New document of Judo injuries in children

Please find the link below

http://www.judospace.com/upload/1206_NPO_Judo_injuries_in_children_Dr_Callan.pdf

This is cool. Anti-bullying policy, and getting back to the roots with all the moral education during training is a very good idea. I feel okay with people who concern judo to be a sport, and want to train in a less traditional setting. It doesn't actually mean they can't or don't teach proper moral standards. Good sportsmanship and mutual respect are things which should be the core of any sports training. Unfortunately Jigoro Kano was right, that paraprofessional sports can mislead people from that path. Thus we can see disrespecting gestures and behaviour form players, which can lead even to very bad injuries. If you don't care about the opponent, then it comes much easier for you to hurt him/her. Such a mindset is very common in many sports, unfortunately.

I'm consider myself to be somewhat between the two mindsets. I like the traditional style: rei-ho, dojo layout and giving instructions in Japanese was always attractive to me. On the other hand I thinks that incorporation of new trainng-methods can be good. There's lots of scientific knowledge, which Kano didn't have access to. Physiology, pedagogy, psychology have moved forward. Considering Kano's scientific approach he would probably want judo to develop. And that's the point. Judo should use science to get the best results for players and also making it as safe as possible, especailly for children.

finarashi wrote:Please find the link below

http://www.judospace.com/upload/1206_NPO_Judo_injuries_in_children_Dr_Callan.pdf

There are several other critical neurosurgical emergencies, such as epidural hematoma, that are relevant. No clear link between those medical affections and the behavior of bullying itself is established. Observing two things does not necessarily imply cause/effect.

One of my concerns is the cliché of Japan being a country of bullying whereas the solution supposedly would be to apply the BJA model ?  This is speculative without any connection or underpinning research whatsoever.

Does Japanese jûdô excessively suffer from bullying in children ?  I have never seen in. When I trained in Japan more than two decades ago that was among the police which was considered a tough place. We were obviously not children but adults. I have never seen abuse. There was rigor, yes, but abuse ?  Sure the sensei sometimes had a stick or kicked someone, but ... this was never with the intent to hurt or humiliate, and everything was a priory accepted by by both sensei and students. No one ever tried to kick me, hurt me, or did any dirty jûdô to me. Honestly, the jûdô in Japan was a lot more honest and fair than what I experienced in the West. I have far more had to deal with ego's on the tatami in the West, unfriendliness, or people deliberately trying to heard others. When I was in grade school in the West, and pupils in class were talking or monkeying around and sometimes were punished. This could be physical from going stand in a corner, and sometimes we were slapped in the face, but was this abuse. We were not torture, nothing was don't with the intent to cause maximal or enduring physical damage, and the teacher didn't do it because he was a sadist or was just looking for an opportunity to do so. We sometimes behaved badly and we were corrected. The lesson was simple: you tried to avoid behaving badly. I think I received one of those slaps only once when I was 10 or 11, so I learnt what the rules were, that is: pay attention in class, be respectful, not talk unless asked to talk, and behave. And yes, this was in the West, modern Western democratic country, and the education we received was excellent. I would immediately submit my own children to the same education and rules as I had then.

In my own perception the bullying as it has been presented in Japan has been 'much' (not everything) a cliché. Clearly I am not ridiculizing or questioning in the least the unpleasant experiences by the women in the Olympic team as amply dealt with in the press last year, nor of the case involving a past Olympic champion, but again nothing of that amounts to what I have personally observed in the West. So, to clarify, I am challenging the image of Japan being this country of general spread jûdô physical abuse against the West being the country of reason and gentle caring concern. The number of Japanese coaches who ended up marrying their female student, or the number of Japanese teams were the real condition to get in the team was to sleep with the coach, are nothing compared to such situations in the West in the past. International jûdô camps in the West in the past were plain bordellos.

Neither have I ever in Japan experienced the level of vocal abuse that we underwent in the West during elite work-outs. We were called completely incompetent and useless, we would never get anywhere and our jûdô sucked more than anything else. That's what were told in the West, never in Japan. When we had to slow down or simply give up because we couldn't make the alternating series of 200 push-ups, 200 sit-ups, 200 jumps, and again and again, we were told we would better go home because we didn't belong on a jûdô tatami. We were told this ... in the West, never in Japan.

I have seen and experienced being deliberately thrown off the tatami ... in the West, never in Japan, though also in Korea. I have experienced the opponent during training refusing to release armbars when we tapped out and intentionally trying to permanently injury us ... in Korea, and to some lesser degree in the West, never in Japan.

There is another crucial, very crucial issue here, namely that to all of the harsh jûdô treatment in the West (with the exception to continuing armbars when tapping out, being deliberately thrown off the tatami, or discrimination) I consented. No one forced me to stay and sit out the verbal abuse. I could have gone home and left if I wanted, and I could have shouted back abuses if I wanted. I did not. That was my consent, accepting this as a hard mental training that no doubt contributed to getting where I wanted in terms of jûdô. There is no doubt that in terms of competition and perseverance I got much further under that regime than under the much friendlier regime in my own club. when I went to Japan I was ready for it in terms of stamina and perseverance, and I don't mean ready for an international teaching jûdô dôjô such as the Kôdôkan, but for a much more rigorous environment which the police academy was.

To present a picture in which Japan is the great demon of abuse with the West as a good and caring house father stretching out its hand ready to put the Japanese back on the track of good morals is nothing more nothing less but intellectual dishonesty. That's not proof, that's just my experience, but proof of the contrary is not offered. There are statistical data, but ... those data offer an absolute number of accidents over X number of years. The number is higher than in your typical Western country for the simple reason that the sample is much larger. It's obvious that when you have a children's judo population of 300,000 that you are going to have many more jûdô accidents than when that population is only 10,000. The question to ask is if the proportional incidence of injuries and bullying in children is higher in Japan than elswhere ?   No valid measure that makes such data comparable is offered. Even if proportionally there are more injuries/bullying in children in Japan than in the West, it still does not mean they occur more, for the simple reason that the frequency of training and thus the exposure is far higher in Japan. Therefore, also the exposure to jûdô needs to be standardized and the incidence needs to evaluated per 1,000 hours of exposure of jûdô and presented as percentages. Only then you get data you could actually compare.

There exist Japanese help groups and documentation centers on these issues, but none of that information is mentioned either.

There is a danger that to simply present the coaching structure in Britain as an alternative might be perceived as commercial marketing that has not any cause/effect relationship to what is at issue, and no evidence whatsoever is provided. The British situation is also presented in a completely a-critical way: it's perfect beyond any doubt whatsoever. Says who ?  Where is the external audit or third-party evaluation that underpins that view ?  On what basis is the British situation presented as an or the alternative ?  Why not the French or German coaching education ?  The German coaching structure is pretty solid and Germany has a long tradition in children's jûdô pedagogy far more extensive than the British. Besides, as with so many judo organizations there are ample examples where jûdô federation politics have entered the equation including in child protection issues to settle personal scores. Without presenting the limitations, delimitations and an honest self-critique of one's own organization and program, all you get is a marketing tool under the veil of science.

Some references might be helpful. There are three now, but maybe on slide #8 simply putting "University of Washington Medicine" (when, what publication, what volume, what issue, what year, what URL) might not immediately help the interested reader forward. Robert Cantu is a very knowledgeable physician but on slide #5, but 20 years is perhaps somewhat old for a status on an area such as neurosurgery that has evolved enormously within that period. It's also somewhat general with football receiving a prominent role, whereas jûdô isn't really in there; the only reference to martial arts therein goes back to work of my Scottish colleague Greg McLatchie that is even much older (1980, that almost 35 years ago) and who was really a karateka, not a jûdôka, meaning that the majority of his work dealt with the results of kicks and striking, and not your typical jûdô movements.

So, I am somewhat less overwhelmed by enthusiasm.

I would like to refer people to some other relevant alternatives:

- Kamitani T, Nimura Y, Nagahiro S, Miyazaki S, Tomatsu T. Catastrophic head and neck injuries in judo players in Japan from 2003 to 2010. Am J Sports Med. 2013;41, 8:1915-21. doi: 10.1177/0363546513490662. (see: http://ajs.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/06/13/0363546513490662.abstract)

- Nagahiro S (永廣信治), Mizobuchi Y (溝渕佳史), Hondō H (本藤秀樹), et al. Jūdō ni okeru jōshō tōbu gaishō (柔道における重症頭部外傷) [Severehead injury during judo practice]. Nō Shinkei Geka (脳神経外科) [Neurological Surgery] 2011; 39, 12: 1139-47.

The All Japan Jûdô Federation is not as stupid and incompetent as it is being made to look. In fact just like the British or some other jûdô organizations they too have since many years created initiatives and for example created a brochure on children's safety in jûdô:

http://www.judo.or.jp/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/print-shidou1.pdf

There's a USJA leaflet with some practical pointers for jûdô coaches prepared by a forum member here:

http://www.usja-judo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Concussion-2012.06ML-JL.pdf

But, perhaps most relevant, is the website of the Japanese Judo Accident Victim Association:

http://judojiko.net/eng/news/55.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVR3bu7iyKM

Head injuries ask the owl, he knows!!