Tournament Competition: When to begin

[Spoxjox]

At what level do you think tournament competition is a good idea? Broken down to specific age levels:

- child (8 years old)
- older child (~11 years old)
- young adult (13-15 years old)
- adult (25-35)
- slightly over-the-hill, going-to-seed (40s)

Also, what do you consider to be the single most important factor in winning tournament matches? Would it be well-rounded preparation, or a killer throw, or two killer throws, or a slick submission coupled with a sneaky butt-drop? I'm talking about lower-level competition here, obviously.

Finally, I'd like some opinions or insights into how useful tournament competition is for developing judoka, and why it's useful.

Thanks,
SJ

[MikeWilliams]

I was 35 the first time I competed! This was BJJ, not Judo.

Actually, that's my excuse for always doing so badly - every BJJer in my age bracket has donkey's years of judo experience under their white- or blue-belts. :)

(that's my story, and I'm sticking to it...)

[Spoxjox]

Sorry, let me rephrase. What I mean is, for each age group specified, what's the level at which it becomes a good idea to compete? In other words, how good should an eight-year-old be to compete in a tournament? A fourteen-year-old? A forty-three-year-old?

[MikeWilliams]

Gotcha. :D

Personally, my gut feeling is "as soon as possible", tempered with "as soon as they want to". There's no learning experience like it. Obviously they would need some ukemi skills, and need to have practised a couple of basic throws and counters that they are comfortable with.

I'm sure Mark Feigenbaum is about to chime in with suitable quotes from Jigoro kano about the necessity of randori - so I'll leave that to him. :)

The biggest challenge is probably mental rather than physical: Is the student prepared for losing? More to the point, is the coach prepared for losing?

Judo seems a bit more forgiving than BJJ in that regard. BJJ's team structure means that (in my experience) an awful lot of clubs will only let their weaker students compete if there are places going spare in their weight category - or if the students are likely to act as 'blockers' to wear down the opposition and give the team hotshots an easier ride.

[MarkF]

[mod biz first]

Spox Jawks,

Is that your real name or is it a handle? I am asking because E-budo rules state one must sign each post with a true and full name. This may include a first and surname or first initial and surname. Thank you,
[/mod biz first]


Judo seems a bit more forgiving than BJJ in that regard. BJJ's team structure means that (in my experience) an awful lot of clubs will only let their weaker students compete if there are places going spare in their weight category - or if the students are likely to act as 'blockers' to wear down the opposition and give the team hotshots an easier ride.


I had no idea, Mike. It is almost like pro-boxing where they open with a "walk in" match of 4 rounds and end with a walk out match of four round. While they are sceduled this way, frequently they move up to semi-main status and then matches scheduled when a match can't be put together, or the semi-main and/or mainevents don't go a full round. The point being to have a full night of boxing matches even when a couple are duds. One four round figher is Eric "Butterbean" Esch. He was called the "world champion" of four rounders.

Interesting (not in Joe Yang's meaning, I didn't know they did this). The only thing even close in Judo would be those who are white belts for fifteen years. While I am exxagerating only a little, this is common on most gendai budo, I think.

Mike,

I don't need or do I want to go into randori. It has a fine history and Kano was far from the first to use ran as a training tool though he may have been the first in which randori was the focal point.

As to ages, rules and ages change, and as for modern or post-war judo, this is especially true. When judo was restarted in the US (and Canada and Mexico) after the closing of the camps, the first organizational judo began in 1949. In the 1950s, the Amateur Judo Association was formed when there seemed to be sufficient Yudanshakai across the country. Early on, it was difficult to hold nationals, but the first one was held in 1953, though some say the first true national championship is said to have been the one in San Francisco, though political and interest began in earnest in the non-Japanese community when Gene Lebell won the heavyweight and Grandmaster's champion in 1954. Robert W. Smith was not exactly happy with this, especially in the open-weight category.

Age linits stated in the early 1950s was, simply, anyone 21 yr. or older. By the end of the 1950s, there were virtually no real minimum ages, and definitely none when I first competed in 1963. I had, perhaps two or three months of "training" and it showed by my quick exit in both of them.

Today, the USJF, for Jr. Nationanal tournaments (including the USJI) start at age six with a maximum age of nineteen. I have found that most injuries are to the ego with too many at minimum age should never have been competing. As to minimum age, this should be on a case by case basis. I find that eleven to thirteen is the perfect age to start.


The reason for competion should be obvious as should the benefit. There are few forms of Japanese combatives in which any "anything goes" are practiced. While Jigoro Kano wanted a 3 point contest, this did not last long, though it was thought that, like back in the day, it generally took two throws to make an opponent incapable to continue so it was a two point rule until WWII broke out. When Judo restarted and was out from under occupation, the feeling of the even older days when a one on one battle, usually with weapons, was truly sudden death, the single point win, by throw or submission using a variety of technique was probably began the influx of the international community. Kano did not like this sudden death attitude as he believed both sides should take away good feelings about the outcomes of matches.

This soon gave way to the "sudden death" Ippon.

As to the benefits of competitions, this will be argued until the cows come home, but so far, no one has shown a better way of showing one's ability and knowledge of the technique or the feeling that another's, the loser, technique was not sufficent. While many technique were excused and saved mostly, in kata, there is no othe way of full-out fighting allowing the contenders to come back another day. Certain other alignments were made so one could play randori or fight in as many shiai as possible without the fear of severe injury (or in the thread of the recent death during play, a man died of a stroke believed to have been brought on by the application of a strangle hole. This kind of end of a career in judo is the kind of thing rules changes, for good or bad, have been instituted over the decades: Do a search here in the judo forum for that thread.

Other than this rare occurance, activity such as this is occasionallhy going to happen, but not nearly the percentages orf, say, American football.

Before the shiai, and even before the shiniai, there was the taryu jiai, a common type of challenge match practiced in the koryu or early meiji jujutsu schools. This often led to serious injury, death being a possible outcome. When this no longer was possible, practitioners took it to the street looking for a fight to test one's waza, and the jumpig in of studnents was becoming rampant. Kano did not like what he was seeing and took to studying how this could be avoided.

In the very early days of Kodokan shiai, there were winners and losers, but this was not identified to those who watched. Thus, Kano's three point matches "...so they will know who won..." This was deemed as insufficient in accesing the growth of the student's waza.

The final straw was the invitation to a Dai Nihon Butokukai embu/taikai to as many masters of all styles of budo who could get there on a certain date. This had the effect of a dosen or more masters helping to standardize the technique, categories and kata, not to mention dan-i grading and with titles beginning with Renshi. Some researchers have found that Kano had too big a piece of the pie so they had formed an organization with members of royalty as well as the criminal element (Yakuza) having a "hang out" so to speak.

The photo of many of the masterss of jujutsu as well as weapons masters, however, had the very intent of placing Kano as the principle participant as he invited anyone who could offer their help in the forming of the go kyo no waza.

I really ran away with this. Apologies for that, but this getogether is why judo today is so widely practiced. The competitive nature of people was the reason for competition today, and the "Participation" in such contests is an integral and traditional part of judo, and budo or bujutsu, boing back as far as the ryu itself. In fact, it has been suggested that the Kodokan today is the only school that practices anything close to a soke/iemoto though no one would lay claim to it, but the Kodokan, in effect, is the honbu, with every other school of Judo being branch dojo. Even with the IJF controlling competition, in their by-laws it plainy states that "We recognize the Judo of "Kano Jigoro Shihan and the Kodokan."

The contest and randori training has a long history, and predates judo by centuries. Kano sought to open it to anyone who wanted to practice under the rules of the Kodokan which are not so different from koryu jujutsu schools, except in size and number of instructors.

Kano's training was in jujutsu and becoming a master of that certainly gave him the right to start his own school. The contest, whatever one thinks of it, has many opinions and some research led to judo as zen. Read TP Leggett on this, or try the online history of Kano, Kodokan, and Judo at the web site of Kim Sol and Big Sky Judo at the University of Montana at http://www.bstkd.com/judo.htm , the oldest extant University dojo in the USA. It leads to some very interesting conclusions. It is also not a quick read, but is a good one.

Watch, this will kill the thread, but I can't help it.

[Joseph Svinth]

Mike --

To understand the culture of BJJ, read up on capoeira (especially Rio capoeira, as Rio is where BJJ developed). Malicia is a key idea. Also, a Brazilian art is almost by definition going to focus on roles of submission and dominance, whereas judo is, by definition, supposed to focus on mutual welfare. Submission/dominance and mutual welfare are antithetical concepts...

[gendzwil]

My son just had his first tournament experience. He turned 11 a couple of days after the tournament. He lost both fights and was quite disappointed but I felt it was good for him. I think, case by case as the Japanese always say. I certainly wouldn't want to shove an unwilling kid into competition.

I will say that for kids older than 12 (past the cadet division, as it is run locally) that they are likely to run into quite strong judoka, just based on what I saw at that tournament. So your child (and more likely you) should be prepared for a hard fall or three, probably much harder than he has experienced in normal practice.

Finally, I feel trying to strategise how best to win is not a good idea for a first tournament. Kids should go out, give their best judo and try to have fun.

[MarkF]

Mike --

To understand the culture of BJJ, read up on capoeira (especially Rio capoeira, as Rio is where BJJ developed). Malicia is a key idea. Also, a Brazilian art is almost by definition going to focus on roles of submission and dominance, whereas judo is, by definition, supposed to focus on mutual welfare. Submission/dominance and mutual welfare are antithetical concepts...

Joe-

The last part of your post is also on the Big Sky Judo web site, but they got around it by calling it "Zen."


Mark

[John Connolly]

I really enjoyed reading the accounts and info in this thread. Too bad it was started by some goof ball. Maybe we can trim off the excess stupid and have an interesting discussion....?

[MarkF]

Hey, John,

How is this? This thread contains all relevent posts from the other thread. I agree that it was worth continuing.

I changed the name of the thread just a little, as the topic is now established so I hope this is satisfactory.


Mark

[John Connolly]

That's good moderatin'!

So much good historical and experiential stuff in these posts.

Thanks Mark!