While the sound track is a little over the top (very dramatic) the series as a whole is interesting. Have a look on youtube for the other four parts to the series.
29 May 2008
Kata Class
The inaugural Kata class was a success. 10 players on the mat and 3 hecklers drinking beer on the sidelines. Same again next Wednesday.
Please note that players from all Judo clubs are welcome.
Please note that players from all Judo clubs are welcome.
26 May 2008
Sensei Rick's Pick of the Week
Presumably on account of having thrown up his hands in disgust and despair (because no one is trying out the Kosen Judo/Littlewood special techniques in randori after weeks of drills and patient instruction):
25 May 2008
Kata Class Starts This Wednesday
Due to popular demand, Sensei Rick will begin taking a Kata class this Wednesday evening. The class will run from 7.30-8.30pm every Wednesday after the normal class. Because of the number of aspiring Shodan’s we will begin with Nage No Kata and progress from there. Players from other clubs are welcome.
24 May 2008
Cheers Greg! Thanks For The Bar
Greg -- a big thank you from the Club for donating/lending us a new bar. Please accept these haiku as a sign of our gratitude.
Despite the fact that a beer after Judo is one of the finer things in life, no one has yet written and published an appropriate "Beer after Judo Haiku." These will have to suffice for now.
As friends sit around
Drinking beers and telling tales
A great plan is hatched
* * *
He kept a sharp eye
Even while relaxing
With a Summer ale
* * *
I want for nothing
On this finely crafted day
Another beer? Sure!
* * *
One foot, then t’other
Gently winding down the street,
Where am I going?
23 May 2008
Vladimir Putin and the Judo Conspiracy
“Gunvor, Putin and Me” - Oil Trader Speaks Out[Thu May 22, 2008 2:24pm BST]
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The owner of Swiss-based oil trader Gunvor has denied Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's help was key to turning his firm into a global player in a open letter called "Gunvor, Putin and me: the truth about a Russian oil trader."
Gennady Timchenko's letter, published by the Financial Times on Thursday, became the first public statement by the mysterious tycoon who co-owns the world's third largest trading house.
Timchenko's was reacting to years of speculation that he enjoyed special ties with the former president and now prime minister Vladimir Putin.
"Media suggestions about the extent of any ties between me and Mr Putin are overblown," said Timchenko, who owned a few trading companies in and near
Timchenko's partner and Gunvor's co-founder, Torbjorn Torknqvist, has already denied Gunvor ever enjoyed Putin's support in his first ever interview given to Reuters in October.
Gunvor handles over a third of Russian crude exports, making it the world's second largest crude trading company. It also, handles a big chunk of oil products with the lion's share coming from state-controlled companies such as Rosneft and Gazprom Neft.
Timchenko said he never co-owned any company with Putin and denied the two men were especially close due to their love of judo.
“It is true that I, together with three other businessmen, sponsored a judo club where Mr Putin became honorary president.”
"That is as far as it goes - yet time and again, the media wrongly jump to the conclusion that the judo club connection means that Mr Putin and I are “close,” then leaps into conspiracy-theory mode," Timchenko said.
22 May 2008
Mixed Martial Arts Increasing Popularity Of 'The Gentle Way'
Globe and Mail, 20 May 2008
By JAMES CHRISTIE
Tradition may be the most important part of judo, but the sport known as "the gentle way" is undergoing a renewal thanks to the rising interest in new, aggressive forms of fighting.
"Judo is not really more mainstream than before, but it has seen greater popularity since the MMA [mixed martial arts] craze," says Mitchell Kawasaki, chief instructor at the Kawasaki Rendokan Judo Academy, a Hamilton facility celebrating its 50th anniversary on May 31.
"With the increased awareness of MMA and UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship] fighting, many athletic young adults have realized the benefits of learning judo as a fundamental basis to success in MMA. Judo, however, does not encourage injuring one's partner and, as an Olympic recognized sport since 1964, it encourages and helps to develop flexibility, endurance, conditioning, self-confidence, understanding anxiety and stress, and helping to cope with daily issues."
Judo is as much a philosophy as a form of combat, said Kawasaki, a seventh-degree black belt who operates the dojo begun by his father, Harry Masao Kawasaki, in 1958.
The elder Kawasaki had been confined to a Canadian internment camp near Vancouver during the Second World War. The origin of the academy can be traced back to that time, Kawasaki said. Thousands of Japanese-Canadians were rounded up, taken from their homes and businesses by the Canadian government. The elder Kawasaki and many others reached for tradition and immersed themselves in the study of judo "usually in secret or at night by flashlight," Kawasaki said.
"Many of them grew to be very passionate about the sport, my father being one of them."
After the war, Kawasaki's father boarded a train, made his way to Hamilton, and began working as an auto mechanic and auto body technician. In the late 1940s, his father and Mas Ishibashi founded the Hamilton Kodokan Judo Club, which worked out of a garage. They helped the sport gets its foothold on the Ontario sports scene and, in 1958, the elder Kawasaki began a separate club.
Three generations later, the dojo still is producing top judokas, and athletes from at least 10 other countries have registered and trained at Rendokan. The club played host to the 1992 Pan American judo championships, and brought the powerful Cuban women's judo team to use Kawasaki Rendokan as a training base. In 1993, the younger Kawasaki was part of a delegation that brought the world judo championships to Copps Coliseum.
"We hosted the Japanese and Korean world teams at our dojo," Kawasaki said.
While having an international role, the grassroots work at the club remains important to Kawasaki.
"In my particular instance, I have seen a greater awareness and interest by whole families. Our dojo encourages complete family participation, with father, mother and children practising side by side," said Kawasaki, who competed in the 1976 Olympics, not in judo, but in Greco-Roman wrestling. The judo skills helped him finish in sixth place.
Now 58, Kawasaki is also celebrating a half century in the sport as athlete and instructor.
"I remember my beginnings at [the garage] location ... especially the cold winter days when we had to trudge to the dojo from the street in the deep snow up to our knees. The dojo was not heated very well and so we had to run in circles on the small area of mats [straw tatami] with used car tires underneath plywood to allow a softer landing from impact. Sometimes we would have to run for more than 20 minutes just to begin our regular warm-up, which usually consisted of stretching and push-ups, several hundred at a time," Kawasaki said.
The dojo subsequently moved to the Jewish Community Centre in Hamilton and, instead of cold, athletes dealt with extreme heat. "I remember the hot, sweaty training due to the proximity of the dojo to the sauna."
By JAMES CHRISTIE
Tradition may be the most important part of judo, but the sport known as "the gentle way" is undergoing a renewal thanks to the rising interest in new, aggressive forms of fighting.
"Judo is not really more mainstream than before, but it has seen greater popularity since the MMA [mixed martial arts] craze," says Mitchell Kawasaki, chief instructor at the Kawasaki Rendokan Judo Academy, a Hamilton facility celebrating its 50th anniversary on May 31.
"With the increased awareness of MMA and UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship] fighting, many athletic young adults have realized the benefits of learning judo as a fundamental basis to success in MMA. Judo, however, does not encourage injuring one's partner and, as an Olympic recognized sport since 1964, it encourages and helps to develop flexibility, endurance, conditioning, self-confidence, understanding anxiety and stress, and helping to cope with daily issues."
Judo is as much a philosophy as a form of combat, said Kawasaki, a seventh-degree black belt who operates the dojo begun by his father, Harry Masao Kawasaki, in 1958.
The elder Kawasaki had been confined to a Canadian internment camp near Vancouver during the Second World War. The origin of the academy can be traced back to that time, Kawasaki said. Thousands of Japanese-Canadians were rounded up, taken from their homes and businesses by the Canadian government. The elder Kawasaki and many others reached for tradition and immersed themselves in the study of judo "usually in secret or at night by flashlight," Kawasaki said.
"Many of them grew to be very passionate about the sport, my father being one of them."
After the war, Kawasaki's father boarded a train, made his way to Hamilton, and began working as an auto mechanic and auto body technician. In the late 1940s, his father and Mas Ishibashi founded the Hamilton Kodokan Judo Club, which worked out of a garage. They helped the sport gets its foothold on the Ontario sports scene and, in 1958, the elder Kawasaki began a separate club.
Three generations later, the dojo still is producing top judokas, and athletes from at least 10 other countries have registered and trained at Rendokan. The club played host to the 1992 Pan American judo championships, and brought the powerful Cuban women's judo team to use Kawasaki Rendokan as a training base. In 1993, the younger Kawasaki was part of a delegation that brought the world judo championships to Copps Coliseum.
"We hosted the Japanese and Korean world teams at our dojo," Kawasaki said.
While having an international role, the grassroots work at the club remains important to Kawasaki.
"In my particular instance, I have seen a greater awareness and interest by whole families. Our dojo encourages complete family participation, with father, mother and children practising side by side," said Kawasaki, who competed in the 1976 Olympics, not in judo, but in Greco-Roman wrestling. The judo skills helped him finish in sixth place.
Now 58, Kawasaki is also celebrating a half century in the sport as athlete and instructor.
"I remember my beginnings at [the garage] location ... especially the cold winter days when we had to trudge to the dojo from the street in the deep snow up to our knees. The dojo was not heated very well and so we had to run in circles on the small area of mats [straw tatami] with used car tires underneath plywood to allow a softer landing from impact. Sometimes we would have to run for more than 20 minutes just to begin our regular warm-up, which usually consisted of stretching and push-ups, several hundred at a time," Kawasaki said.
The dojo subsequently moved to the Jewish Community Centre in Hamilton and, instead of cold, athletes dealt with extreme heat. "I remember the hot, sweaty training due to the proximity of the dojo to the sauna."
20 May 2008
Australian Olympic Team
Victorian mother Maria Pekli has capped a comeback from retirement with selection for her fifth Olympics and is joined by fiance Daniel Kelly in Australia's judo team for Beijing.
A Sydney Olympic bronze medallist, Pekli, 35, left the sport to start a family with Kelly after an eighth placing in Athens four years ago.
The couple have a two-year-old son Erik who suffers from cystinosis, a genetic illness that attacks the kidneys, bone marrow and thyroid glands and requires 24-hour care.
Hungarian-born Pekli represented that country at the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics before moving to Australia in 1996 and she said her Beijing selection was special.
"It feels excellent, this is what I have worked towards so hard for, so to be selected is fantastic," said Pekli.
Kelly will be going to his third Olympics, having competed in Sydney and Athens.
"I'm very excited," said Kelly. "I finished top eight in Athens so I would really like to step up from that this time."
Catherine Arlove, 37, is also heading to her third Olympics after being name in the 12-strong judo team, which includes eight Olympic debutants.
She's determined to improve on an impressive fifth placing in Athens four years later.
A competitive freestyle wrestler and track cyclist, Arlove is also a qualified physiotherapist, holds an MBA and is part way through a law degree.
Australian Olympic judo team:-
Women: 48kg - Tiffany Day (Qld), 52kg - Kristie-Anne Ryder (Qld), 57kg - Maria Pekli (Vic), 63kg - Catherine Arlove (Vic), 78kg - Stephanie Grant (Tas), +78kg - Janelle Shepherd (NSW)
Men: 60kg - Matthew D'Aquino (ACT), 66kg - Steven Brown (SA), 73kg - Dennis Iverson (Vic), 90kg - Daniel Kelly (Vic), 100kg - Matt Celotti (Vic), +100kg - Semir Pepic (NSW).
May 16, 2008 - 2:04PM
16 May 2008
Kosen Judo: Ude Gaeshi
Rick Sensei's picks of the week: Ude Gaeshi and Sankaku Jime (see previous post).
15 May 2008
NZ Judo Has Problems But...Cuban Judo Has More
MIAMI (AP) — The Cuban national judo team prepared to return home Monday without one of its stars, whose weekend disappearance fueled speculation she is defecting.
Yurisel Laborde, a two-time world champion and 2004 Olympic bronze medalist, was not with the team when it arrived Monday at Miami International Airport for its flight home after competing in the Pan American Judo Championships. She has not been seen since Sunday.
The Cubans checked in for their flight lugging new mountain bikes, televisions, espresso machines and other purchases made during their historic stay in Miami. It was the first time in 40 years that a Cuban Olympic team in any sport had competed in this city, a hotbed of anti-Castro sentiment.
As she waited for a bike to be wrapped in plastic, tournament gold medalist Idalys Ortiz said she was proud of her team's performance. Like her teammates, Ortiz declined to talk about Laborde, who won gold in the 78-kilogram division.
"Of that, I don't know anything," Ortiz said.
Coach Ronaldo Veitia Valdivie said he trusted Laborde, whom he had trained since she was 12. He said he had worked hard to enable her to compete in Miami, since she was already qualified for this summer's Beijing Olympics.
"She wasn't thinking it through. You know how youth is," he said.
Veitia said Laborde's possible defection would be a great blow to her mother. As he sat among trophies the team collected at the competition, Veitia criticized the U.S. media for focusing on the apparent defection.
"You are giving more importance to one deception than all of the accomplishments of all of the Cuban team," he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Zachary Mann said Laborde had not contacted his agency. He said she might reach out to social service groups, churches or an attorney before contacting authorities. A message left with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was not immediately returned.
"There's so many things, you can't really speculate what she is or isn't doing," Mann said.
In March, seven Cuban soccer players defected at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Tampa. Cuba called the act "dishonorable" and a "low blow."
Laborde left a note with her teammates, but its contents were not known, Team USA President Jose Rodriguez said.
"It was never shown to me by the Cuban delegation," Rodriguez said.
By Sarah Larimer.
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