As an aspiring Judo athlete, commonly you will do Judo training sessions and gym sessions. Running sessions will likely be included; but what about your mental preparation? Are you treating that with the same seriousness as your Judo, gym and running sessions.
The science
A recent review of research (Rossi, et al.) concluded that mood state (anger, tension, confusion, depression, fatigue, and vigor), anxiety, motivation, and mental toughness are factors that affect the result of Judo contests.
Which means that as an athlete you need to develop your skills in regard to mood, anxiety, motivation and toughness. To do this you will need to learn techniques and practice them just as you would a new throw.
If you have access to a sport psychologist via your club or national federation; take advantage of what they can offer.
Below are a few ideas to get you started, or to help you identify techniques that may benefit you.
Mood state
Establishing a ‘quick set’ routine as described by Andrew Hamilton in the Sports Performance Bulletin can help you set your mood state prior to competing. A large number of Judo athletes at IJF events were headphones and listen to music that they find settles them into the right mindset to compete.
Anxiety
Managing anxiety may be helped by positive self-talk, acknowledging that the anxiety is there and it’s a physical reaction to needing to perform. If the level is too high you may want to learn some relaxation techniques, such as meditation, or simply lying down closing your eyes and relaxing all the muscles in your body systematically.
Motivation
Roberts et al. highlight that motivation is perhaps the largest area in sport psychology. They also (very broadly) describe the two main theories on motivation which if you can identify in yourself and structure accordingly you may be able to sustain the optimal motivation.
Are you motivated by goals and achievement? Or by mastery of a skill?
If you can identify factors that motivate you. For example if you know you are achievement focused; arranging your training around targets like number of uchi komi, hours of training, etc. may work for you. Number of randori is a very popular tool here in the UK.
Alternatively, if mastery is more your thing. You may find video analysis useful.
Mental toughness
Dealing with the pain, the weight management, losing is hard. Judo athletes need to develop the toughness. Experience will help; as will be maintaining perspective on how each bruise, each lost contest is a step in the right direction.
Camberley Judo Club coach Luke Preston can be heard to say things like “another one in the bank”; which is a catchphrase for the deeper idea that every hard session builds towards the bigger goal. That the pain you feel (mental or physical) is temporary; that you will overcome.
Training for mental skills
As with other skills you need to develop; you will want to simulate the situations as close to the competition environment as possible.
For example, most athletes will have “test contests” prior to big events. Tough sessions in the club, with a referee, with a scoreboard, etc. You could take these to the next level and consider trying to get your mind into the same mental state that you experience at a competition.
You might request that a trusted friend talk you down (you’ll never win; shes stronger than you; they beat so and so easily) so that you can deal with negativity with them taking the place of your internal monologue.
Of course like all training, don’t go too far, too soon. You’d not start benchpressing 200kg without ever picking up a weight before. So the above example is potentially as likely to injure you and trying to benchpress 200kg.
Start with warmup (positive self talk, music etc) and then try and take small increments towards more and more realistic scenarios.
Use experts!
Talk to your personal coach, talk to your national coach. Reach out to the sport psychologists in your national setup, your university.
You won’t make it to the highest level without experts. You need to learn the mental skills that you need. They may be similar to those used by others; but just as with Judo throws, weights, etc. you will need to learn what works for you; and develop the skills over time.
The International Judo Federation (IJF) has released the modifications for the competitions rules for the next Olympic cycle (Paris 2024). The new rules are explained over on the IJF website: https://www.ijf.org/news/show/new-olympic-cycle-new-judo-rules.
For athletes and aspiring athletes competing in the sport of Judo; the IJF rules are fundamental to how you train both on techniques and physiologically. In this article we will outline some initial thoughts on how the new rule changes might impact you.
Judogi sizes
The suits we wear are vital to the dynamics of Judo. The gi is (arguably) getting slightly larger, meaning grip fighting will change a little. How it affects you is somewhat personal; more material gives you more “handles” to grip. Equally, you will have more to grasp onto.
Grip fighting is for performance Judo a key element. So ensuring you have a regulation cut suit and your training partners do also will be important to ensuring you are ready.
Continuation of techniques
The new rule interpretations outline how scoring techniques must be part of a continuous attack or motion. In the example of a drop seoi nage for example there must be no pause between the first attack and the eventual end where uke ends up on their back.
Athletes need to ensure they are training appropriately. Techniques need to be developed so that the drive never ends. Some crash mat work (potentially with bungees) might be useful for developing the continuous driving motion.
Physiologically speaking, building the leg strength and speed is worth considering. Drills with short bursts of sprinting on the spot might be a style that would help.
Wazari landings
Emphasis here is on the 90 degree or more angle of back and hips.
Athletes will want to train their escapes and landings from being thrown, building the habit of rotating will be important. As tori, training and modification of techniques to ensure at least 90 degrees will help ensure scores.
Training reactions and spatial awareness may be helpful.
Elbow landings
Landing on both elbows or hands will now still be a score. This we presume is safety related for uke. The concern as an athlete is that you ensure you don’t develop the habit of using the elbow/hands to try and not give away a score.
Rules are always in flux
One of the key elements athletes need to address is the constant changing in the way the rules are interpreted.
High level athletes (and aspiring ones) should be training with referees regularly in attendance. Getting coaching from referees on how the rule interpretations are being applied at your level is important.
Of course another good exercise is for you and your training partners to watch IJF live streams and look at the IJF refereeing videos when made available. Simply taking the video above and replicating the examples is helpful. You will experience the throws physically and “feel” the differences.
As a Judo athlete the biggest threat to your success is considered by many to be injury.
Injuries affect your performance in multiple ways:
They prevent participation
They prevent training
They decrease performance
So if an injury occurs, you can be prevented from participating in a competition and/or training. Not being able to compete, means you have zero percent opportunity to win, so 100% negative performance impact. Not being able to train will negatively affect your fitness and skill development (and maintenance). Injured limbs may also permanently impact strength, flexibility, etc.
There is a correlation between the amount and intensity of training and injury risk. This extends to competing also; the intensity and nature of a competition involves a high level of injury risk. As quantity and intensity of training increase, the chance of increase goes up. Well planned training schedules including variety of training and suitable rest and recuperation can decrease injury risk as quantity and intensity increases.
A further issue is the “second injury syndrome”, whereby one injury leads to another via weakness or coordination issues resulting from the original injury. Typically, when athletes return to training and competing when injury is not 100% recovered and training not carefully modified to address original injury’s impact on second injury risks.
Commonly a threshold is described where the injury rate/risk increases non-linearly. I.e. rather than your risk of injury increasing equally along with quantity of training; once you increase training quantity/intensity over a certain level the injury rate increases faster than the amount of training. This threshold is not a set point for all athletes, each individual has unique characteristics that affect injury rate. However, everyone has a threshold of training at which point the injury risk grows exponentially.
Although everyone’s threshold is different, a common level quoted is 16 hours of training per week.
So as a Judo athlete what does this mean to you in practical terms?
You need to plan your training and competition schedule carefully. An athlete at elite level for example will compete (on average) every 10 weeks. If we use the typical 8 week training cycle; you can easily plan a systematic training programme that fits nicely. Of course non-elite athletes compete at different frequency. Planning rest and recovery is essential to balance against the training and competing.
For example if you were on a one competition every 10 weeks programme, you could plan rest periods around your competitions. If attending EJU events for example it mighty be that you compete on week 0, then attend a high intensity training camp. This might be followed by a rest week; then a 6-8 week training phase, then a one week taper to the next competition.
You will note that this style of programme starts with the competition, rather than the common idea of ending at a competition. With this style of scheduling the plan starts with a high intensity, high risk competition and training camp. A rest and recover after this might be required as you can assume there is a high possibility that you may become injured during a competition and typical high intensity post-competition camp. So we plan an injury recovery/rest after the competition and camp.
As a currently non-elite athlete, you need to gradually increase training quantity and intensity over many years; sudden increases are known to greatly increase injury risk. So as well as the 6-8 week training programme needing to factor in injury risk, your long term planning needs to consider it also. Importantly, we need to prevent injuries as much as possible; because as we stated at the start of this article; injuries can prevent participation in competitions and if you can’t compete you have 0% chance of victory. Competing with an injury decreases the chance of victory also.
this post is an advert for a new book on strength and condition for Judo. It is written by two people I know and admire; Andy Burns and Mike Callan. Dr Mike Callan ran the University of Bath Judo programme when I did my EJU Level 5 coaching qualification there. Andy was a student athlete at the time and I remember him being the poor volunteer who did olympic lifts for me (and many others) as part of our practical coaching assessment.
The book is the sort of thing any aspiring Judo athletes needs to have in their bookshelf. If you don’t believe me, consider the personal introduction by none other than Inoue Kosei!
The book covers broad areas, including what the obvious topics of S&C needs and how to go about developing the relevant fitness, robustness, strength, power, co-ordination, speed and agility and more. It also has a section on adolescent development which depending on your age might be of use.
The book is now available on amazon and elsewhere.
Again, this post is an advert, but not one I am being paid for. I just want to bring the book to the attention of readers of this blog as I trust the work of the two authors and feel it is an interesting book for aspiring Judo athletes.
Here in the UK as in some other countries we have a centralised national training centre. In this article we explore as an aspiring athlete the benefits, risks and considerations surrounding centralised training.
Here in the UK, as in nations like the Netherlands, there is a centralised performance programme and central training centre (or centres). The idea being to bring the best athletes together with the best coaches and support staff and facilities.
In the UK this is the “Centre of excellence” in Walsall, nerlar the city of Birmingham. Here the national governing body has invested in a permanent Dojo, gym and other facilities. It is designed to be a base from which athletes develop and perform from.
The issue however is that, as is very publically the case in the UK, athletes are choosing not to move to the central location and programme. The reasons for this are complex and outside the scope of a blog post, but the simplified answer is that some athletes feel that there existing support structures are better suited their objectives than the national support structures.
There is always a tension between an athletes desires and a national programmes desires. The national programme has to try and deliver results beyond an individual.
For you as an athlete, you need to care about the strength of the national programme. But you also need to care about that less than you care about your own programme.
Judo is a individual sport, not a team sport. A team structure is important and can be potentially a key factor in your success. However, team structures can also be restricting to the individual. A team structure can gain and share funding, but equally it has to share it; so the individual gets less.
As an athlete you may have to decide what is best for you. Perhaps the strength and conditioning and other support services at your national centre are superior to what you have at your home club. Or perhaps, the opposite is true.
It could also be a matter of the relationship between you and your coach. This is a key factor in any athletes success. You may decide that the player/coach relationship is the most important factor. Alternatively, the relationships you have at the national centre may be stronger than your home club.
You may also want to consider the social situations. A national centre may have more people to support you. The physiotherapist, strength coach, etc. Not forgetting other athletes on the same journey as you. Your personal needs might be a big factor; if you need/like people then a bigger center. Alternatively, having space might be what you need.
You should discuss the merits of the training opportunities you have on offer with a wide variety of people. So your club coach, your national coach, your parents, friends, etc.
You need to look carefully and understand what is on offer and the pros and cons of training at the central location and your home location.
Often, the decision will be influenced by national policies. For example funding and selection is often associated with attendance at national programmes. So a sensible decision may be to take advantage of the centralised training which comes with easier selection and access to funding etc.
You also need to consider that your relationship with your home coach may cloud your perception of the national programme. If your coach is not a fan of the national system you may find your opinion matching their view. So you need to consider as impartially as you can the merits of your home structures and the national structures.
The advice of impartial friends, family or judo colleagues might be helpful in making your decision. They might be able to give a view on if your current setup is as good as the national programme. Importantly they might be able to balance political ramifications of your decisions. Sometimes you might need to go with the national system to get the selections and support you need; even if you don’t fully believe in teh setup. Equally, sometimes you might need to go against the flow as selection and support might not balance out what you can get outside the national system.
You can see from the above that this is not an easy decision. If I were advising an athlete my default answer would be to go with the national programme.
Not only because you are improving your chances for funding, selection, support from your governing body; but you might also find that the national coaches and experts are the best the nation could find with all it’s resources.
But, most importantly; the decision should be yours. No good programme will bully or coerce athletes into moving to a national programme. A good programme won’t need to.
At the end of 2016 the IJF published the new experimental ruleset that will be trialled during the start of 2017. This article covers a little about these rules and how they relate and affect aspiring Judo athletes.
The short version is this… they don’t affect you.
That is unless you will be participating in IJF (and possibly EJU) events in the first 6 months of 2017. These rules are experimental, which means that they will change before formally being adopted by the IJF, continental unions and national federations.
They will change; but we can expect they to relatively unchanged. If we look at the rules; there is one bug change that will probably have the most impact on aspiring (male) athletes.
Contest Duration is probably the change that will affect you the most. Why not any of the others? Because the duration change should affect all your preparation. A male contest will now be 60 seconds shorter than previously, so endurance becomes less important and attack rate and ability to be explosive more important. There is less possibility that the most well conditioned (in terms of endurance) will gain an advantage in the last part of the contests.
Your training sessions will require tweaking so that your internal clock knows where you are in the contest. You will need to adjust your attack rate too. The new changes to gripping will affect the required work rate too; but we shall have to wait and see before we see how athletes react to the changes.
As an aspiring Judo athlete, my advice would be not to worry too much about the changes. The IJF is testing them at first; after which time they will have some amendments I am sure. I do not think there is much advantage to be gained by trying to optimise your play for the new rules.
A training diary is for me the first and most important tool a Judo athlete can have. If I could suggest one thing to a novice athlete I would go with a training diary. They provide essential record keeping, reflection and planning, and cost very little.
My suggestion for a diary is always the B5, one day per page, hard cover type. If you have been using one for a while you may feel more comfortable with a larger format but I always found personally that too large and I would not carry it in my kit bag.
I recommend a paper diary as your training diary should be with you 24/7 and should be something you can access and use all the time, anywhere, anytime.
GETTING STARTED
Buy your diary, buy a nice pen (or three) to go with it and start recording what you eat and drink and write down every training session. This is a good start and requires little thought/effort.
Next, start recording what you do in your training sessions. Was it a gym session of Judo? Was it endurance work, skill development, etc. Next record the quantities, you track how many uchi komi, nage komi, randori you do. Just the same as you would record reps in the gym.
Next, record how things felt. Did your throws work well against the tall blackbelt? Did your shoulder feel a bit sore after the session? Was it a fun session or were you not enjoying it. At this stage you have probably already started recording things like when you went to sleep and woke. You might want to start recording how you felt when you woke up, were you tired in the morning, did you ache?
Review
Now you are recording things in your diary you are already starting to informally review your training, simply by stopping and writing it down. But you need to take this a little more seriously. You should set aside time to read your training diary. For example, you might want to make it part of the process of ending a training cycle (every 6-8 weeks).
You can start by simply scanning over the pages and seeing what leaps out at you.
Next you can apply the following questions and yes, write the answers down in your diary:
What went well?
What did not go well?
What can I change to improve?
The next step is to share your diary with someone you trust. Normally your coach; though training partners and husbands/wives have been used before. Ask them to answer the three questions above too. And let them tell you what they see in your diary. I suggest closing your mouth pretty firmly and not interrupting as you can ruin the process by getting defensive and talking too much. You have to trust the other person and respect them. That will help you listen and consider what they say.
Put your PLAN in your diary.
Every Judo athlete should have a plan, simple or complex. And that plan should be written down. The next step in your training diary use is to put you training plan in your diary in advance. This way when you rock up to the dojo you can look at your diary and be reminded that you are working on left Seoi Nage that night.
You may not follow the plan entirely (or at all) but having it there will remind you and keep it in your mind, and will also prompt you to explain in the diary why you diverged if you didn’t do what you wrote down.
Tips and Tricks
Use your diary as it suits you.
This means if you are artistic, fill your diary with pictures of the techniques you worked on. Rather than writing “I felt good”, draw a happy face in the margin. If you are a numbers person (like me) give things percentages.
Track your weight
You probably did not need me to tell you this one, most Judo athletes weigh themselves a lot anyway. But you should be recording your weight in your diary so you can track it’s movement upwards towards your target final weight.
Blog it.
If you have a good training diary, you have a good blog. Social media (as we covered in an earlier post: https://judoadvisor.com/2014/09/social-media-for-athletes-coaches-and-ngbs/ ) is now a essential part of being an athlete. Many athletes struggle to find things to share. Your training diary has a lot of information you can integrate into a social media post. Don’t share the private stuff, but trust me, people will love seeing how much hard work you are putting in.
Summary
A training diary should be in the kit bag of every serious aspiring Judo athlete. I always respect the player I spot writing something down in a diary in the changing room or on the side of the mat after a session.
A training diary is THE essential first tool for becoming a Judo athlete. It is a recording device that allows you to see what has happened over the past week/month/cycle. It is a tool for reflection and planning which is simple, cheap and effective.
If you have any questions on the use of a training diary, let me know. Either drop me an email ( lw@judocoach.com ) or leave a comment in the comments section below.
In this article the aim is to cover the principles and a small amount of practical tips on the use of social media in sport.
At the recent world championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia, the IJF and local organisers out did themselves when it came to the use of social media. The use of video streaming, websites, social networking and social media was high and had a direct impact on the success of the event.
Athletes, coaches and governing bodies can use the event as an example of the positive effects of sharing via social media.
Basics:
Social media is a term used to describe the creation of “media” by individuals and shared online; especially via social networking. The difference between this and traditional media is that it is mainly about sharing by individuals rather than broadcasting by traditional means.
We share, rather than broadcast. We participate in a community rather than publish.
An easy example of of social media is this article. It is written and shared on a blog and is not published in a magazine for example. This blog is part of the wider Judo community and unlike magazines for example invites sharing and comments online.
Other examples of social media are sites like Twitter where 140 character posts are shared, instagram where photos are shared, soundcloud and podcasts where audio recordings are shared, blogs where long form test is shared and of course Youtube where videos are shared.
Benefits:
Social media allows the democratization of media, where anyone can share something online without the necessity of traditional publishing methods. Anyone can share their media and equally, anyone can find the media and follow the creator.
For the creator, you are able to share with anyone. The act of sharing has the benefit of giving your thoughts public viewing. Creating the media is a creative process that is a wonderful way of crystallizing your thoughts via reflection. You also become part of a wider community and you can gain a huge amount of insight from the responses from people who reply to your posts.
As an athlete/coach or even NGB, the benefit of social media is that you can share the trials and tribulations of what you are doing. As an athlete you will have people interested in your career. Be it parents, friends, other athletes, coaches, fans or journalists. Social media allows you to share with them so they know you better and understand who you are and what you are all about. For an athlete you can develop a following, and audience, and if you are interested in ideas like crowd funding, this is vital as before you can ask people to support your campaigns you need followers/fans and social media is how you develop fans.
Social media for coaches and NGBs is important too as it is a wonderful way to share the efforts you are making. Again your fans/followers can follow you day to day struggle and get emotionally involved which leads to them supporting you when you need them. It also helps prevent negative opinions forming in the vacum. Social media allows you to share what is happening and that can help prevent people getting the wrong ideas of what is happening.
There is a perception held by some that the sharing can give away your secret edge. But the reality is that what you are doing is never a secret and the edge you have is a result of your doing not of people knowing what you are doing. There are a tiny minority of people whom I would suggest their ideas are worth keeping secret. Sharing what you are doing does not mean people will be able to steal your idea and beat you; it’s the doing that matters. Equally, it is highly unlikely you (dear reader) are that special and unique. Whatever you are doing, others are probably doing it already and you sharing a little about what you are doing is not going to stop your success.
Risks:
The benefits of social media are huge. The risks are normally NOT what you imagine. Sharing all your training online is not going to mean that other athletes can beat you. It is a common and naive worry and one you should discard today.
What is a real risk is that you damage your reputation with bad decisions on what and how you share online. I would encourage you to be true to yourself online in your social media; but that is under the caveat that you are not a bad person. Racist, sexist and rude social media content will do you more harm than good. Of course the readers of this blof are not bad people, but it can be all too easy to say something that gets taken the wrong way.
Another bit risk is that you get embroiled in the negative views of the people online. Take a quick scan down teh comments on any youtube video and you’ll see some horrible comments. And it’s all too easy to react to it and blow your cool and get embroiled in a battle you can not win. My advice is to focus not on the critics (there will be many) and focus on your views and on the kindred spirits you will find online.
Act like anyone in the public eye, accept that there will always be people who dislike your views or even you as a person for no reason you understand. Ignore it and continue.
Obviously, the other big risk is that you share personal information that can be taken advantage of by “bad people”. So no sharing of where you live, your home phone number, where you will be walking on a dark night.
Do:
Be honest
Be yourself
Share
Try all the different media you can, find the ones that suit you
Don’t:
Give away personal information
Don’t try and sell
Don’t lie
Don’t give up!
Summary:
Social media for athletes is simply about sharing your journey online yourself. Share the pain and the tears, share the joy and the smiles. It is NOT about finding people to give you money. You may be able to grow a fan base and approach them for financial support, but that should NOT be why you share online. It has to be about you sharing. Social media is NOT a sales channel, a propaganda broadcast medium.
The benefits include having mediums to reflect and express yourself. Social media can act as a training diary, a postcard home.
I would invite you to start with a simple blog, just write a few words about your training today. Tell those who find it about the hardwork you are doing and let them see what you are doing. Maybe someone reading is an expert in a area you have issues and is drawn to help you. Perhaps they are a critic who goes from not liking you to being a fan as they see how hard you are working. This goes for coaches and NGBs too. If you genuinely feel you are doing good things, then share it.
Lastly, the work social is there for a reason. Social media is about sharing in a community. Join that community today, read some blogs, leave some positive comments, send some emails.
And start that by writing a comment on this article in teh comments section below or by email me your thoughts on social media (lw@judocoach.com).
Crowd funding is mainstream now, Kickstarter is the biggest brand and people are getting amazing opportunities via crowd funding and the area of sport is no exception. In this article we will look at crowd funding in the sporting context and try and provide some tips on how to make it work for you as an athlete.
What is Crowd funding?
Lets quickly cover the basics; crowd-funding is a new way to raise funds to get something done. By leveraging the internet to find people who share an interest; people are able to raise money from the community rather than from traditional sources like banks, venture capital or limiting the scope of what you want to achieve.
Well known examples are the Veronica Mars movie, Peeble smart watch and Ouya gaming console.
In short, crowd-funding is about giving the fans or future customers the chance to financially support a project to make it happen.
Crowd funding in sport
The two big names in crowd funding are kick starter and indiegogo. Kick starter is the biggest but not ideal for sport; IndieGoGo is better for our needs as it is better structured for this sort of campaign and also allows you to run a campaign where if the target is not met, you still retain what you did raise. Kickstarter does not.
However, we have niche services for sport also.
Some examples are MakeaChamp, Pledge Sports and Wij Zijn Sport.
These sites are tailored specifically towards sport and athletes.
Athlete Examples
Some examples of athletes using crowd funding platforms in Judo are:
Nathon Burns (GBR)
Harkirat Sekhon (GBR)
Kathy Hubble (CAN)
Nick Kosser (USA)
Antoine Valois-Fortier (CAN)
Do Velema (NED)
Top Tips (and some don’ts)
1. Be worth what you ask for
Don’t be insulted, but if you are not that well known and/or not that good don’t ask for large amounts. If you are a 15 year old kid who got third place at your regional championships don’t ask for money to support your Olympic Dream. People are not silly and are more likely to support the kid they know from the club’s campaign to fund a trip to compete at the national championship[s than they are a campaign for the same kid to go to Rio2016.
It is fine to have goals that are not the Olympic games; it’s not about gold medals at the Olympics, it is about giving people that know you or can associate with you the chance to support you and share the journey.
2. Don’t promise things unless you can deliver
Whilst researching this article; I saw one campaign where one of the perks you could receive for sponsoring to a certain amount was a “shout out” on their twitter account. But the athlete did not have a twitter account.
You want to be creative and offer things that are unique to your journey.
Offer to send postcards from cities where the money will get you to, maybe posters from the events or t-shirts. Offer to film a training session with a top coach and send it to your backers. Offer to do something out of the normal; don’t rely on the defaults.
3. Have a network before you start
A crowd funding campaign relies on social networking (both online and traditional networks of people who know you). Make sure you have all the networking you can do in place before you start a campaign. Make sure you know which people you know will promote your cause and know what you can do to make them feel amazing promoting you and your campaign.
Have your twitter account for months before you start, and your facebook page. Use them daily to show that you are engaged before you start.
4. Engage with people
Especially after you start the campaign, engage with people. Talk to them online and offline and really engage with them. if someone you don’t know contributes immediately thank them and ask them how they heard about you. tell them how much you appreciate them and ask about them as people; ask how yourself how you can make them feel your genuinely appreciate the hard earned money they are giving you.
Don’t be a stereotyped salesperson, don’t spam people and websites with your campaign. Talk with people and engage. Share with them and help others want to talk about you and your campaign.
5. Regular updates.
Don’t “fire and forget”; you have to use every opportunity to communicate positively with your backers and potential backers. regular emails, updates to websites, letters, postcards, etc will make your backers happy and lead to more donations.
6. Under promise and over deliver
You need to outline your goals and your plan on how you will get from A->B. And you need to share every step. You need to offer perks to backers based on how much they donate, how much you raise in total and of course what you achieve as an athlete.
Be clever and promise realistically what you can deliver. Then plan how you will deliver both as an athlete and in how you will “pay” your backers. Then plan for the extra perks you’ll give backers if you raise more money than expected, or receive a big donation or win the Olympic games and get that big endorsement deal.
This short article will I hope give you some ideas on how to look at crowd funding as an athlete. if you have questions or comments please post them in the comments section on https://judoadvisor.com or drop me an email to lw@judocoach.com
Lance.
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P.s. I’m still very busy with my activity in the EJU and IJF streaming events and being part of the IT team. Also I am also working hard to try and find a way to make the skills I am applying in those arenas available to other events and other sports… so if you are interested drop me an email so I can talk with you about the business of sport and my role in it.
With the Olympic Qualification period for Rio2016 starting in just a few months the IJF have published what should be the last changes to the rules before the Olympic Games.
There has been the usual wringing of hands and complaining over the changes; but progress maches on and if you are a Judo athlete you must adapt or lose.
It is vital for any judo athlete to understand the rules and how they will impact the way our sport is played. Having an appreciation for how the referees are going to interpret the actions of you and your opponent will quite likely be the difference between a Gold medal and a silver or no medal.
My advice to all athletes is to get along to all the coach education seminars you can possibly get to. This will serve two purposes; one you will learn the new rule changes and you will understand the mindset of the referees you will be competing under. You can gain an advantage by looking at how referees are going to apply the rules as much as understanding the rules themselves.
By way of example I want you to watch the video below:
In this video the young upcoming British athlete Nekoda Davis gets beaten by Franssen of Holland.
The question you need to ask yourself is why?
For me, it is that Franssen uses the rule that has possibly not got as much attention as it deserves; the edge.
Here you see Franssen pressuring Davis towards the edge with her left hand grip. Davis is attempting to attack her way away from the edge.
At my club I have been talking alot about this rule and I think this video highlights the impact it may have perfectly. In this contest, Franssen forces Davis to the edge and it’s clear thats what she is doing. She soon gets what she was looking for and Davis is penalised for going outside the contest area. When the action retstarts; Franssen sticks to the plan and applies more pressure, lots of straight arms forcing Davis back to the edge.
Franssen causes Davis to be outside the contest area and the referee stops the contest and penalises Davis Shido.
And then Davis gets caught for Wazari and osae komi follows. Davis is pressured out of this contest through a great understanding of the new rule interpretation and a strategy that is simple yet effective.
The use of the contest area is an underlooked element of many athletes Judo. Don’t be one of those players; get yourself along to some refereeing seminars and work with you coach to develop a strategy that works for you.
Other blogs cater to the martial art aspect of Judo or recreational Judo. This blog is aimed at young (and old) athletes in the sport of Judo.
Judo is a combat sport which requires a huge amount from athletes, it is exciting to do and to watch. It is complex and challenging and the path from once a week to gold medals is a tough one.
This blog is aimed at providing some snippets of advice and perspective to Judo athletes which may help them find their own path to glory.
At the recent world championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia, the IJF and local organisers out did themselves when it came to the use of social media. The use of video streaming, websites, social networking and social media was high and had a direct impact on the success of the event.
