Looking Closer to Home
by George Allan, LincsMag Martial Arts Writer.
Date: 14 April 2010
We are already famous for the mighty Lincolnshire sausage, but wouldn’t it be great if we were to be also famous for our judo as well?
If you're already doing Judo in our beautiful county, then this article will interest you greatly. If you go to a school in Lincolnshire, this will explain why you might see funny people dressed in PJ's in your school soon. Or if you just love Lincolnshire in general then be happy as I have just given you another reason to love our county!
In the past few years our county has been overlooked in the Judo community; it’s shocking to say that at this current time Lincolnshire does not have a county squad.
People who practice Judo in the county often have to travel miles for gradings, competitions, courses and other important events.
Cherry Willingham judo club along with others have signed up to the BJA ‘School to Dojo Program’. This is a national initiative, for us this involves going into schools across Lincoln, we talk about the health benefits of being more active and also the other range of benefits.
We also give the students free hands on lesson, this gives them the opportunity to actually get more confident and get to grips with the mechanical aspects of the techniques.
So far the program has been very successful, many schools are now interested in signing up for visits from Clubs. Our aim is to try and get kids into the sport of judo while introducing them to a new active lifestyle.
The skills they learn, self confidence and knowledge of team work will last them throughout their lives, and hopefully that they will pass this down to their children, therefore breaking the deadly cycle of childhood obesity.
My club 'Cherry Willingham' has the honour of hosting some major events. The youth development day on 15th April is one of them; this will give the opportunity for local Judokas to train with some of the best coaches in the country.
We will also be hosting Dan Grade theory days; this means that any new rising talented Judokas, which are looking to do gradings, will no longer have to travel a ridiculous distance.
There is also talk of us hosting some more big competitions, other areas such as Peterborough and Goole have judo competitions, which bring in hundreds of people from all over country and we are hoping to match that!
All this raises the sport's profile in Lincolnshire, thus more people will want to take up martial arts in general. The knock on effect would be a real positive step for our county, more kids will be off street corners and both child and adult obesity rates will decline.
Working Together
Local Judo clubs are now working together by hosting joint training sessions; this is fantastic for helping us develop our skills as anyone who does martial arts will agree that it does get boring and is very counterproductive to be fighting the same people week in and week out.
By hosting these joint sessions we will hopefully be able to finally form a county squad.
Cherry Willingham Judo club will also be lucky enough to have members of the current GB Olympic team dropping in for special training nights in the future. The local Judo club instructors, who already give up a lot of their time to run clubs normally, are doing all this hard work.
I think it’s only right that by collectively working together, Lincolnshire judo matters are in the hands of the Lincolnshire Judo clubs and who knows, maybe one day will have more Olympic medallists who come from Lincolnshire.
