FTLComm - Tisdale - March 15, 2000

Tuesday night was a special occasion for the local Judo club with the visit of the provincial coach. Wearing his Olympic outfit and moving with such complete and utter control the provincial coach inspired awe in both the members and their parents. The sixteen member club meets each week in the former Sarcan building that is now home to the successful Tisdale Twisters gymnastics club. The place is loaded with equipment and has this outstanding floor mat that permits both gymnastics and Judo in a safe and appropriate environment. The club members are an enthusiastic group and after a group picture with the provincial coach and a quick

uniform inspection they went through a thorough and fun warm up with a series of stretching, flexing and strength building activities. The provincial coach paid extremely close attention to safety and every few minutes dispatched everyone for a drink of water. The warm up concluded with a fun game of "wolves". The ultimate behaviour for an athlete is to be able to control body movement in an accomplished and disciplined manner. Dance, gymnastics and clearly Judo are directed at achieving this remarkable goal. Learning to move your body in a smooth and utterly controlled manner improves a person's self confidence

and is a profoundly important part of an individual's self esteem. The Judo athlete aims for control and it is remarkable how these subtle skills accomplished in the gym transfer to poise and assurance in all other activities in one's life. From the time we are toddlers until we all become toddlers once again in our

old age, the main thing is to not fall down. So much of our life is spent in staying on our feet and it is remarkably liberating for the judo athlete to learn to fall with ease and do so without endangering themselves. So before the club moved into the skill developments of the night they concentrated on some shoulder rolls and break falls. Most of the club members have accomplished these basic skills and it was impressive to see that only the very youngest were still struggling with mastering the art of falling down. The provincial coach then went into the instruction mode and taught a basic step and weight transfer move. " Right step, left behind, step, . . . and" the coach chanted as each athlete worked on the footwork as he moved quickly around the floor giving pointers and watching for unsafe moves. Once the footwork was accomplished it was time to apply the skill with a "pull . . . and . . . throw."

The impressive discipline within the group really shows the outstanding job that has been done by the club coach who has brought the team to the point that they listen and learn calmly and in so doing can accomplish a lot in only minutes. It is important to note that many of these folks are very young and for them to give their full attention to something and not get distracted with some careless fooling around is truly remarkable. In the picture on the right and right below you see a sequence of a throw and fall as the step move is followed by a clean toss to the mat

with the person being tossed quickly executing a break fall to reduce the impact of their crash. The same move is repeated over and over to establish a solid learned pattern that will work for the individual for the rest of their lives. At seventy five and a loss of footing on a patch of ice this move, learned and established as an instinctual behaviour will kick in and instead of broken bones or a concussion the individual will roll into the fall, break their impact and be ready to

get to their feet and proceed. The young people in this club were having a wonderful time because accomplishment is a superior way to experience an evening. Step by step they learned new skills based on ones they already have achieved, then practice and more practice, establish refinements and even greater self control. After a few minutes of drill and repetition a quick break and in exactly two minutes the activities resumed. For this reporter this was my first visit to a judo class since collage when as part of a physical education programme I had to take Greco-Roman Wrestling which borrows heavily on the basic skills of judo. But watching these young people learn at their age the things I was taught as a young adult, made me realise how many times since then I have used those skills when tripping over something in the

yard or loosing control on downhill and cross country skis, time after time that little ole break fall and shoulder roll made it possible for me to get up and keep on going while others not so luck were hustled off to the emergency room to be fitted with a cast. In Cape Town South Africa a e-mail pen pal of mine has an eleven year old boy who is in a club like this one and has achieved the status of being selected for national competitions and even a trip to England to compete. Judo is a sport of mastery and the more intent the student and diligent in applying the skills taught, the more quickly those skills are absorbed and permit the learned of new skills. It is great to see this sport flourishing in Tisdale and congratulations to the club and its members on such remarkable success.

Editor's note: For more specifics on this great club here is some pertainent information from the club itself. If anyone contacts you in response to the Judo article and is interested in joining our group, they may contact Heather Allan (873-2082) or Corinne Lam Ma 873-4504)for further information. Our 1999-2000 season officially ends March 28th but we are most willing to accept new members for the upcoming season. People of all ages are welcome to join. I also thought I would mention that our membership is twenty eight. We had many of the older children and teens away last night. Corinne Lam Ma