IJF 8th International Research Symposium - Rio de Janeiro, 27th August 2013

International Judo Research Symposium takes place in Rio


The eighth International Judo Research Symposium took place on Sunday as a collaboration between the International Association of Judo Researchers (IAJR) and the International Judo Federation.

On  personal note I would like to add that participation was limited this time, and this for obvious reasons, i.e. the elevated costs. There was a participation fee of not less than £290 for IAJR (International Association of Judo Researchers)  members and even £390 for non-IAJR members. This is about $450 (IAJR members) or $606 (non-IAJR-members). This is an unrealistically high fee, especially for students, and even for many professional people if they have to pay this out of their own pocket. For the 2011 Symposium in Paris these fees were still €80 and €120, respectively, so in two years they have basically trippled ! I do not know why these fees were so astronomically high, but the logical suggestion is that in addition to some expense such as hire of a room, they likely paid for free air transport tickets of some people (the officials). At such fees, the only people who can still attend are those who work for an institution that is willing to pay for their expensees, judo officials who use the federation as a travel agency to pay for them so that federation presidents who don't know a thing about research are present but researchers themselves can't afford it, and the happy few who are loaded with money in these difficult times.

Add to that, that Brazil is relatively remote from many countries (those in Europe, Asia, also S-Africa, those in N-America, and Oceania) and thus a relatively pricey destination in terms of plane tickets, and relatively expensive hotels since Rio is a jet set destination. So, consider attending just the symposium and being there somewhere in the range of $2,500-$3,000 without any tickets for a 1 or 2 days of World Judo championships included. With world championships now held every year, expenses also more frequently follow each other up. Not good, not good at all ...

Participation
17 academic papers from 40 different researchers were selected for participation in the symposium spanning three continents of the world.  Authors included world champions Yasuhiko Moriwaki and Florin Daniel Lascau, and Olympic champion Maki Tsukada. IJF Hall of Fame inductee and 10 th Dan Dr. George Kerr was among the 50 observers.

The organising group was led by the IAJR Executive members Dr. Mike Callan, Professor Michel Brousse, Professor Takeshi Nakajima, Mr. Florin Daniel Lascau and supported by Mr. Michel Huet and Miss. Janine Johnson.

Contents
Following an opening address from IJF Education Director Mr. Mohammed Meridja the first presenter was Professor Wantuir Jacini from the Priorit Institute in Brazil. Professor Jacini’s work looked at the “Effect of judo training in social maturity in autistic patients”. The paper demonstrated the benefits of judo practice over a six month period for patients with autism, in particular improvement in their socialisation and communication skills. This important study can have far reaching implications for the value of judo training as a tool to improve social skills or to benefit the lives of people with disabilities.

The second presentation from Dr. Hans-Dieter Heinisch (Institute for Applied Training Science, Leipzig, Germany) focused on “Development and evaluation of a specific judo grip-strength-test”. This offered a new approach to measuring grip strength performance in a much more judo-specific way. Utilising athletes from the German national team Dr. Heinisch and his colleagues were able to compare both junior and senior grip strength and also compare the sleeve (hikite) and lapel (tsurite) grips. This work is important to help coaches understand the levels of grip strength required for international players.

The third presentation “About judo therapy” was made by Professor Nobuyoshi Kume (Tokyo Ariake University of Medical and Health Sciences) and Dr Hideki Kanai (Japan Judo Therapist Association). Their work demonstrated the use of judo therapy as a medical technique for judo injuries including some graphic video of judo therapy in action. The Japan Judo Therapist Association is keen to disseminate information about their work and collaborate with other nations to further improve medial support for judo players.

Following the presentation audience members were treated to a practical demonstration of the effectiveness of judo therapy in treating injuries.

Participants had an opportunity to view a selection of other academic posters and network with each other. Posters were presented by some of the leading judo research universities around the world covering topics spanning performance analysis, physiology, coaching, ukemi, anthropometry and the Olympic qualification process.

Awards
Awards were presented to the best posters in the symposium.

First Place. “Association of the ACTN3 and ACE Polymorphisms in Japanese judo athletes”.

Kenichiro Agemizu (School of Physical Education, Tokai University, Japan)
Shoshin Hirokawa (Graduate School of Physical Education, Tokai University)
Toshio Itaka (Graduate School of Physical Education, Tokai University)
Seiji Aruga (Sport Medical Science Research Institute, Tokai University)
Shuichi Machida (Graduate School of Health and Sports Science, Juntendo University)

Second Place. “Image survey on ukemi in judo”.

Hidemasa Tokuyasu (Tokyo Ariake University of Medical and Health Sciences, Japan)
Noboru Hashimoto (Tokyo Ariake University of Medical and Health Sciences)
Ryuji Okada (Kinki University, Tokyo)
Yasuhiko Moriwaki (Kokushikan University, Tokyo)
Takeshi Nakajima (Kokushikan University, Tokyo)

Third Place “A temporal analysis of the women’s u52kg in the 2010 world judo championships”.

Bob Challis (Anglia Ruskin University, Judo Research Group, Great Britain)
Third Place. “The effect of the strength training for collegiate womens judoka”.
Shoko Yanagida (Ritsumeikan University, Japan)
Kana Koyama      (Lighthouse Athletics Co.Ltd)
Shun Kasuga (Ritsumeikan University, Center for Athletics and Sports Services)

A special certificate of appreciation was awarded to Professor Takeshi Nakajima (Kokushikan University) for his significant contribution to the development of judo research throughout the world.

Awards were presented by IJF General Secretary Jean-Luc Rouge. Mr. Rouge made an inspiring speech to close the Symposium.

Closing remarks
The research symposium has an important role to build relationships between National Federations and research universities for the benefit of judo. It also illustrates the breadth of judo as an education, a contributor to society and in delivering elite performance.

The organisers thanked IJF President Mr. Marius Vizer for his support of this Symposium, and judo research activities around the world.

An international symposium on judo research and no mention of a representative from the Kodokan ?
Surely one was there. CK Sensei , I know from your writings that you are ambivalent ,at best, in your attitude toward the Kodokan but if in fact there was no rep from Kodokan present how can that be explained.

Udon wrote:An international symposium on judo research and no mention of a representative from the Kodokan ?
Surely one was there. CK Sensei , I know from your writings that you are ambivalent ,at best, in your attitude toward the Kodokan but if in fact there was no rep from Kodokan present how can that be explained.

I am not sure if I can follow your logic. The Kôdôkan is neither a university, nor a research institution, so there is no mandatory research output. Sometimes people who are known as Kôdôkan instructors are among the authors of a scientific paper, but mostly that is from the days they were still participating as a student or otherwise hold or held a position as jûdô sports instructor or adjunct faculty or were involved in the mere sports-practical aspect of the test subjects, and in very rare cases they might have been even proper faculty at a university. Komata Kôji is such a case. He is a Kôdôkan instructor, 8th dan, but on the faculty of Tsukuba University, and it is really in that role that he has featured in a couple of papers rather than as Kôdôkan instructor. People who are solely employed at the Kôdôkan do not seem to have sufficient independence and academic freedom to engage in much independent and true research. On occasions they co-author or edit books and sometimes a paper, but these are generally more noncritical "opinion-pieces" rather than critical and original investigations. You can't really do research if there is an implied a priori condition that you can never say that what some senior rank said or did was completely wrong, and when you can't challenge or criticize the Kôdôkan itself or any person or event or decision associated with it, ever. In fact, submitting to such totalitarian restriction is anathema to the meaning of 'research'. Well, that is to say, you could theoretically engage on some project that has little or nothing to do with the Kôdôkan, but since most 'research' that comes out of the Kôdôkan has propagandist objectives, there is very little sense for them to write on topics that are just related to jûdô but not to the Kôdôkan. Therefore, when something comes out of the Kôdôkan it is usually limited to socio-historic propagandist opinion pieces generally self-published as oftentimes it would never be able to pass the peer-review process. That's why they generally only publish in things such as the Bulletin of Scientific Studies of the Kôdôkan, since they are then their editor and publisher of work of their own personnel and authors, and they selectively avoid publishing anything that does not glorify the Kôdôkan. I remember years ago sitting down with 'someone' there who has a leading role in editing that volume and discussing the submission of a paper on a kata. It was not even meant at all to be critical but would also show some errors in past Kôdôkan statements, nothing nasty, nothing violent, nothing hypersensitive. It could not be published because they were afraid that there might be some old generation people at the Kôdôkan who might not be ready for it. I've also been sent drafts of papers by senior Japanese who are even close to the Kôdôkan, and whose papers were never published because in their objectivity the researchers showed an aspect that did not fit within their propaganda. So, this was not even me, but well-respected senior Japanese people with a lot of knowledge on judo. If you go to a scientific data-base like Pubmed or SportsDiscuss and type in 'judo' as a search term, you'll have to spend quite some time on there before you' find a paper originating in the Kôdôkan. There was no Kôdôkan-paper during the 2009 Symposium in Rotterdam either. I am not sure about the 2011 one in Paris since I was not there and so far I have not seen the Proceedings published on any Internet site. In other words, Kôdôkan typically only participates in things where they can be at the same time participant, judge and jury so that they can escape any scrutiny or being evaluated. Even if they are part of an external committee they usually have been grandfathered in so to escape the process of being evaluated.

For these reasons I think what you expressed is more ideologic than factual. Idelologically, yes, it would make sense for the Kôdôkan to actively participate in these things, but factually, no.

Thank you for your reply. Informative, as always.

CK,
of the 17 papers presented, were any nominations submitted from the U.S.? Also, were there any additional nominations (beyond the 17 presented) that were rejected for presentation to this forum for any reason or another - ie limmited time, space, or content not germaine to judo etc?

Is there a link to the papers presented?

I do find the elevated pricing puzzling.

NBK wrote:Is there a link to the papers presented?

Not yet.


I do find the elevated pricing puzzling.

It's basic academic logic,or better, "polici logic". "We will make everything more expensive so that the few that benefit from getting free plane tickets and hotel costs paid for, still can do so". Think about it, who gets professional pay rates in judo ?  Not many people, not many people involved in anything with those presentations. One needs to be commercially involved and a few individuals are. That being said, there will be overhead involved: hire of a room, people to set up the boards for posters, providing, tables, chairs, projector and projection screens, personnel to operate those. But costs of that probably are nothing compared to that of plane tickets. How much would they pay someone for operating a slide projector. $15/hour ?  But an intercontinental plane ticket to Rio during high season ?  And lodging ?  IJF officials like behaving as they are jet set, staying only in 4 and 5-star hotels. Besides the official hotel for IJF meetings usually belongs to that category. I am not going to exaggerate either. I am not saying that they just look for the most expensive hotel, nor that they only want to stay in a suite, no, not at all, but you are immediately looking at hotels in the range $200-$450 per night, certainly high season. Besides, many of these hotels artificially pull up room rates when they know there's a big event going on. You should check it when making reservations and try making a reservation a month later and a couple of weeks earlier and you'll see rates are often much lower. Some cities are notorious for doing that. London is one of them. London is notorious for changing room rates every day depending on what they can anticipate is going on in town. Boston hotels often do that too, and Japan of course, very notorious. Check room rates at the Tôkyô Dome Hotel, even months ahead. As soon as they know there's a baseball game planned, up the room rates go. Or, Kyôto during Jidai Matsuri, and this has nothing to do with number of available rooms. So it isn't that they just charge a lot for the last few rooms available. No, rates go up for all rooms as soon as they know, and since Jidai Matsuri is one the same date every year, well they know this from the start.

I guess if and when the presentations are posted they should be posted here:
2013 Rio de Janeiro
http://judoresearch.org/rio-de-janeiro-2013/
Looks like some information that attendees might wanna look into for possible reimbursement?

What is the cost for IAJR membership?

Were any nominations submitted from the U.S.?
Also, were there any additional nominations (beyond the 17 presented) that were rejected for presentation to this forum for any reason or another - ie limmited time, space, or content not germaine to judo etc?

FightingSpirit wrote:I guess if and when the presentations are posted they should be posted here:
2013 Rio de Janeiro
http://judoresearch.org/rio-de-janeiro-2013/
Looks like some information that attendees might wanna look into for possible reimbursement?

What is the cost for IAJR membership?

Were any nominations submitted from the U.S.?
Also, were there any additional nominations (beyond the 17 presented) that were rejected for presentation to this forum for any reason or another - ie limmited time, space, or content not germaine to judo etc?

With the exception of David Matsumoto and Rodney Imamura there currently is no serious research into judo going on in the US, and as far as I know, David Matsumoto has his hands full with more lucrative research. Do not forget that really nobody in the real world is interested in judo or judo research, you cant get any funding for it, and you have a hell of a time trying to sell judo research as serious research to peers and senior academic administration when you're up for faculty evaluation or tenure.