Adapted Judo

Here is a video of a BJJ black belt from my general area (north Idaho), he is in Montana, Missoula area.

I've rolled with him, I in no way view him as disabled then. He has adopted his "game" to his physical reality very well.

Coming late to the discussion - but, last weekend I was at a Swedish coaching seminar on para-judo. We worked for 2 days with people with varying kinds of disabilities ranging from blindness, Cerebral Pares, wheel-chair, mental disabilities et cetera.

I've read through the thread and am wondering about initiatives in other parts of the world ? Here we have the Special Needs / Judo4All.

Basically, it's kind of totally different - it focuses on what the practitioner is able to do - and they do compete but always with a very "judo" approach - focusing not on winning but on giving the judoka as good an experience as possible. This leads to the practice of first having randori with each other and all the coaches in the competition - and then grouping the judokas on ability. So yes, it requires judokas and coaches to be honest about their abilities - you could easily cheat your way to winning a group by underperforming. ... But then, ... you have lost as a judoka even though you get a nice shiny medal.

Stacey - sorry about your loss - I've followed (lurking) on your posts for many years and enjoyed/learned from what you have written.

As an engineer, I'm intrigued though - It's a challenge - if we can come up with a running blade that is better than a foot (and really light) it should be possible to come up with something that protects your socket from torque (Ouch!) and direct impact (double ouch....) while enabling you to stand on a mat and not injuring your uke (or tori) (or tatami...) - oh... and a leg, is not that soft to be hit by ...

Why don't you simply contact one of the companies making runners feet for amputees and challenge them ? (And otherwise, I think you are on a totally right path, doing BJJ - I had a hell of a problem with the guy sitting in a wheelchair when doing ne-waza with him ....(without the wheelchair of course))

On another note, it was really fun teaching a girl (well, woman) to throw me - she was somewhat mentally disabled and had kneebraces so bending at the legs into a o-goshi was difficult to teach her. But ... it was really really rewarding to get a big smile first time she threw me hard - and also getting her to trust that I would throw her, but not hurt (basically holding all the weight at the end of the throw).