The way this hit my algorithm… I’ve been off the mat for 7 or so years. Tonight was my first night back and man, did I miss it! Looking forward to continuing training and getting my son on the mat when he’s of age!

Thanks guys for this podcast, i had not been in over a year since I last went to a judo class...watched this Wednesday randomly, went back to A different new judo club tonight on a Friday night which I would normally never consider!. Class was good wasn't structured the same as old club but I got through 90 mins of a mix of technique and randori alternating, sensei's were cool and patient, all good. Don't put it off just go if you are thinking about it you will be glad you did . Oss 👍

I feel personally targeted after missing a week of Judo 😂

I just wanted to say thank you Shintaro and of course Peter. You two play so well of each other and it makes for great entertainment. I only started Judo 2 months ago. I’ve binge listened to all your podcasts even the ones that don’t apply whatsoever to me like “dating in the dojo” (all dudes in my gym) and “Managing Judo Parents” (don’t have kids) keep up the great work. I love what you both do for the sport!

These podcasts are now in my weekly schedule, it's fun to listen to at the end of the day, or have a cup of coffee in the morning with it. Or have a walk with it, whatever you want. There's always something worth thinking about in these. Bear with me, it's gonna be another one of those long ass train fo thought comments. I think there's one thing that's crucial to returning to tatami: practicing at home. And same applies to if you're missing sessions! 30 minutes of steps, sweeps, tandoku renshu. It's not much but keeps you sharp. Or brings back the motorics faster than just relying on returning to the mat and trying to get the time from the instructor you can. Most likely you have practiced enough that it's somewhere in your backbone and will come back, or the positions feel better with some of that home practice even if it doesn't come back flawless. I swear so many hobbyist or more casual level judo practicioners completely ignore that part, that you can actually practice at home fairly effectively. And I'm guilty of that too, my instructor had some business last week and I was mad at myself because I didn't go to the tatami to practice by myself on that day. Nothing stopped me, the tatami is reserved for our club at that time anyway. Well, at least I went lifting, but I could've done some tandoku renshu at home anyway. Now I've been sick since the start of the weekend and my instructor has foot pain from running so I'm getting quite frustrated for not being able to practice. And I feel kinda responsible to attend as well, it's a pride thing. I asked for summer training because that's when I have most time and resources during the year, and my instructor said sure, he could be having a summer vacation all to himself (since we're students). And I'm part of the board of the club, I want to make it more popular and offer more by the club. So the first thing I can do is being present and showing example, showing that there's stability to this hobby. I don't know what the point of the story is, maybe that if you choose it, you should keep yourself accountable to it, because you could've also not chosen it. We actually have a really odd situation at the uni club. Half the people are exchange students and all the ones that don't drop out are exchange students, and PhD students at that. When I started there, almost everyone was domestic on one of their first years, a couple of exchange students at best. I don't know if school has got a lot more intense in ten years. I had the same lesson about "it's just better to come back and not think about it" when I had my 10 year break. Like what was your fitness when you first started? Not much likely. After 10 year break it was like starting from zero because I didn't get far to begin with. I had lifted for a while but also gained plenty of weight for muscle. Didn't help. Most of it is just about doing judo, you can't dodge that bullet by doing something else. Some months and it started feeling pretty good. And now I'm in good enough shape where I can also lift a bit with judo and not quite directly improve my judo like that, but create more capacity for judo. It was a tall mountain to be able to lift at all with judo, judo does take adaptation time. But lifting can't come first or there's nothing left for judo, you need to add on top of judo to benefit judo, otherwise lifting is your main thing and judo suffers from it. Cool to hear about business branding size. You'd think something like branded clothes were easy extra budget, but Shintaro makes a great point (that I should've known) about stock, marketing/freebies, returns. Btw does Shintaro have endorsed athletes? I've seen Raskol Apparel get pretty popular with lifters and they're finding athletes that are happy to wear. Maybe it'd be possible for reasonable price for Shintaro as well (although don't ask me who would be the visible athletes on media). And damn the talk about personal economy hits right home. I'm still a yellow belt because I haven't had the money to pay the federation license and have a graduation, might have a couple ahead of me to be fair (like if I had the money for license and went to compete, I'd feel a bit bad for the "lower" group). And it was the biggest thing for a while holding me back from starting again, simply didn't have the amount of money judo required.

Thanks. This is awesome .

Coaching a university club I lose all of my students from the second week of may through the third week of August as they all head home for summer break. I encourage them to find a club near home to work out at during the summer OR go to a BJJ club or something. Just stay physically active!

10 year break here....

Ni dan with 20yr break, but back on the mat! When first going back, my biggest fight were against involuntary spews after 2min randori 😅 It took what felt like more than a month to regain any sense of stamina

I think some of the biggest reasons why people leave, in my opinion, is class structure, attitude of the sensei’s/coaches and class availability. It would be nice if instead of 2 hours of judo/day for two days a week, all of that class time could be spread throughout the day for 3-4 days/week. A session in the morning, afternoon and evening, where each class would be 1-1:15 hours long. That way a certain class could be devoted to technique/drills and another class would be Randori, or just something similar around those lines. Just having 2 hours in a row in the evening is personally a lot (It’s worse too if, during those 2 hours, you have a sensei who takes Randori way too seriously and yells at you because you’re not doing something right), and trying to retain all that information becomes damn near impossible. This is one of the reasons why BJJ is great, because it’s offered throughout the day. However, I also understand too that sensei’s have their own lives, and making time for that much instruction can be a lot.

In my opinion, if you leave and you are not a black belt, you should come back as a white belt with a stripe of the color of the rank you used to have, after a long hiatus. Because you may have retain some of the knowledge but your muscle memory is gone. What do you think? 🤔

30 year hiatus. So much fun but worst thing for my knees. 😂

Two weeks ago I've fractured my right forearm. It will take moths to come back to tatami...

6 week break - how did KZfaq know??

Sensei this isn’t unique to Judo,, all Martial Arts suffer from floating members or people that can’t fit a Martial Art into their life. problem is martial arts require a huge amount of dedication to be decent at it. Judo is tough if you aren’t practicing it regularly. I started the Martial Arts in 1979 and never I left it. People leave and find things to occupy their time. Martial arts are also very hard to do. I had the flu for two weeks and that was harder to go back to Judo because of how physical it is, and I hadn’t been feeling 100 %, Judo is tough. It’s also not easy to jump into after a 5-year layoff in some cases. Also, people get into martial arts and don’t keep it up because of the commitment….people just don’t want to do it sometimes. One huge thing is we are struggling and competing for people’s time. Being plugged in, streaming video, Netflix, and most of all smart phones have ruined a lot of things. Thank you for the Podcast.