Games or Drills Pt 2

Let me start this post with an apology – as I was working late yesterdays post was posted just after midnight so you get two posts today.

However following an email exchange with Lance Wicks ( www.planetjudo.com) I have decided to do two or three Blogs a week and then do smaller intermittent posts in between. I hope to post every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday.

Following on from yesterdays post about games, at present the most popular title on Judo Games is 1001 Judo games – Fighting Films has a DVD of the same name which I have bought and will review next week. A quick note on my reviews, everything I review I will have bought and paid for so I will review it as I see it. This title always frustrates me, it should read - 20 or so game ideas with lots of variations !

Taking yesterdays point that games can become or include drills but they are games first and for most. I want to look at a GAME and develop it for use in Judo. Some of these ideas are original, some are developments of things I have seen and others are as seen but then I have added a proper Judo frame work for a coach to understand them.

Before we start ask yourself the following questions?

Why am I playing a game?
What is it doing to my class dynamic?
Is it suitable or appropriate to this class, by age, skill and available space?

To many coaches throw games in without considering the above, they should be as planned as technical progressions.

The game I want to look at today is Tig or Tag as it is sometimes called. In its basic form on person is IT or ON they have to touch or tig/tag another player who is then on. The other players have to avoid being tagged, they can run around within a defined area.

The fun comes in the participant introducing risk – how close can they get without being tagged. The older the players the more risk they can take. The game helps to develop fundamental skills of speed, agility and reactions.

GAMES in general also allow the participant to develop tactics and strategies to win and to play within the rules but not always as the organiser intended.

With Tic/Tag if you wish you can then level the playing field if one player excels by adding extra conditions. This could be players moving one their knees or restricting where you can tag an opponent.

A variation is where the intention is to catch every body, so when tagged a play leave the play area or is eliminated. Here players are strategic and not so risk taking.

So we have two variations on one game. How could we introduce key skills?

Ideas could include

· When avoiding being tagged perhaps they do a forward roll or break fall.
· To avoid being tagged perform an sports specific action
· When they are tagged they stand still and they have to be freed by another play.

This last variation is often called Stick in the Mud or Stuck in the Mud, the caught player stands with the legs open and to be freed a player crawls through the legs – how this is done is up to the coach – on the belly or on all fours.

The game in essence doesn’t change you are just adding conditions and rules – often these are safety specific – for instance you always crawl from front to back – to avoid to people clashing head if the both try at the same time form opposite directions. Or for ukemi – stop look roll – some rules however can remove some of the key initial benefits of the cam e.g. speed but it is replaced with a practice of Ukemi.

If I said you had to free them by doing 5 uchi komi of Ippon Seo-nage I have added a small drill or training exercise but WITHIN the game. If I have to change the game too much to allow that to happen, eg. You can’t tag someone during uchi komi, I can have an adverse effect as I could end up with the catcher having no one to chase as they do the drill then losing the fun element and it stops being an effective game.

The problem is coaches look at the game not the reason for doing the game, if I give more uchi komi to higher grades free someone eg. A white belts does 1 uchi komi to free anyone, but brown belts have to do 10. I am balancing out skill levels and making it easier to catch the higher grades, this helps me give the lower grades a feeling of importance and now I have introduced a skill into the game it allow people of different levels to compete collectively on an even keel. This also helps aid group dynamics and retention in participation based classes.

So to recap yesterdays point all the variations of Tic/Tag work as JUDO games in a club because they meet the criteria I have set out.....

1. A game has an objective
2. Has a time scale or restrictive conditions
3. A Challenge or task
4. Defined rules
5. IS FUN
6. If repeated immediately may have a different outcome
7. Age appropriate

So when you look at a book saying 101 games see how many variations you can find of core games. In a way games are like judo throws there are 100’s of variations but the basic throw is the same just developed and applied to different situations.

This is a subject I will come back to.

Have a great day

Marc