radzfman wrote:Why not.
Sensei Lafon, Sensei Scott and the WJF offer an alternative to the IJF as does the FIAS Sambo guys ( who are in cohootz with the IJF).
Everyone who has formed some judo federation or is part of some judo federation that is not part of the IJF offers an alternative to the IJF. I don't think that that is the issue. Alternatives to the IJF have existed since the IJF was created and competing federations in several countries were engaging in all kinds of intrigues and making each other's life sour in order to become the IJF member federation to the exclusion of the other. Therefore, at issue is not to offer an alternative, any alternative to the IJF (like dozens of organisation do ... the World Judo Federation, the International Budo Federation, etc.) but the value, quality, rationale and actual relation to the core of Kôdôkan jûdô of that 'alternative'. Personal names of individuals involved are redundant as this thread is not about people, hopefully.
radzfman wrote:Why not.
The only problem is that Freestyle Judo Alliance doesn't have the cache' of the Olympics which the IJF has.
It's not because you write a sentence that starts with the sequence "The only problem is" that that truly is the only problem. I think there is a myriad of problems, some smaller, some bigger like several of the posters already suggested. I doubt that most people in judo start with an IJF member federation because there are some Olympic athletes hopefully country members in it. When I started jûdô I certainly did not walk up to the sensei to ask him if they were part of the same international federation as Anton Geesink of Okano Isao or some other super athlete. I knew nothing about the history of judo federations in my country and would not be interested in that for a long time to go. Moreover, in those days the names of Olympic athlete 'stuck' a lot more because. Today many of the most senior sensei if you would ask them would have never heard of most of the Olympic athlete as they come and go, many names are almost unpronouncable or unfamiliar (cfr. from the many former Soviet countries, the whole cache of Georgia, Kirghiz and other such countries). Before (40 - 50 years ago) there was one or two such athletes in a category. Today they are everywhere. Culture has completely changed. I know of many former Olympic and world elite jûdô athletes who neither watch or attend jûdô anymore because it is so boring and unrelated to what they knew as jûdô. It did not use to be like that. Those who attended top jûdô contests when jûdô was still jûdô, like the memorable Paris 1979 or Maastricht 1981 contests will know that virtually every serious judo champion of the past was there. Everyone today35 years later still knows and remembers the names of those champions: Yamashita, Adams, Kashiwazaki they are milestones. Apart from some youngsters, some active elite competitors, some active elite coaches, and people of the same nation, who still knows the names of half of the 2004 or 2008 Olympians ? Here and there someone who has stuck out the last 15 years, sure, like Inoue, but the rest ? Water under the bridge.
In other words, I doubt that really the membership of sole current or former Olympian makes much of a difference. People visiting Japan still visit the Kôdôkan, some even pay loads of money to travel to Japan just to go attend an international summer course; no Olympians teach at the course, and the Kôdôkan is not really known for its relationship to Olympians, in fact it has rarely produced a decent competitive jûdôka.
Instead there are many other factors that play a role, such as the perception that the best teachers and best educated teachers and best informed teachers are part of the IJF system or the Kôdôkan, the perception that they are much better organized, the perception as there may be ulterior motives as to why people are part of different federations or organization, the perception of an overall bad reputation with regard to ranks and other forms of self-promotion in which many non-IJF seem to have engaged to a much higher degree than IJF federations or the Kôdôkan as suggested by the many 8th, 9th, 10th dan-holders, and shihan, sôkê, dai-shihan, hanshi and other ranks and titles claimed by many people in non-IJF federations in a context that is often not in line with their reputation and achievements they may have attained while they still were part of an IJF federation of the Kôdôkan. Before attacking me, note that I did not write that all these impressions are actually factually true; I only wrote about how it is 'perceived' by many, irrespective of whether it is factually true or not. Don't overestimate people; more often than not they do not know how things really are, but that does not prevent them from having an opinion, hence why 'perception' is of critical importance.
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