window. Going through a plate glass window could seriously hurt somebody. Afterwards, I was telling the other black belt, who also coaches, that my views on coaching had changed over the years. When I was younger I thought, like many people, that a real judo coach could beat everyone in the room, that age didn't matter, size didn't matter, it was just skill.

As I got older I realized that was 

• Wrong
• Irrelevant

I am a little, old person. When I was a little young person I beat a lot of people bigger than me at tournaments. Read this next sentence slowly.

There is no such thing as winning at practice.

You see, that is why they call it practice. It is practice for other things, one of which is going to tournaments where they have winners and losers. Also, I worked out with Miguel Tudela at my old club, Tenri Dojo. Miguel was, at the time, the number one judo player in the 209 and over category. I could not beat Miguel, even in my prime. Size does matter and the only people who pretend it doesn't are the really big people.

Even if you can beat everyone in the room, so what? If you are that tough maybe you should be competing and someone else should be coaching. You may find it is a whole lot harder when you have to go four minutes round after round against someone YOUR SIZE and you DON'T know all the moves the other person is going to do because you never saw him or her before and they ARE going at you 110%.

I had my knee replaced last year. That isn't an irrelevant statement here. A critical job of the coach is maintaining the athlete's safety. I was working out with - a coach - my foot got caught between the mats, I got thrown from the knee up. From the knee down my leg stayed where it was. 

Now, I have a different view as a coach. I am watching the facilities, making sure the mats don't come apart that, no one goes flying through a window or smacks into a wall. If there had been someone there watching that day, maybe I would not have been injured. 

In our new facility, the mats are permanent and blocked against the wall so they can't come apart. Ronda laughed at me because even at the training camp in Tunisia I picked up some of the mats and moved them so there wasn't a gap. I used to do that regularly at the old location for the West Coast Training Center.

I am always walking around picking up belts so no one can trip on them, standing by the window,  making people turn around so they are facing the mat while waiting their turn for randori, rather than with their back to it, moving over people in matwork who are about to run into each other. Yes, it doesn't look as cool as throwing people or armbarring them and it isn't really as fun, either. You know what is way less fun, though? Having your knee replaced.

(Oh, just so you know, I am watching to see people do their techniques right, don't get bad habits, don't break the rules and other judo-related points. I'm not just a movable mat for the window and walls. My point though is that correcting type of behavior can feed a coach's ego, where the standing by the window, fixing the mats, well, not so much.)

The other part of being a coach and ego is kind of a no-lose situation that occurred to me yesterday. When you are a competitor and people you used to be able to catch in pins, throws, armbars or chokes you can no longer catch nearly as often, you get frustrated. Even if it is because they are getting better, the fact is, they are getting better than you. So, if you catch them - good! I am a good judo player. If not, bad! They are improving faster than me.

If it bothers you as a coach if your players start throwing you and armbarring you, then you missed the point somewhere. 

Now that you are a coach, it is like this. If I catch them - good! I am not totally old and decrepit yet. If I can't catch them - good! They are getting better. That's the idea. I'm a good coach. So, you get to feed your ego either way. Kind of makes up for the mats- windows - belts thing.

Like Switzerland, but without the Chocolate

I realize we came back from Tunisia a month ago, but business has been wonderfully crazy busy. I am taking a five minute break to write this post. My advice to anyone who has a chance to go to the training camp in Tunisia next year is that you should go. It would be especially good for just about any American player. I mostly watched the women's practices. The first thing I noticed is that there were several countries you don't see that often. Tunisia, of course, Kazakhystan which I probably spelled totally wrong and Spain all had a lot of players. There were a few from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Australia and I don't remember who all else. There were some really good players but there were also a lot of upcoming athletes so if you are coming to your first camp, this would be a good choice. There is also the fact that EVERYONE was incredibly nice.

In Tunisia most people speak Arabic and French and neither Ronda nor I speak either. It didn't matter. All the players at camp went out of their way to get matches with each other. When Ronda hurt her knee, the Spanish coach came up to me (at least I speak Spanish) and offered to have their doctor check it for her and tape it. Some how she made the Tunisian coach understand that she wanted to come to practices and do gripping, matwork and whatever she could with her knee taped up and the coach was fine with it, so she was able to attend every practice and get in tons of matwork.

Then there is the country itself. It is amazingly beautiful and not at all what I expected, given all of the negativity we hear in the news about Arabic countries and Africa and here you have both together. The food was great. The people were great. The history was amazing.

Even the cab drivers were nice. We went on a tour of the historical sites between practices and Ronda commented on how friendly everyone was. He said,

"In Tunisia, everyone is welcome. We get along with everybody. We are the Switzerland of Africa. Like Switzerland, but without the chocolate. No chocolate. It's too hot here. It would melt."

Shag Okada: A man worth remembering

In the book, How to stop worrying and start living, Dale Carnegie wrote,

“I realize now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves—.... They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they would about the news of your death or mine.” 

That is usually true. I have been too busy to write anything on this blog. I was in Tunisia and when I got back I had some terrific consulting opportunities come up, so I didn't write anything at all.  When I got some time, I planned to write something about the training camp. And I had people to meet with at work and practice at the West Coast Judo Training Center and a dentist appointment ...

and then I received an email that Shag Okada died.

So I stopped worrying about all of the rest of that stuff to write about him. I knew Shag for nearly thirty years and in all of that time he was never once anything but helpful and kind to me. He didn't have any reason to be. In fact, thirty years ago, a lot of people would say he had reasons not to be. I was female in a sport that was supposed to be for males. I was non-Japanese in a sport that was supposed to be Japanese. There was a lot of racism and sexism. Shag should have been on that side. He was older, Japanese, male, and integral part of Nanka Judo Yudanshakai (the largest and probably oldest judo black belt organization in the country). I didn't even go to a meeting for years after I got my black belt. Things get back to me, though. One thing that got back to me nearly thirty years ago when there was a discussion of funding players to the U.S. Open and National championships. My name came up and several people were against giving me a dime. I wasn't from the "right" club, "But she's a girl!" some people objected (I was in my twenties, had a masters degree and working as an engineer at the time). It was just as well I wasn't at the meeting. Shag, who even back then was a force to be reckoned with, stood up and said,


"But she's winning."

It was simple, to him. And I did get the same funding as everyone else. He was for equal opportunity before it was popular.

Various judo publications would ask high-ranking black belts to predict the outcome of the next tournament. (This was before we had the Judo Forum for things like that! ) I beat every American I fought for two years straight and yet, in every publication, the only person who picked me as the one to win the Panamerican Trials, U.S. Nationals, U.S. Open, World Trials or Olympic Festival was Shag Okada. When I pointed that out to him, and thanked him after one of those tournaments he looked surprised and said,

"But I had to pick you. I've seen you train."

The reason he had seen me train is that he let me, Dawn Beers, Jimmy Martin and two dozen other judo players use his dojo, Orange County Kodokan, every single weekend for years on end. Just to help us get better. Twenty-five years later, we started the West Coast Judo Training Center based on the concept he supported back in the 1980s.

When I had a baby, I wanted to get life insurance, which was something I knew nothing about. I asked Shag, since that was his business. I trusted him and whatever he told me I would have bought. He said,

"You're young and healthy. You don't need that much life insurance. Buy this one. It's not very expensive and it's plenty for you."

That kind of shot my negative image of insurance salesmen for life.

Shag was very knowledgable about judo. He donated an enormous amount of his time to judo from the local through national level all of his life. He was even an international coach, leading the Panamerican Team. He supported me when I was president of California Judo, Inc. All of that is nice and appreciated.

More than anything, though, what I remember about Shag over thirty years is that he was generous, honest, kind and fair. If, as I really do think, the measure of your success in life is how many people will be truly sorry when you are gone, then Shag Okada was a successful person indeed.

Sixth Time is a Charm

Today was the sixth time Ronda entered the senior national championships. She has competed every year since she was 17, except for last year when she took some time off. For the sixth time, she won the national championships. She first competed in 63 kg when she was 16, back in 2003 and then moved up to 70 kg in 2007. She never lost to an American at either division.

Usually when someone wins a national title their family, friends and even acquaintances make a big deal out of it. I know for Ronda a lot of people took the attitude like,

"Oh, it's Saturday, I went to Starbuck's and Ronda won the national championships."

First of all, I wanted to take this opportunity to say how immensely proud of Ronda I am. Winning looks easy because she has trained so damn HARD, year after year after year. That's worth mentioning.This is the third point tournament she entered this year and among those she has had 11 matches and won them all by ippon. Someone made the snarky comment that doesn't mean she's been training, that she could have won them all easily anyway. I think that remark is incredibly rude and disrespectful to both Ronda and her competitors. Ronda has been very fortunate to have some really good people helping teach her and coach her over the years. She has also worked her ass off. She didn't go into Wal-Mart, walked down to aisle twelve and pick up super-ninja judo powers off the top shelf.


Speaking of judo, someone told me a long time ago that the only reason he read my blog was for the tips about judo and that it should be required to have a judo tip in every post. To make up for my slacking in the past, here are a couple of training tips. Next time I will try to remember to put in some tips on defense in matwork, since this blog is getting too long already.

REQUIRED JUDO TIP #1
Why does someone out of left field sometimes beat the number one player? It isn't often that a player is number two or five for years and then knocks off the number one competitor in the division. There are a few reasons, some having to do with the top player and others related to his or her competition.

If you've been competing against a person for a while, you know what your competitor does. You know if the person is right-handed or left-handed, prefers forward attacks, does counters, is better at matwork. That person isn't very likely to catch you with something unexpected. You don't get to be number one unless you STUDY your competition. You also expect them to know what you do. They're studying you, too. On the other hand, a person who is just coming up from the juniors you may never have seen before. The person comes in for a forward throw, you block and next thing you know you are slammed with a backward combination that you didn't see coming. Or they have some weird way of doing o soto gari from both sleeves or something else that you haven't expected. The point is, your regular competitors have spent years working on their techniques and anything new is going  to be well, new and somewhat unperfected. "Unknown" players though, can have been working on that double-sleeve o soto gari from when they were six until now, for ten years, but YOU don't know about it.

Not only are those unknown players, by definition, going to come at you with techniques which you can't predict but they also don't necessarily know they are supposed to lose. This can cut both ways. They can approach the match thinking,
"Oh, my God, oh my God, I'm going to get humiliated."

I've even heard people in that position say,
"Well, after I lose to ----- , then I have either Joe or Blow to fight for bronze."

On the other hand, the people you have beaten ten times before, psychologically it IS going to be hard for them to overlook the fact that you beat them the last ten times by ippon and they haven't gotten magically better since then and you haven't gotten magically worse.

So, if you are the underdog, take this tip to heart. Come on in the beginning of the match like a bat out of hell before the :"favorite" has figured out what you do, if you're right-handed, if you're a terror in matwork. Don't hesitate, don't be afraid to attack.

Now a few words to the "overdog" . Kind of sucks, I know. If you win, everyone expects it but if you lose everyone will make a big deal of it. Sort of a double-bind for you. Know what sucks even worse, though? Losing! So, listen up here. The two huge mistakes you don't want to make both involve getting cocky. TRAIN!!! I know that is brain-dead obvious but I have seen too many people who have won the nationals, U.S. Open, whatever, several times and don't really train for it, who take the attitude,

"Oh, so you think Joe Blow is going to beat me?"

Maybe not. Maybe Sam You-Never-Heard-Of is going to beat you because you are out of shape, had to kill to lose those eight pounds to make weight at the last minute, you ran out of energy at the third minute and got thrown because you were exhausted.

Never, never, never take anything for granted. They don't give you points on the board just because you won the last two years. The second reason the "overdog" loses also has to do with being unprepared, but psychologically. So, you get to the tournament, you trained, you were in shape and your first match is Sally Lou Who. You're used to feeling out your opponent, getting your grip. You walk up to Sally Lou, reach up to get a grip and she drapes herself over your arm and does a soto makikomi and you're done.Apparently she has not received the memo that you're supposed to grip fight for a while before attacking.

Or you knock Sally Lou down for a yuko right off the bat, and start to get up so you can throw her for ippon the next time, but Sally Lou whose dad was four-time Olympic wrestling champion has crummy throws but the best matwork of any fifteen-year-old in the universe and she turns you and pins you for ippon.

That 15-year-old kid you're going to fight? Take her every bit as seriously as last year's Olympic team member. Warm up for the match just the same. Get the grip you want. Get the set up you want. Be ready. Because you know what? You need to make it through that fifteen-year-old kid or you're not getting to the finals.

You'd be amazed how often people are thinking about who they're going to fight in the finals when they haven't even fought their first match yet.

I was visiting Mojica Judo Club one day and a very insightful young player asked me,
"What do you think about when you are competing in those big tournaments like the world championships?"

I told him,
"If you think about it like winning the Panamerican Games or the World championships you'd be so nervous you'd go crazy. I just think about winning the next match,about making one less mistake than the other person."

Good job little Pumpkin on making the least mistakes today!

Things Discovered Cleaning House

I don't so much clean house as throw things out. You know those people who clean up before the housekeeper comes? I am the opposite. After the housekeeper comes and the floors are mopped, dishes done and everything put in the closets and on shelves I go through and throw out all of the clothes that don't fit, books no one is going to read ever again. You know those people they talk about in shows like Extreme Hoarders. I am the opposite of that. There is almost nothing I won't throw out.

My husband, on the other hand ... When we married he had 15-year-old copies of computer magazines, a CP/M computer ... His argument against throwing away anything was,


"We might need this some day."

and I would respond,

"For what? In case the Smithsonian calls?"

Exasperated, I turned to him one day and said,

"Year after year, I am going through drawers, closets, shelves and throwing things away. And yet, we never have any less stuff. Does that tell you anything?"

Hopefully, he suggested,

"That I'm a good provider?"

So, I was at it again and discovered a few things under the clutter. In the bedroom, at the bottom of a drawer under several feet of phone line (which I tossed out), two extra headsets for an iPhone and various random cables, I found a bronze medal from the British Open. Pinned on the bulletin board in the bedroom is a gold medal I won in the Austrian Open. I remember that I was extremely upset about getting a bronze medal and very happy winning a gold, but it was all a very long time ago and I have rarely thought about either tournament in years. Sometimes I go to people's houses and they have this little shrine to themselves with their medals and framed newspaper articles and I think- Why? I mean, really, why look back instead of ahead? Ronda's silver medal from the world championships and gold medal from the junior worlds are in the house somewhere, I'm pretty sure. I don't understand when people are shocked that I say that. It's not about the medals. What's cool is the fact that you won them. And then you move on with life and do something else.

Another thing I came across lately was a grant I had written for a judo organization in 1998. They received a few thousand dollars for their programs from a local foundation. I wrote several grants, raised money, taught clinics, attended meetings, ran practices and a hundred other things for the past twelve years on one judo committee or board. It struck me how much of my life had been devoted to judo, either as a competitor, instructor or volunteer. It reminded me once again how happy I am to be doing the things in judo I enjoy and not the paperwork, meetings and the rest of the administrivia. I've done my share and now I am very pleased to be doing something else.

The third thing I came across left me thinking the most. It was a DVD made by parents from Eastside Judo, a club Ken Otto, Dan Hoffman and J.D. run in St. Paul. The DVD featured five students from St. Paul who trained hard and then came to San Diego to compete in the USJA Junior Nationals. Their students didn't all win. That wasn't the point. It was about highlighting how much the students had learned, how far they had come and how they fought their hearts out, sometimes against far more experienced players. The point was how special these kids really were. It was an extremely important point because some people might argue that they were a team of kids average in many ways who were mostly special to their coaches and their parents. That is the exact point. We're all like that, ordinary in a lot of ways and, if we are really, really lucky, have some people who care about us enough that we develop, mature and do extraordinary things.

A couple of weeks ago,  I was down at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, waiting for Ronda, and outside the gift shop they have a big banner that was the slogan for one of the Olympic Trials that she won.

"Amazing awaits."

And I thought to myself,

Amazing awaits. For all of us. That's so true, you just have no idea.

God, I’m Lucky

This week, I resigned as USJA President and today, I missed not one, but two flights back to Los Angeles. That almost takes a special kind of skill. If you know Ronda very well you are now wondering if her propensity for travel fiascos is hereditary.

So, why am I feeling incredibly lucky? Well, I  am just leaving Seattle which I had the luck to visit at a particularly beautiful time of year. While I was here at a software conference with some of the smartest people in the world, I got the chance to go do judo at Ippon Dojo in Tacoma and spend time with Jason Harai who is one of the brightest young coaches I have met in America. We spent a couple of hours talking about how we teach judo, why he does things one way, for example, having standing randori first, so people don’t train when they are tired, and thus reduce the risk of injury. I do it the opposite, having people do matwork randori first because I think warming up reduces the risk of injury. Both of us kind of went, “Huh,” and I am sure were thinking about the other person’s opinion.

I had the chance to work out with the cute children at his kids’ class. Really, if you have seven-year-olds doing judo no matter what they do, they’re adorable. Many of his older kids were very motivated and talented and a joy to work with. The adult class was another bunch of interested, fun people. In both groups, I had the chance to teach judo assisted by people like Robin Harai and the other instructors at Ippon Dojo. It was just plain fun and challenging.

I have the freedom to work with people who I enjoy and ignore those who embody, as a friend of mine put it, “haterism”. That’s my new word for the week.

As for missing the flight, the first one was I simply mis-read the itinerary and thought my arrival time was my departure time. The nice people at United Airlines put me on the next flight. However, I was talking with a really fascinating woman from the conference about possible work we could do together and by the time I figured out the trains at Sea-Tac Airport to get from where we met to my terminal, I ran up to the gate as the plane was pulling away. After getting a severe talking-to from the agent, they booked me on yet another flight to LA.

I was bummed for about five minutes but then I realized that the time I had spent with this woman may turn into a very productive business relationship and I am in business after all and this was a business trip. So, I had a glass of Chardonnay and spent the rest of the time working on a lecture on data visualization which is I think going to be my next big thing.

It was a great week. I solved some problems that had been nagging at me about how to take greater advantage of high performance computing capabilities, met some incredibly cool people, both in the software world and in judo, and no longer have to deal with people who are frustrating and petty. A friend of mine asked me what I am going to do now. I told him that I was going to do judo with people I enjoy, work with people I respect and make a bucket of money. It’s all good.

I really am lucky.

What Exactly is Success, Anyway?

What is success? Is that a silly question? When I teach about program evaluation one of the examples I use is the Head Start program in America. This program for children aged three through five years old was originally conceived in the 1960s as a means of raising children's IQs. It failed. It turns out that a couple of years of a good preschool program don't raise your IQ. What they do, though, is reduce your chances of failing a grade, and since school failure is related to high school graduation, Head Start even increase the probability you will graduate from high school. It is also related to a lower risk of being placed in special education. So, most people would agree, less special education placement, less failing grades, more high school graduation = success.

Is the West Coast Training Center a success? Let's see, two years later we are still having practice every weekend, we have increased the number of talented instructors teaching, like Richard (Blinky) Elizalde, shown above. Of those who are coaching or training at the training center the following have started teaching in a new program in the two years since the training center began - Victor Ortiz, Richard Elizalde, Allen Wrench, Sam Garcia and Ronda Rousey (the middle school program starts this Friday). Tony Comfort also started a new club but he has since relocated to northern California due to his career.

If judo is to grow, we need new programs. I know that the training center was but one factor in supporting these individuals starting their own programs. Obviously, all of them learned a lot of judo from Guerreros, Goltz, Tenri, Mojica, Venice and the other clubs where they trained. Certainly Sensei Elizalde has been teaching at one venue or another for decades. I do think that the practice of getting in front of a class one, two or three times a weekend on a regular basis makes it that much easier to move into running your own program.

Ronda agreed,
"I know that without having the experience coaching at the training center I never would have volunteered to teach this middle school program. It gave me a lot of confidence as a teacher. I knew I could do it because I had done it with this group."

What else do we need to succeed? We need to retain more teenagers and young adults. Every club I have seen experiences a dramatic and depressing drop off in this age group. Depressing because these are the players who we have often invested eight to ten years developing and then they quit. The West Coast Training Center practices are predominantly players in the very age group that we want to keep.

We have a dramatic, disproportionate drop off in female players in this same age group. The West Coast practices are usually 40% or more female players.

Finally, we attend a lot of events out of the area as a group. While all of the players and coaches have their own clubs to support at local events sometimes when we go places such as the San Jose Buddhist or to the winter camp in San Diego we attend as a group. This builds stronger social relationships among the players (which research in sport psychology shows to be related to retention) and it is also a benefit to the event organizer that has 15 or 20 additional people show up and attend.

If success is having 100 people on the mat every day, then we haven't achieved it.

If success is, after two years, being in a permanent facility with good players who are regularly improving, with good coaches who are also branching out, then I would say the training center is a roaring success.