| Essay Six
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It took me a while to appreciate Rhadi Ferguson. Since I'm too old to become
a serious competitor, most of my purchases are out of an old love of the
sport or curiosity to see where it is going now. My exposure to actually
buying something that Rhadi produced was one of his discounts. The product
was valuable for someone else, not for Judo, but for the life lessons and
rules. I've continued to buy things, sometimes on impulse, sometimes
on purpose.
I can make some recommendations.
First, if you can find a copy for sale (they go for about $50.00 used) get::
At the same time, read a copy of
Molloy's
Live for Success *. (you can buy a copy from Amazon.com
for a penny plus postage if your library doesn't have one).
Next, you want the following
You can get them in either order, though they are dramatically different.
The one provides clear drills and explanations of the basics of modern
gripping. The other is about how to analyze yourself and others.
Even if you don't plan to use gripfighting, you need to understand
it to defend against it. Further, at any level, you need to be able
to apply SWOT analysis to yourself and others.
Dress for Success for Judo means wearing a light blue or pinstripe oxford
shirt
(good
quality, available inexpensively [$19.00] from Lands End), medium gray
slacks and that pair of wing tips any time you are at a tournament when you
are not in your gi (and never wearing a rash guard to a tournament).
After these three things (one application of the entire system, grip fighting
and a focused scouting report DVD and discussion), what next? That
is an excellent question. Of course you need to read Live for Success
(your library probably has a copy, or interlibrary loan does), but what else.
I use SSTF/HIT for strength. I'd advise sprints for conditioning.
But you need to ask yourself what kind of analysis you understand,
can you plan a curriculum for yourself or someone else, have you done project
management, and can you treat a Judo match like a five minute project made
up of fifteen or twenty second blocks of time? What are your goals
and needs?
Too many variables for me to make suggestions past what I've just had to
say in the above.
Free material:
* Live for Success is the second half of Dress for Success.
While Dress for Success can be summarized as "wear charcoal or navy
suits with white shirts and rep or solid maroon times and wingtip shoes"
(and yes, I know it is much more nuanced and says a lot more than that),
Live for Success captures an entire level beyond clothing of posture, language
and a number of other things you and your children need to know in order
to escape and discard your bad habits.
On books: go to your library, use interlibrary loan, and you
can order anything. You should never buy a martial arts book until
you've read it twice for free. On Masterclass Judo
books, there are much cheaper places to buy them than Amazon, but it is a
great place to read about them.
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