Cool Video Sent By A Member of Some Old School Kosen Judo

Hard Workout in Town this Week

A hot humid day but the kids from Big were still going hard at training.  This is a photo of the older kids in action.  We are focusing on tachi waza (standing techniques) early in the year, The kids are pretty good on the ground so we are concentrating on developing their throwing.

Notice the new instructor in photo. Henry Wu a young Black Belt from University is working towards becoming a Big Judo Instructor.  Henry is aiming to do his Level 1 Course in March and is being coached in coaching techniques by Jordan and Ben,  At Big we believe strongly that good instruction is important and we work hard to develop our new instructors.

Big Year for Auckland Judo

Already the Auckland Judo Association has the following events programmed for this year:

• 15 March - Level 1 Instructors Course - A development course to train Assistant Club Instructors.  Currently we have half a dozen people keen to do the course.
• 20-21 June - Auckland International Open - This is Auckland's premiere Judo competition and attracts fighters from Australia and across the Pacific. Anyone keen to volunteer to help out should give us a yell as they are keen to find volunteers.  
• 16 August - Howick Academy of Judo Competition - This is a nice 'entry level' competition for all ages from kids to masters. 
• 5 - 6 September - North Island Championships - Another strong competition that we are lucky is in Auckland this year. Anyone keen to volunteer to help out should give us a yell as they are keen to find volunteers. 
• 5 December - Rick Littlewood Open - A Masters tournament - Fun to watch. 
• 6 December - Nippon Judo School Competition - This is another nice 'entry level' competition for all ages from kids to masters. 

As well as these activities there are two other clubs looking at staging local competitions.

All in all it looks like a good little year of  Judo.  

Big Judo Starts 2015

Big Judo has started for the year. Classes are going well we have all our instructors and lots of the regulars back and are having a good time.  Everybody is really looking forward to 2015.

Kids - Here are some shots from Pukekohe

Some shots of Tracey and Geoff organising the kids. See the new Yellow belts the Pukekohe team's first full belts - awesome. 

A quick shot of the parents - Always important to remember that without our supporters the instructors and I would would not be able to pursue our hobby!!. 

Police Judo - Our social class at the Police Station 

The guys at the Police class are having fun in these 'action' shots . This year we have formalised the class and focusing on good basic Judo. We also hope to do a trip this year. 

Big Judo Start's 2015 Next Week

Happy New Year - Sick of the holidays yet? Ben is! Here is a photo of him at the beach. Sun's out, water's cool, sand is golden. But he doesn't look happy Why - because he hasn't been at Judo for a month.  Good news though Judo starts again next Tuesday!

Last year was great for Big Judo and we have the photos to prove it. 

We taught lots of kids in Sandringham and Pukekohe some good Judo. 

They also learnt about discipline and playing nicely together.

Our kids went in contests and some won medals

Most importantly they had a good time

Our instructors completed another level of training the C2 Level Coaching Course

All in all a pretty good year we even managed to keep most of our long suffering supporters involved.  Being a Judo parent is pretty hard work and it is great that over the last year we have got to know more of them.  

2015 will be even better. We are 'growing the base' and this year are aiming to step up a level.  

So hopefully we will see you all next week ready to go! 

Big Judo End of Year Grading

Sorry it has take a little while to get pictures of the grading up unfortunately a power outage at our house killed my computer so was offline for a couple of days.  Sorry for the delay.

The grading went really well. In summary:

•  The grading was run in a traditional format bringing a large group of our team together for the event;
• We graded 41 kids.;
• At the top end we now have 5 kids well on their way to Orange belts and 10 new Yellow belts;
• The kids were well behaved and we were able to get through the process pretty quickly;
• We also had lots of parents and grandparents there supporting the kids ;
• Finally, we were very well supported with assessors and visitors and the following people helped us out:

o   David Mair – A Fourth Dan Black belt who spent nearly a decade in Japan, is a very experienced coach and a key technical sounding board for me

o   Rob Levy – A Fifth Dan Black Belt and the current National Coach

o   Brent Cooper – A Seventh Dan Black belt, New Zealand’s most successful Judo Olympian, Commonwealth Games Gold medalist and the current National Technical Director

The bottom line though is that Tracey, Jordan, Geoff and Henry have worked hard all year and their efforts paid off with a really good result. One of the best things about being involved in Big Judo is seeing the instructors grow and develop- Well done team. 

The team getting ready to start.

Another view this time showing the instructors and assessors lined up and ready to go.

Rob Levy ran the warm up and you can see Dave warming up with the kids.

Dave running the Yellow Belts through their paces. 

Henry Wu helping Dave discuss some technical points with the Yellow Belts. 

The White Belts lined up and getting their results 1 or 2 Yellow Tags. The kids going for full Yellow Belts and Orange Tags are sitting along the back wall

My new favourite photo of me doing Judo! It is enormously satisfying to see such a nice group of kids (and adults) enjoying Judo together. 

Information for Contest this Weekend

Competition time this Sunday so thought it might be good to put up some information for our parents and supporters.  So you know whats going on and can follow the action.  

First of all the 'mat'. The mat is the contest area and the picture shows its key features.  The action takes place inside a square 8-10 metres wide called the contest area.  Around the contest area is a row of different coloured mats (normally red) that indicate the boundary of the contest area. This in turn is surrounded by a wide safety area,  

Players (under 16) win by:

• Throwing their opponent with force and control onto their back; or
• By throwing their opponent to the ground and holding them on their back.

Above the age of 16 players can also force their opponent to submit using 'submission' techniques such as arm bars, strangles and chokes.

The contest is supervised by a referee and in larger contests the referee is assisted by corner judges. The referee scores the player's throws and signals their score using hand signals as outlined below.  

 Hope this is helpful.