Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Gap





I have to thank Mr Winnie who is one of my coaches in Singapore Judo Club. He recommended me to visit his previous club in Holland. I've learned a lot from this visiting training.

This club is in Town Haarlem which is 15 km away from Central Amsterdam. The day before yesterday October16th, I arrived there at 3:30pm. Some kids there told me the adult training would start at 7:30pm, because there would be two training sessions for U15 and U17 before it. So I sat at the side and watched the two sessions. Mr Winnie didn't tell me much about his club. When I was watching the U17 training. I was surprised about their speed of throws. I realized that this club must not be an ordinary club. I talked with a player's parent who was sitting beside me. He told me that this club is the best Judo Club in Holland, the coach for adult session is the current Holland national team coach, and most players who would train with me at 7:30pm are from Holland national team. Then I realized that Mr Winnie gave me too few information before I came.

I became stressful and nervous. I felt afraid of attending the night training. From my experience , I knew even these U17 boys can throw me. I knew I would be thrown like a pizza. I had my Judo uniform and belt in my bag, but I didn't want to take them out. When the U17 session was over, it was 7pm. I just sat there and told myself I would just sit there and watch the coming training, because the gap between my standard and them is really huge. I could see the players in this club are really good. That parent sitting beside me found my problem. He said "It's Ok to at least give a try." I just said "I think I will just sit and watch." At 7:20pm, he got the assistant coach who was a big old man with white beard to give me some encouragement. That coach asked a player to bring me to the changing room. And then at 7:30pm my training started.

There were about 25 players on the mats. Most of them were from Holland national team. Among them, there was one African Dutch named Elmont who won the year 2005 world judo champion
. There was also a guy who won the 2 runner-up in Beijing Olympic. During the training I really felt what good Judo really was. They could thr0w me like throwing a piece of pizza. I never had this feeling when I was in Singapore. Once I got used to their speed, I started to move faster and fight harder. The situation became better. Although I still got thrown every minutes, I made a few good throws on them. The training was compact. There was only one break during the training. The rest of time was practice and fight.

It is really a fantastic feeling to train with world champion. It'a also a lesson for me. It seems the gap between me and them is the standard of Judo. In fact, the real gap is attitude. In the training, they fully used every minute on improving their skill. They fought hard and attacked as much as they can. When I was in my training in my club, sometimes I relaxed a bit and didn't put 100% effort. I really feel shame about what I did in my past trainings. I didn't have the correct attitude of training. And now I understand Mr Mori better.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

prolly that's what makes a real athlete special - really focused.
are you aiming to be the number 1 judo guy too? hehhe jiayou!

Guo Cheng said...

No, but at least I want to correct my attitude.

Brad Blackstone said...

You're a brave man, Guo Cheng. The competitiveness of that group sounds amazing. I guess it was a great experience for you!