The heart and soul of the Tre Torri brand, Judo Master Corrado Croceri, had the important task of delivering a refresher course to the region’s FIJLKAM organisation, aimed at Judo technicians and teachers working in the central Italian region of Marche.
(the english subtitles are available)
What is Judo? How is Judo done? Why do Judo?
These three questions should be the inspiration behind every action done by every Judoka and to which a technical teacher ought to be able to give a precise answer. These three points for reflection represent the main theme for the Regional Refresher Course aimed at over one hundred Technical Judo Instructors from the central Italian region of Marche and which took place at Marotta on Saturday and Sunday, 20-21 September, 2014.
The Regional Fijlkam Committee made two interesting and new decisions for the course: the first, of an economic nature, concerned lowering the cost for participation (something not uncommon in these times of crisis); the second concerned the choice of instructor. This year, the Regional Committee for Marche chose not to invite an outside instructor but rather to “take advantage” of the deep and rich skills and experience found “at home”. Judo Master Corrado Croceri, a well-known and highly respected Judo teacher and promoter, and an undisputed authority on Judo at the national and international level, was a natural choice.
As mentioned, Judo Master Croceri’s didactic approach was formed by three questions: what, how and why. Focus was given to the method used by Kodokan Judo – still relevant today, a century after its definitive work – as a powerful tool in physical, intellectual and moral education. To form healthy, intelligent and responsible men and women, able to relate with others and to contribute usefully to society.
In this educational view, Judo’s founder, Professor Jigoro Kano – a person of “undeniable genius” according to Judo Master Croceri – illustrated the four pillars on which the discipline is based, each one being complementary to the other and equally important: Randori (free exercise) and kata (exercise of form) for the practical part, koji (conference) and mondo (questions and answers) for the theoretical part. The Judo teacher must make constant reference to these concepts in training.
The teacher-educator, therefore, must be technically competent, didactically effective and must have a methodology that is appropriate to the level of the students – he must be able to continually stimulate their motivation, their enthusiasm and their curiosity. In addition, the teacher must adopt virtuous and morally irreproachable habits and behaviour and should aim to be a trustworthy example for his students to follow. Given all this, it is fundamental that the teacher be an able and effective communicator, not only on the tatami but in every circumstance and situation. Only an effective communicator will be able to properly transmit the principles of Judo to students and non-students alike.
Clearly, it is impossible to condense the entire knowledge of Judo into two days of training but Judo Master Corrado Croceri managed to expertly cover every major topic, blending practical topics (such as sutemi waza, gaeshi waza and ne waza) with technical reflection, enriching the lessons with anecdotes from his own rich experience.
The result was a course which the Vice President of the FIJLKAM Regional Committee for Judo, Claudio Verdini, defined as – and with the unanimous agreement from everyone present – a most useful technical and cultural exercise and one of the most interesting and didactically formative courses of recent years.
