This book was really helpful for me for a number of reasons, but since you may be curious about this blog post’s title, I will explain. This book is written in Japanese. It may seem a bit strange that I’m recommending it considering that my target audience for this blog is English speaking. However, this book is special. All of the kanji (Chinese characters) are accompanied with the furigana (reading in hiragana) making it easy for those with elementary Japanese proficiency to understand the contents. Every page contains illustrations as well, so for an experienced judoka, the illustrations are all that are necessary to understand the majority of the contents. Studying this book is an excellent way to learn the vocabulary you will need in order to follow a class taught in Japanese, and it’s just my opinion, but I think there is a lot to be gained for any judoka by having some basic knowledge of the Japanese language.
The book goes through the basics of judo (remember, this book is aimed at beginners), from dojo etiquette to basic techniques and drills. Don’t be fooled though, this has some really good information for seasoned instructors as well. As an instructor, this book is a nice resource to refer back to. However, the most valuable part of this book for me, was the section on newaza (mat techniques), which turned out to be pure gold for my situation.
At my club, all of the students but one are shodan (1st degree black belt) or higher. Nearly all have done judo since elementary school. However, when they joined my dojo, I quickly realized that while their renraku uchikomi (combination repetitions) in tachiwaza (standing techniques) were quite good, hardly any had ever done renraku uchikomi in newaza. In fact, the vast majority of time spent in newaza uchikomi was one student attacking the turtle with a sankaku turnover (see link for video description). They never did uchikomi in combination, and never drilled escapes, which I think is something that is often lacking in dojos in Japan. This book saved me a lot of time which I might have spent developing my own drills by mapping out a sequence of techniques that helps both uke and tori drill newaza techniques in combination. The section that covers this sequence alone is worth the 1200¥ (about $12usd) I paid for the book. Here’s an excerpt:
Book excerpt from “Thnking about judo for juniors”
Overall, this was the first resource I chose because I found it to be an excellent resource for me as an instructor. It also mapped out drilling sequences in a logical and thoughtful way that was easy for my students to understand, and the way it was written makes it easy even for people with only a basic level of Japanese proficiency. Unfortunately, this book is not distributed outside of Japan, so you will need to order from a Japanese distributor. It may be a hassle, but it is highly worth it in my opinion.
You can purchase through Amazon here. I am not an Amazon affiliate, so I receive no commission at this time. Rakuten and other sites also carry this publication. Do you have any go-to books that you reference when teaching? Please login and share your ideas!
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to the Kodokan to watch the East Japan Businessmen’s Team Tournament (第53回東日本実業柔道団体対抗大会). This tournament featured the top club teams in the eastern part of Japan and several olympians, world team members and national team members competed. This is one of the most competitive leagues in Japan, if not the world. Though many of the current national team members took a rest after the olympics, Naohisa Takato, Masashi Ebinuma, Misato Nakamura and Ami Kondo were in attendance to cheer on their company teams.