by Cichorei Kano Thu Aug 22, 2013 11:29 pm
afulldeck wrote:This is really sad for a 15 year old participating in an adult category. No 15 year old should participate with an adult ever. The strength differential is just too great and in this case has life implications. As you can see the result was instant. Will he be a quadriplegic for the rest of his life?
http://www.mmamania.com/2013/8/21/4646258/video-15-year-old-brazilian-jiu-jitsu-competitor-suffers-broken-neck
Thanks for pointing out this tragedy. It's an educational video in particular for coaches and referees.
However, I think that your second sentence is premature and somewhat emotional. You cannot come to that conclusion simply on this video or other anecdotal evidence. Rather than age difference it is a matter of being ready or not. You will see that a large proportion of successful martial artists were somewhat precocious. I was never part of a children's division when I took up jûdô and started directly with the adults. That is to say, it is true that in my second club they tried to put me into a children's division, which was a big mistake and quickly halved the group if I recall.
How do you think one could get a jûdô black belt (or similar qualification in another martial art) at age 16 in a serious federation where you actually have to win 10 shiai points rather than some places where a local sensei can make members a black belt by simply filling in a form. I was 1.78m (5'10") when I was 12 years old, and I read that David Douillet was 1.80m (5'11") when he was 11 years old. Whilst I don't have any statistics to prove it, I certainly know that most of my fellow countrymen who became international elite judoka were fighting in the seniors division while they were juniors. There's a reason they became international elite fighters. In fact, one could argue that they were as dangerous for other people of the same age, as adults might be for children. One sees huge differences in motor skills, physical development of people who are of similar age but in different stages of puberty. It is not the age, but the difference in skills and experience that matter.
I refereed a certain youth tournment somewhere between 1989-1991 where 34 people were transported by ambulance to hospital due do elbow and shoulder dislocations and other injuries. There was a girl there who later would become famous and who would become a two-time women's world champion, a 7-fold European champion and two-time Olympic medal winner, who logically was already a black belt then; there was another girl who was already a black belt too. I can't go as far as saying that the two were responsible for half of the injuries, but you get the idea. It was enough that they threw their opponent with something like uchi-mata and their opponent would be done not being used to that kind of explosive force and speed. T
My view on this is that it isn't judo which is dangerous, but that it is a simple responsibility of the coach. A coach should not be sending youngsters to competition if they are not ready for it, and the American way of sending white belts to competition or starting to talk competition from the moment people take up judo is not my way. I was educated in a relatively traditional judo environment where judo competition was only for the very best or for those who would go on to become black belts. The majority never did competition and never became blackbelts. Sure, many more become black belts today and many more participate in competition, but skill level has become down and many black belts in jûdô today are barely the level of a blue belt at the time Because many more participate in competition, overall competitive level is far down too. At the time if you were 15 year old, the only way you could become a black belt was by defeating a line up of adults, which is what I did. Today though, more than half of those will be youngsters too so you can become a black belt by having to fight only people your age.
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