Trip to Japan (2007) 

The summer of 2007 saw two teen judokas (Alexis Robin and Philippe Crepéau) accompanied by OJC technical director Catalin Guica spend two months training at the most prestigious Judo university in Japan, Tsukuba University.

A picture is worth a thousand words!  See the pics and short videos taken there!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Extract from the journal of Catalin Guica (Tsukuba 2007)

The sports facilities of this university are superb.  The dojo measures 24 by 30 meters (our OJC dojo is 14 by 16 meters and is considered big by Canadian standards).  The KENDO dojo is twice the size of their Judo dojo.  It was a Saturday night, the athletes were training at a frenzied pace in every discipline: soccer, Judo, Kendo, athletics, weight training etc. HARD, HARD, HARD!  The Judo coach isn’t there, everyone works individually on his own program as follows: they do endurance training on a stationary bike installed in a sauna (no joking).  They have an over-heated training room set at 100 deg.F.  After 1 hour of cycling as a group they separate one will do some uchi-komi and nage-komi with his partner: in place, with lateral movement, with speed and randori kumi-kata; another will do one hour of tandoku-renshu (shadow uchi-komi), another arrives with a large rectangular chronometer and they perform isometric exercises, that is to say, the guy lays on his side, he puts one hand on his neck and he assumes a position whereby only one elbow and one foot touches the ground.  Watching the chronometer he holds this position for 4 to 5 minutes without moving. These exercises serve to help the judoka maintain a straight posture even if a stronger partner tries to bend his back.  The judoka repeats this posture a number of times then changes to another posture which he repeats.  Once the isometrics are done, he takes a small weight of 250 grams and assumes a defensive standing position as if he has a gi grip to hold. He then exercises his arm, wrist and hand while moving about doing ayumi-ashi and tai-sabaki for 4 to 5 minutes.  We can see he is left-handed because when he changes hands he grips the weight as if he were gripping a sleeve.  Another athlete does stretching and flexibility exercises – frontal and lateral splits at 180 degrees, they’re maintenance exercises.

Philippe and Alex are eager to join the others on the tatami.  They are so motivated by what they’re seeing.  By the way, in Japan, the work week is 6 days (not 5) per week (with some exceptions).  At the end of the session we leave with two athletes who have a surprise for us – the use of 3 bicycles for the whole 2 months of our stay. Very kind!

So now we join the masses riding girls’ bikes.  The seat is very low, I try to raise it to the maximum but it remains very low.  At least it’s a wide seat, it doesn’t hurt one’s bottom and I have a basket in front.  I can do my shopping!

We end our second evening at the same restaurant, it’s very close by. Another waitress, equally pleasant as the first, brings us raw fish, chicken and fried fish.  Our order was somewhat improvised since this girl knew less English than the first – just ‘yes’ and ‘no’.  So, I randomly selected items off the menu and ordered too much.

Tomorrow, there is no training but the boys are so motivated that we’ve decided to do an 8 km trek and some strength training.  Oh yeah, all payments are made in cash only. ATM machines exist, although rare, they are indicated on our map.  The only catch is that they are in Japanese only.  I’m a little curious how I will work out the transaction desired. For now, I still have some cash.

Monday, July 9, 2007

The program:

Warm-up

Uchi-komi while moving
Uchi-komi with speed
8 Randoris of 6 minutes on the mat,
8 Randoris of 8 minutes standing
Power Uchi-komi with two partners/ 10 minutes

Those who practice Judo fully understand what 112 minutes of Randori means.  The pauses between are only 30 seconds.  Alex and Philippe have done half the Randoris which is already quite remarkable!  Off to the side there is a 30 litre boiler dispensing tea which the judokas drink during their pauses.

After this session it seems impossible to believe that no one is leaving the dojo. They each continue their personal training: throws, shadow uchi-komi, stretching or just watching and discussing the others.  At 10:30 there are still people despite the fact the training ended one hour before.

From the other dojos we hear the shouts and sounds of training taking place in Kendo and Aikido from hundreds of students.

Afternoon training begins at 4:45 and ends at 7:00 p.m. Warm-up for 30 minutes, fast contact uchi-komi that leaves one breathless then 10 fast randoris of 8 minutes each, standing.  The training ends with individual work of 30 to 60 minutes.

Alex and Philippe managed to do 7 of the randoris, it’s quite good.  On this first day they’ve endured (literally) close to one hundred Ippons with no exaggeration on my part. I thought I saw Alex manage one or two throws, Philippe managed a small one.  The Japanese fight with great flexibility and deftly avoid being thrown. At any given moment there is a spectacular Ippon happening that takes your breath away