2011 kicked off with a training camp at Wollongong from the 14-16 January, 2011. The venue was the International Judo Centre in Wollongong. There were a number of past and present Australian and State coaches on hand to share their knowledge. There were also numerous past and present National Champions and Olympians on the mat fighting it out.
Friday night was solely randori and the mat was chockers!!! Saturday morning consisted of a technical session for the juniors followed by one for the seniors. In the Junior session I was asked to run a class on one of my favourite techniques yoko-tomoe-nage. I must say I thought it would be too difficult for the kids, but most surpirsed me, picking it up quite well. Its amazing how much you pick up yourself when you teach...just going back to basics reminds you of where you may be going wrong yourself!
With my old State coach Dale - An inspiration to me for a long time
The Saturday afternoon consisted of 3 hours of randori. A bit more techinical Sunday morning finished off with more randori. The biggest problem (and some might say a good problem to have!) was with over 150 enthusiastic players on the mat, space was at a premium!
From a personal point of view, it was great to get some good randori in to start off the year. Although we were definately lacking in women on the mat, the lightweight men are always awesome to train with.
One thing that did strike me was with the number of quality competitors on the mat, it was great to see them mixing it up with the younger kids who at times seemed a little intimidated by it all.
Since then its been back to Club training and its been hard...the heat is a killer and the sessions are tough...we are averaging over 40 on the mat which is just awesome! Many will compete at the ACT Open in a few weeks, including myself. Its a chance to see how Im moving in a competition environment with the bigger picture being a number of International Events later this year.
2011 will be the biggest of my career...its make or break for any of us with hopes of making the 2012 London Olympics...the 2010 rankings have just come out and I snuck into 12th place...meaning that I would automatically qualify for the team....so this year is about leaving no regrets, staying injury free, continual improvement and improving of my past 12 month results. if I can do that...then maybe my dream will come true.
For those interested you can check out the rankings of who would make the 2012 Olymics as of January 2011. Go to the IJF website and follow the links to"example of Olympic Game Qualification" .....but remember, there is a lot of water udner the bridge between now and April 30, 2012 (the cutoff date) ....no one can rest of a past performance....your only as good as your next!!!
