Hi all, I have decided to go ahead and run a Webinar on coaching Judo to Digital Natives (aka Young people).

I have given similar talks at both the University of Bath and for the BJA at the national performance centre in Dartford. Shortly I shall be giving the live talk for the Scottish Judo Federation also hopefully.

The webinar is a new project for me, I shall deliver the talk via a website with streamed audio and graphics etc. The big plus is that it is international via the internet, so the people that have emailed me from all over the globe can tune in.

I can host 20 people in the webinar, and it is completely free. Click the link below to sign up:


The Webinar shall be on Wednesday evening 8:30pm (GMT/UTC) on the 4th of February 2009.

I am really excited about this webinar as it ways it is taking the concepts in the talk and applying them to share the concepts in the talk.

My hope is that the 20 spaces available fill up quickly and that it will lead to other webinars. For example a webinar on "Blogging for Judoka" and perhaps on more Judo specific areas such as periodisation, notation, statistical analysis, nutrition, strategy, grips, specific throws, strength and conditioning, etc etc etc.


It is quite a short time from today till the Webinar so please register today.

Lance

Today, the www.PlanetJudo.com went down, I don't know why. It sadly took down the site for most of the day (if not longer).

To resolve the issue, I ended up totally removing the software and installing the latest version (8.12) of the software that runs the site (www.moonmoon.org).

Whilst updating I have removed Taraje's twitter feed as it is not very Judo specific now days. I am "this close" to removing his blog feed as it is rubbish nowdays... just spam for his darn DVDs. Please let me know if you have an opinion one way or the other on that ok.

I also added a couple of blog sites, we are now up to 81 feeds. Not much longer to 100 perhaps?

I have been toying with the idea of putting a workshop together "Blogging for Judoka". What do you think? It'd be a practical workshop covering both the technical matters of setting up a site and also the theory.

I am considering the idea of an online session and also a real world session in London or such like.

Again, please let me know your opinions?

I'd be interested in both if you would be interested in attending such an event and also if we had costs to cover how much would be a reasonable fee for such and event.

Drop me an email ( lwlw@judocoach.com) and let me know what you think?

Lance

As a part of my participation in the online social networking workshop Digifolios and Personal Learning Spaces ( http://digifolios.ning.com/ ), I have been tasked to do some online story telling, so I have chosen to copy Steve Wheeler ( http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2009/ ... -tell.html ) and Blog my story.

So to start here's the task:

Tell us about about your first approach towards learning technologies or that first experience that comes to mind. In other words, tell us your story on how it all started. It doesn't matter whether you are beginners or experienced users of web 2.0 tools, once we start working online, we automatically start developing an online identity. Here are some questions you may use to guide you on your story:

1. How did it all start?
2. What were you thinking?
3. What did you want to achieve?
4. Did you succeed?
5. Where did it take you?
6.How has your perspective changed throughout the years, months, or days?

My Story...

So compared to my colleagues on the 6 week workshop, I have an odd background. By that I mean that I am not in “academia”; I am a Judo coach. So learning technologies in Judo is very different I think to in education.

I suppose my story starts in Napier, New Zealand (The Art Deco city) back in the mid 1990s. I moved there as a computer geek and it was about then I started my first website. I don't recall why, except I knew the then very much smaller internet was “cool”.
My little website was a collection of Judo training games and drills. Which was I suppose my first attempt at using technology to educate. My first attempt at sharing knowledge with the international Judo community.

I recall that one of the “highs” of that site was receiving my first game from someone else. A Judo coach in Sweden sent his favourite Judo game for helping kids learn Judo. I added it to the list and it was such a huge buzz to be adding other peoples knowledge to mine and sharing it.

Since then that website has morphed and changed and become this website (www.judocoach.com). That original list of kids games is no longer the focus but the site still has the list hidden away somewhere. :-) The list itself I know is popular as the games have been used by coaches worldwide now, sometimes attributed, mostly not. It is flattering to see my games on DVDs and in Books; but Judo people really need to learn copyright law or etiquette.

The simple list of games, has led me to all sorts of wonderful things. I am proud to be as far as I have been able to tell, the first Judo blogger. It brought me into different circles of Judo people and is the reason I got into the University of Bath FdSc and Bsc degree courses (and possibly a PHD next believe it or not!!). I have a Judo Podcast too, which has allowed me to meet (virtually only often) some of the biggest names in the sport and share their knowledge with an entire planet of Judo people. I have also become a Keynote lecturer at University of Bath, my Father who survived my rebellious teens must be swooning every time he things about his “Judo Bum” son actually having an education and now teaching!

Whenever, I think about it my head swells!

In terms of my perspective over the years I have been doing this, it has changed immensely. I become more aware of my naivety each day. I also become more aware of the fact that technology has a huge potential to change and improve the way people learn and possibly more importantly how they think about Judo.

I am more aware than ever in 2009 that I have so much to learn and increasingly from outside of the Judo world. Which brings me nicely to this Digifolios and Personal Learning Spaces workshop; which has nothing to do with Judo at all. Well... depending on your point of view. To me I think it is absolutely linked to my Judo life. I think that the more I learn about education and technology for education, then the more I can integrate into the Judo universe both for myself and for others.

So that is my rambling story, my geek career and Judo careers have merged and the child of that merger is my formal education. The merger of my geek, Judo and education facets is me branching out into things like this workshop.

Lance

In a recent article in the BMJ (BMJ 2008;337:a2469 ), research (Soligard et al., 2008)⁠ was published showing that structured warmups prevent injury in both competition and practice sessions.

This study in Football (Soccer), suggest that a sport specific structured warmup of 20 minutes decreased the incidence of injury in athletes. The warmup included gentle running, increasing in intensity. It also involved sport specific rapid direction changing drills etc. the focus being on “awareness and neuromuscular control during active movements”(Brooks & Erith, 2008)⁠.

As Judo coaches, what is the take away?

This study suggests that we should be running structured warmups of around 20 minutes prior to training sessions. The days of the “hey you guys warm up, have a stretch and let me know when you are good to go” are gone.

The warm-up used in this study was a three part warmup.

1.Running exercises at slow speeds combined with active stretching.
2.Exercises including jumping, balance and strength exercises (3 levels of difficulty).
3.Speed running with football specific movements including sudden changes of direction.

The study showed “the risk of severe injuries, overuse injuries, and injuries overall was reduced.”.

Within Judo injuries to the knees, shoulders and fingers/toes are common (Daniel Barsottini, Guimarães, & de Morais, 2006)⁠, with Seoi Nage, Taio Otoshi and Uchi Mata being the main culprits. With this in mind, it would be sensible to ensure that a Judo specific structured warmup would include drills specific to these joints and these techniques.


It is also perhaps worth noting that the structured warmup used in the study, was provided by the international governing body for football Fifa. Perhaps the IJF could look into providing this sort of resource to the international Judo community.

Perhaps some of my colleagues (one in particular springs to mind), could be commissioned to produce such a resource on behalf of the IJF? And if not the IJF, perhaps for the EJU or BJA?








References:
Brooks, J. H. M., & Erith, S. J. (2008). Warm-up programmes in sport. BMJ, 337(dec09_2), a2381. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2381.

Daniel Barsottini, I., Guimarães, A. E., & de Morais, P. R. (2006). Relationship between techniques and injuries among judo practitioners. Rev Bras Med Esporte, 12(1).

Soligard, T., Myklebust, G., Steffen, K., Holme, I., Silvers, H., Bizzini, M., et al. (2008). Comprehensive warm-up programme to prevent injuries in young female footballers: cluster randomised controlled trial. BMJ, 337(dec09_2), a2469. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2469.

I spotted this YouTube video on the http://www.Judoforum.com website. It's important that we all understand the way the rules will be applied, so watching a video from an IJF A referee is a great opportunity.



For those of you who see this via an RSS feed and/or can't see the video here is the link to the youtube site: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo5B00nPgDA

Mike, Gene and I discussed the rules on their awesome podcast over at www.thejudopodcast.com which will be online soon.

I have some other resources I have yet to receive, I'll post about them once I have taken a look.