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Chronological table of content

Only a few articles are written or translated in English.  Each article gets a short introduction followed by a link to a PDF file with the full text.  Just scroll down.

 

The psychological preparation of top judo players : examples of good practice (?)
Raf Tits - July 2011

December 2010 I got in contact with Milos Stefanovsky, a Phd in physical education and sport at the Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovak Republic).  Mr. Stefanovsky is a judo teacher for future judo coaches at the Comenius University and a coach at the judo club Slavia STU Bratislava, one of the leading clubs in the Slovak Republic.  We decided to exchange information, ideas and experiences about judo coaching, training en teaching.

Mr. Stefanovsky is particularly interested in the psychological preparation for contest of top judo players.  He asked for my experiences by means of the following questions:

·         How do you train psychological factors, or did you ever train somehow these factors?

·         How to teach the top players “to step on the mat without fear and stress” which can rope your hands and lead to poor performance?

·         What are you doing to teach your top players to fight their stress/fear situations before the competition fight?  I mean a situation like you are fighting your first match on the Paris Open and your first opponent is the world champ from Japan.

·         How and when are you using mental training and visualization?

In this paper I will try to describe the methods I used to mentally prepare the top level judokas I coached.  Because I ‘retired’ as a top level competition coach in July 2008 this paper will be for me in this matter as a kind of debriefing. 

The way I worked with the competitors can or can’t be an example of good practice.  It is to the reader to decide and to eventually adopt elements in his own coaching.  Still it remains a fact that the judokas I coached believed in the methods and recognize their share in their successes.

Only the first part of the article is already finished.

Link to the article.

Periodisation of Randori Types
Raf Tits - March 2002

Many judoka’s are spending hours practising randori …. but do not learn a lot. Fighting with instructions or periodising can significantly increase (with more judo pleasure and better competition results) the benefits of randori training.  This article first gives a general viewpoint of randori. Then follows an item on randori and periodising. Then finally I propose per phase of the period of competition preparation a number of types of randori. Every randori is described and its purpose is discussed. Where necessary I also give examples.

Link to the article.

Mental Projection as a Judo Training Form
Raf Tits - March 2002

Which experienced judoka has not executed a kata “mentally”, in his head, whilst sitting at home? In the sport psychology, this technique is called mental projection (MP).  MP, applied systematically, can be useful when doing technical-tactical training an when concentra­ting on the mental preparation of contests.  In this article I want to give you an example how MP can be used as a technical-tactical form of training.  A next article will then illustrate the use of MP when preparing mentally for contests.
First I want to describe the purpose and operationalisation of MP as a technical-tactical judo training form.  Then I will give you a few examples.  At the end I will discuss where MP fits in the training session.

Link to the article.

The Puzzle of the Technique Development : Model for the Technique Learning Plan for Judo Competitors
Raf Tits - March 2003

Most coaches agree that the various judoka’s are using different executions or are using spontaneously different parts of the technique spectrum, although they are receiving the same tuition.  Every judoka is different!  The motive behind writing this essay is on the one hand to try to answer the question how can a coach  efficiently help the various competition judoka’s with their own technique development and on the other hand in the will to zeiryoku zenyo:  to get the maximum out of technique training.  The point of departure is the personal experience that technique training is more effective if it comes from the individual judoka.

Link to the article.