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Lessons from Judo By
Walter Aldred
I'm certain every sport has lessons to be learned. I
started Judo when I was eight years old. I continued until I
was twelve and then started again at forty. Even though I was
not actively training, I can assure you that the lessons of Judo
were with me every day of my life. I thought I would take a
moment and put these lessons to paper. They include:
Take time to show respect and honor others.
Judo has many rituals. Many of them involve taking a second
and honoring someone else. Before you step onto a Judo mat,
you bow. That bow has a great deal of significance. The
bow pays homage to your instructor and the lineage of instructors
before him. In competition, the bow is a sign of respect to
your opponent. When you leave the mat, whether you had a good
day on the mat or not, you leave with the same bow.
Overcoming natural fears lets you concentrate on the task at
hand.
Judo is a martial art that often involves throwing your partner
to the ground. As ironic as it may seem, to be good at Judo,
you must first learn how to fall both physically and mentally.
The physical part of falling involves a combination of positioning
your body correctly and striking the mat. When done correctly
you get up feeling fine. The mental part of falling is more
complex. First of all, you have to realize your mind does not
think falling is a natural thing. At first, your mind will
want you to do everything you shouldn't... such as hold your breath
which will knock the wind out of you when you hit the mat.
Considering that in a typical class environment you may fall easily
twenty times, its good to know that you can fall without injury.
Trust and Help Others
Learning Judo involves a great deal of trust. When you are
practicing a throw there is the Tori (The person doing the throwing)
and the Uki (The person being thrown.) In Judo it is important
to be both a good Tori and Uki. Being a good Uki might sound
counter intuitive. Why would you want to be good at being
thrown? There are a few reasons. First of all, your
partner is practicing a complex maneuver. When you are
learning, it is good to have someone who lets you throw them.
Second, as I said before a throw is a complex maneuver. While
being thrown, you will become more in tune with the mechanics of
what makes a throw work or not work. It is common for an Uki
to advise the Tori how to improve a throw. Imagine that.
After you throw me, I might get up and tell you how to throw me
better and then let you do it. That is trust.
As a Tori ( the person doing the throw) you are responsible for
the safety of your Uki. You do not throw your Uki if you think
your Uki might get hurt. This means if you feel your technique
is not coming together correctly, you stop the throw. If you
think the Uki might land off the mat or in the path of someone
else's throw, you do not execute your throw.
These ideas extend into randori (free practice). Randori is
where two opponents do light competition. This means that if
your opponent steps in with a good throw, if you are able to counter
the throw, go ahead and counter the throw. If you are not able
to counter the throw, you let you opponent throw you without doing
extraneous things that might hurt your opponent like grabbing at
their face.
Size of your opponent doesn't determine the outcome.
To perform a throw in Judo, you do not have to physically
out muscle your opponent. You just have to get them
off-balanced. Size and strength do not always prevail in Judo.
Self Reliance is important.
When you step on the mat, your actions determine whether you do
well. If you are having an off day, you cannot rely on someone
else to pick-up the slack. Whether you do well or not is
determined by you. |
