Excellence can be attained if you care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical, and expect more than others think is possible.
Quality coaching from passionate and knowledgeable judo
coaches is vital to delivering high quality judo for everyone who participates in the art.
Coaching judo covers a wide range of roles, levels, and skills. Coaching requires
a certain level of judo skills as well as knowledge of the sport. A knowledge
and experience which will be valuable to the coach and to their students/athletes.
I honestly believe that one of the greatest injustices to
the student of judo is for the coach to come to a class unprepared. A Judo
coach doesn’t teach from the hip so to speak. For the coach to stand before a
class and say, “let’s see, what will we work on tonight?” is really just……unpardonable.
Coaching judo is not impromptu. There is no short cutting lessons or lesson
plans. Coaching or teaching judo is no different than teaching in general, there
should be lesson plans, class material must be prepared in advance. The coach
must plan well in advance of any given session to affect some continuity of
material that is presented. The coach should attempt to link material from one
session to the next.
It is important that a good coach not only be a student of Judo
but also in the field of athletic performance…. After all what is judo…..yep it’s
athletic movement. Read as much as you can on all the subjects that will affect
you. Among many topics, this would include literature on athletic training
methods, sport specific conditioning, nutrition, sports medicine, and sports
psychology.
A good coach will continue training themselves. A good judo
coach should be fully aware, that judo is an endless path and should not
succumb to the self-delusion of believing that they know everything. A good
coach should be skilled, experienced and athletic, but those three alone make a
good judoka, not a good coach.
