Edinburgh Judo Club: Senior Trip to Japan (9th-24th July 2007)
A group of senior squad players (Euan Burton, Matt Purssey, James Millar, Sarah Clark and Sally Conway), all training full-time at the Edinburgh Judo Club recently returned from their 2 week trip to Japan, where they underwent a rigorous 2 weeks of training in preparation for the World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They were kind enough to take the time out of their busy training schedule to tell us all about it.
Interestingly enough, the groups’ training was not just confined to the one area of Japan. They in fact spent their first week together in a small town called Tsukuba, about an hour outside of Tokyo. Their second week however, was spent in two separate locations. The women flew to Hokkaido and the men to Kumamoto, where their respective “top teams” were training at that time.
1st Week (9th-17th): Tsukuba: Men & Women
Here they trained with the university team, both men and women. They trained twice a day alternating between either two Judo sessions a day or one Judo session and one weight training session in the on-site gym. They said the best thing about the training was that on every session there was around about 150 to 200 people to train with, and the quality of judo was fantastic, as you would imagine being in Japan.
Other mentionable aspects of the groups’ time at the University would have to be the accommodation. They weren’t just sleeping on the mats; they all stayed in a luxury hotel only 5 minutes away from the university campus where they reported the food was amazing….mostly just rice though!!
2nd Week (18th-24th): Kumamoto: Women
In this week the men were separated from the women, and were flown to the south of Japan to Kumamoto where the Japanese national team was training in preparation for the World Championships. This was a real test of physical and mental toughness, as they were now on the mat with the NO.1’s, 2’s and 3’s in Japan and, in some cases, the world. Also to make up numbers for the camp they recruited top players from all the University teams and surrounding towns, it ended up that every session had at least 200 players on the mat.-
The training was set around the same sort of structure as in Tsukuba, only there was no option to alternate judo and weights sessions it was simply judo. They had to do two 3 hour randori sessions (randori: Free practice/sparring. For those of you who can’t remember), there was one in the morning and one later in the afternoon. This may not sound like much, but to quote one player who went;
“It was so hard that any time spent off the mat you just wanted to sleep” Matt Purssey.
The quality of the judoka on the mat scaled from world and Olympic champions to relatively unknown players, we asked the British coach Billy Cusack to comment on some of the judo he saw,
“It was just perfect, some of the things they were doing was unbelievable…especially Nomura, he could turn in from everywhere and with the most beautiful judo you’ve ever seen” William Cusack.
The judo player he was referring to is Tadahiro Nomura, 3 times Olympic Champion, reported to have serious damage to his cruciate ligament requiring about an inch thick of tape and a knee brace to keep it in place and he was still throwing everyone in practice.
2nd Week (18th-24th): Hokkaido: Men
The women flew further inland to Hokkaido for more training. The same as the men they were training with the National team that were preparing for the world championships. The quality of judo here was apparently amazing, and what was equally amazing was the way that the Japanese judoka were treated, one of the team said,
“It was so surreal how they were treated. It was as if they were super stars with press and photographers huddling round the mat to catch a snap of them, they were treated the way we treat footballers in this country, it was very strange” Sarah Clark.
The sessions were much the same as the men; they had two sessions a day: one newaza session in the morning and one tachiwaza session in the afternoon and evenings were left to themselves.
Really the only difference in the women’s second week of training (apart from obviously gender) was that they were allowed two days at the end for shopping in Tokyo…typical!