As regulars will know our plan to build up the numbers in advance of the students sports fair has been successful. We are now working with a full tatami every session, in fact we are so full that we are almost at maximum capacity already!
 So it is great news that we now have a new Thursday, 8pm-10pm session.

This session is the brainchild of the team that travelled to London to visit the Budokwai and is a mainly groundwork session.

Ne-waza (groundwork) is ideal for our adult novice players as it involves little (if any) falling from throws. It is also a very intense workout. Abs of steel may be the result of all the groundwork. The session is open to all; so let your non-judo friends know that there is a session they can come along and just have a wrestle on the ground.

Our new Sunday 2pm session continues; this will be for Kata until the kata championships in October. But then will host a new 4 week beginners course aimed at the new students joining us after the September 24th sports fair.

Sunday September 27th (3pm-5pm) will be our kyu grading; that people have been working towards. This again although primarily for our members is open to all Judoka looking to do their kyu grading. Please contact us if you wish to attend.

Lastly, following the success of our last Japanese meal evening, we are planning another one for Saturday October 17th; most likely at Nara again (although we may try somewhere else). So please put these dates in your calendar.

Speaking of calendar, we are now keeping our events schedule on a Goggle calendar ( https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=t48hpmr61e84qhkharsapsvn6k%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/London ). So you can always see what we have planned. I shall be incorporating our regular sessions soon.

Lastly, we shall be having some guest instructors again at the club soon, so stay tuned for news on which experts we will be coming down to share the mat with us.

 This week is the start of the “new term”, schools have gone back and the summer holidays period is pretty much over.

It was great to see so many people on the mat tonight! Our little dojo had a great little atmosphere going. The bad music (from coach) and the great work from the all that trained was fun to watch. And it looked like everyone was having a fun time; despite sweating profusely and breathing heavily.

We hope to announce extended training times to cater to the larger participation numbers and also to prepare for our annual influx of university students, so stay tuned!

Don’t forget to join our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SouthamptonJudo and our university student club page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ssujudo/

Judo in Southampton is back!

After our short two week break, we get back into the swing of things today at 8pm down at St Marys Leisure Centre.

As ever our sessions are open to novices and experienced players in our dojo upstairs, where as well as air conditioning we have a water cooler.

The plan for the next two  months is to ensure that everyone is graded appropriately before the Southampton Solent University freshers fayre; which is where we normally gain a large number of beginners.

Also, many clubs in Hampshire are closed in August, so we often have visitors looking to train during the summer; so expect some new faces over the next month or so.

Our partners at SportSolent posted this picture today as some “Monday Motivation”.

It is a quote from Pierre de Coubertin, father on the modern Olympics.

“For each individual, sport is a possible source for inner improvement.”

Judo was founded by Kano Jigoro; who was am member of the International Olympic Committee. He was very much a believer in Judo and sport as a way of improving people and society.

In our club, we practice Judo as a sport; not just because it is a brilliant sport; but also as sport is a great method for self improvement. We are currently working hard on both technical skills as well as physical development. Specifically, we are working on posture (shizenhontai) and on flexibility (especially in reference to good posture).

As well as improving our technique, by developing ourselves physically we help our day to day life by decreasing the damage that sitting at desks all days and being inactive can have on us.

So come on down to the dojo at St Marys Leisure Centre on Sundays at 3pm or Tuesdays at 8pm and find inner improvement via the sport of Judo.

Next Saturday the club will be having a meal together at the Nara Restaurant on Bedford Place in Southampton. The idea being to introduce new Judo people to the food of Japan and more of the culture surrounding Judo.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1610079255935353/

We have created an event on our Facbook Page, so please RSVP there. The meal is open to wives, husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends; so bring someone else along too to experience a great night out with the Judo Club.

Training continues this Sunday at 3pm and on Tuesday at 8pm, both at ST Marys Leisure Centre.

Taking a page out of the book of our friends at the Kuala Lumpur Judo Training Centre, I wanted to share a little about the Judo training we did this Tuesday in Southampton.

Tuesday is our higher intensity Judo training session of the week. This week was a great session, our new dojo with air conditioning and fans are turning out to be ideal in the summer! I think all the members who attended training at St Marys would agree it’s great to have the cooling when we are working hard.

As well as standing randori and groundwork; we had a conversation about the scoring and points system of Judo and how that affects the strategies we use if we play the sport of Judo.

We also did our usual uchi komi, both shadow uchi komi and with partners. We introduced another style of Uchi Komi too, using belts. There are plenty of good reasons for using belts for uchi komi, it helps us develop our hand grips as well as lifting action. Also as shown in the picture, it encourages commitment of your body in the right direction. And of course, it’s a fun change from our nightly uchi komi Judo drills.

I would also like to take a moment to thank everyone in attendance for observing a minutes silence in memory of the great Judo man Roy Inman who passed away recently. Roy was a huge part of British Judo and will be sorely missed.