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Thread: Is Judo Dead?

  1. #1
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    Default Is Judo Dead?

    This site is as dead as a door nail. Why not shit can it? Maybe Judo is back in an era when I started in 1952; a little known mysterious magic art when no one did. All I see now days is thugs doing MMA or BJJ pretending to be a martial art of some kind. Such as total waste of time.

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    Jeff,
    The site is more of an archive of good info from bygone days. We keep it going because it costs little to do so, requires minimal maintenance, and if someone is looking for writings and discussions by some of the top practitioners of koryu and gendai in the Western countries, mostly, there is some great material that it would be a shame to toss.

    But yeah, it is kind of like a ghost freighter that keeps drifting in the vast sea of obscurity.

    As for judo, where I live there are several decent dojo in reasonable driving distance. I'm going to be starting training at a small traditional dojo nearby, this winter. It's not dead.
    Cady Goldfield

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    I was being kind of witty, so to speak. Being the last Judo I did was in 1989, or 32 years ago; when I practiced for 37 years prior to then, it was a thought or dream and I just had to express it here. Or something like that. I miss all of my old late Judo buddies and often will come here in hopes of making contact with someone still above room temperature.

    Someone sent me a link to video of Ben Campbell talking about the old Judo days, then quite by accident I turned on a NPR TV channel to see old Ben in another video of his life and was astounded by the confidence. Was some old ghost Judo friend sending me a message! Yeah, getting old make one think of such silly things.

    Anyway, thanks for the post and hang in there; and also thanks for keeping this forum alive.

    Jeff

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    oops; I meant "coincidence."

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    COVID forced a lot of dojo to close for almost two years, but things are waking up, and traditional judo is still very much alive. Here's one of our local clubs.
    http://tohokujudo.org/
    Cady Goldfield

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    Yeah, much has been affected by the Wuhan bio weapon. Anyway, even though I stopped practicing Judo years ago my thinking about those days is every day. We had a lot of fun.

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    Would you ever consider coming out of retirement to coach or teach? Or are you enjoying the memories and that's good enough? You check in here regularly, so I wonder whether you still would like to keep a connection with judo? Write articles or a memoir? Judge at tournaments?
    Cady Goldfield

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    At 81 with replaced knees and bad hips and other old age stuff; no, ain't going to come back. I doubt my Ogoshi would even work Hum, maybe deashi barai. I really got burned out teaching because while many of my students were high schoolers or college age my personal activity had waned and all of them knew my every trick and move. My tricky technique bag was empty. Just reading the very few posts here is good enough, but could be better if more would join in.

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    I can appreciate wanting to let your hips and knees get a well-deserved rest. As for running out of tricks, I'd think that as a coach or trainer you wouldn't need to physically demonstrate much if at all. You'd be valuable in observing and guiding young judokas' strategic and tactical game.

    There is an active judo forum on Reddit, if you care to sign up there.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/judo/
    Cady Goldfield

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    While I was still not quite 50 when my last Judo workout I felt my skills were lacking and the politics in my area was so bad it just got to me. Rick Mertens was visiting my wife and me, plus I talked him into doing a clinic; he fussed at me about forgetting to pay for my sandan promotion. He was shocked when I told him some in the area were so envious of my history of living in Japan and learning from some Kodokan notables I just didn't think it was advisable to have someone find out about it. After all I had earned shodan 15 years before that! At the Kodokan in Japan no doubt. Such was the BS in the area so my interest just ran out. Teaching is just one aspect of the activity.

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    It's a shame that politics have to ruin what we love.
    The best years in so many arts and disciplines seem to be the first few, when students have a chance to be wide-eyed beginners falling in love with the art, blissfully unaware of what goes on beneath the surface.
    Cady Goldfield

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    Wow, Roald Charles of USJA called me today out of the blue needing information on old AFJA/USJA on-line news magazines, American Judo, and to just touch bases. We talked for an hour and it was great hearing from a Judo person. He and another JA person is re-setting up the library of reading materials. I told him to look at the old Judo Info site (https://judoinfo.com/usjacoach/), the E-Judo and here on E-Budo. I would love for him and other JA people to come visit this site and post. I told him I was just too old for Judo now, but still liked discussing the art and old days. He read my auto-bio, Resume of Judo.pdf, and found all my historical stuff, photos and such. Back many years ago Rick Mertens, past AFJA/USJA director, asked me to start writing up a history of our Judo in the USA and I did so that culminated with my bio.

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    Very glad to hear that you reconnected with someone from the old judo days. The subject never ceases to be relevant as long as there are individuals who want to keep involved in some way -- even if it's to gather historical materials and info, and make them available to a newer generation of judoka. I hope you do get some of those experienced folks to come here for discussions, as even a small group of people who are passionate about judo may be all it takes to generate some new life and energy.

    I used to go to the judoinfo.com site, but at some point it started getting a lot of bugs, viruses and malware and wasn't safe anymore, so I stopped visiting. Has it been cleaned up in the past year or so?
    Cady Goldfield

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