By John Goodbody

British judo is on the brink of a revolution. Following the acute disappointment of the Beijing Olympics, a new structure is being put in place with the aim of securing medals at the 2012 Games. Instead of fighters training largely in their clubs, supplemented by sessions, both at home and abroad, with the rest of the national squad, there will now be a far greater centralisation of training. This will largely be led by a new appointment, head coach Patrick Roux, whose impressive contest career for France in the 1980s, conducted simultaneously with academic studies, was followed by successful spells as coach for eight years to the National Junior Team and then as an Assistant Technical Director to the French Judo Federation (FJF).

The consistent medal-winning of Britain’s rowing, cycling and sailing teams in recent Olympics (and, incidentally, also in the 2008 Paralympics) has owed much to the centralisation of their training, as anyone who has been to such venues as Caversham Lakes or the Manchester Velodrome will testify. UK Sport, which will fund the preparations for the next four years and is currently considering how much money should be allocated to all sports over the next four years, is well aware of this and will insist on a “no compromise” approach.

Margaret Hicks, the BJA’s Director of World Class Programmes, says that the aim of the changes is to "generate more consistent results and, hopefully, Olympic medals” and that this can best be achieved by focusing resources in a more professional way. She says that it was impossible to achieve the necessary changes in the year that she has been in the post, because of the necessity to concentrate on the Olympics.

Margaret says that the object of centralising the programme is that there will be far greater scrutiny over the preparation of the individual fighters. She explains “We can no longer rely on personal coaches on a day-to-day basis. Maybe, they prepare them in the right way. Maybe they don’t. However, it is too much of a risk. We need to ensure there is high quality work every day.”

Roux had been seconded from Bath for the build-up to Beijing, although he played a minor role. The bulk of the technical work with the individual fighters was carried out by the personal coaches, who were members of the Olympic party, going to the holding camp in Macau and then to Beijing. Roux is aiming to base himself in Dartford, the planned national centre for elite competitors. He arrived at Bath University last January, as a teaching and coaching fellow in performance judo, where he immediately made a significant impact, especially in his technical analysis. He was quickly identified by the BJA as someone who could help the Association on the national stage. Then, during the summer, he applied for and got the job as head coach. He says:”I did not expect this when I came here. I was completely taken by surprise. I had my career with the national junior squad in France but I did not have the possibility of going through to the senior Olympic programme. I have not yet had that kind of fulfilment.”

He knows that this challenge, working with Margaret and Karen Roberts, the World Class Operations Manager, will be to prepare the team for London but he also wants to bring a different concept of training competitors that has been present in France, almost certainly the premier nation in Europe over the last 20 years. He says:”France stands on the cross-roads between the Japanese and European style of judo. We have tried to follow a holistic approach to the sport.” He quotes the words of the French theologian Blaise Pascal; “The whole is more than the sum of the parts.”

Having examined the training methods of other sports, he believes that some judo coaches have adopted too closely the principles of activities, such as athletics and weight-lifting, in the conditioning of fighters. He says:"These are not completely relevant to such a complex situation as we have in judo. The important thing is to develop the power of the judo movement. Throwing someone involves a very complex system, involving many joints and bones, and this is impossible to replicate except in doing judo. It is not transferred easily from doing weight-training exercises such as bench press and squats. “

He explains how a fighter can develop technically through the practice of uchikomi, which for many years has had a controversial place in judo, although, for decades, the Japanese team have used it in their daily practice. Roux says:”A lot of coaches ignore uchikomi or just do it as a warm-up. However, it is important to think why we should do uchikomi. One reason is to develop the power and acceleration into the movement”( of the throw).

Another area, on which he wants to work, is tactical appreciation, for fighters to make an instantaneous decision under the physical and mental pressure of a competition. In Beijing, we had a perfect example of what he means in the final of the under 63 kgs category, when Lucie Decosse of France attacked the defending champion Ayumi Tanimoto, with ouchi-gari, driving the Japanese girl backwards. However, Tanimoto used the forward movement of Decosse to bring her off-balance and counter her perfectly with uchi-mata. For me, it was probably the technical highlight of the Games and demonstrated exactly what judo should be.

Roux will spend some time, especially in the early stages, communicating with coaches across the country. He says:"I want to explain my philosophy and what I believe I can bring technically to British judo.” He needs to have all the leading competitors together and exactly how many of them there will be must depend on the funding available from UK Sport. However, it is doubtful whether UK Sport will give as much finance to the BJA over the next four years as it would have done, if it had met its target of two medals in Beijing. Roux says:"If we are not able to bring the competitors together very often, you can apply all the technical work but it”(the system)” will not work.” There are three ways of ensuring the elite competitors get a variety of training, although there can be overlaps between all three. One is to have a single national centre, with the fighters often travelling, either in Britain or abroad for practice. Another is to have two or three strong centres, although this would also involve travelling. A third is to invite sufficient partners, either from Britain or abroad, to join the practices.

Although he will be largely concentrating on the elite, Roux wants some of the lessons learnt in France to be adopted in Britain. He is impressed with the “British spirit” in competitions and the willingness to work hard but, in clubs, he wants to see an emphasis on technical improvement rather than “short-cuts to competitive success at a young age. In French clubs, up to the age of 15 years-old, youngsters only do judo” (and hardly any other supplementary exercise) “and we do not allow them to do pick-up techniques until that age, so that they can concentrate of acquiring other judo throws. Randori, in France, is not a bull-fight, as it is in some other countries. Randori is more often used to develop a wide range of techniques. Between Athens and Beijing, the French women’s team changed the way it was doing randori and was rewarded with much greater success.”

British judo is on the verge of a transformation and it will be fascinating to see how successful this transformation is, given the huge opportunity that awaits when London stages the 2012 Olympics. We may never have another such opportunity in our lifetime.

BJA Head Coach Patrick Roux

© Mike Varey