Over the past year, the European Judo Union has been proud to have established the EJU Get Together Tournament for Adapted Judoka. Ran primarily by members of the EJU Education sector, experience and a dream has been the driving force if this tour becoming a reality, not only a plan on paper. That being said, an event requires protocol and EJU Sport Commissioner, Alessandro Comi fits that profile. Though the cadet, junior and senior events have varying commissioners, Comi has been assigned to the Get Together Tour, and it was a natural fit.
So what has it meant to be in a new environment for Comi?
Judo is one but it has multiple faces: we mainly focus on the competitive high level, on the Olympic pathway of a small number of top players either elite or young. Get Together is another face and when you get in touch with this, your idea of judo can really change.
Get Together is an amazing project of the EJU Education Sector: collecting years of different experiences with judo and disability grown at the national or local level, the EJU is developing a new format where the idea of disability is replaced by a genuine focus different-abilities. The adaptive nature of judo makes the magic.
Adapted judo isn’t a new idea, and judoka with various abilities have been practicing for a long time, contributing to judo’s Paralympic success over the years, but as Comi explains, the execution is something entirely different.
I got in touch with adapted judo about one year ago when my national federation sent me on a reconnaissance mission in Venray where the first pilot EJU event was organized: let’s be honest, most people have experience with disabilities in our clubs but in many years I had never seen something like that neither I could imagine to see that kind of judo. It was amazing, it was emotional: a lightning strike on my previous idea of judo.
After few months I was involved in the organization of the first seminar on Adapted Judo held in Italy: there I met Marina Draskovic and the Vice President Sergei Aschwanden that were about to start with the Get Together Tournaments. Former Head Sport Director and current EJU Vice President Catarina Rodrigues finally asked me to join the Adapted Judo Project on behalf of the Sport Commission.
EJU is a family, we are different sectors, but we all work on the same judo: it is normal that we help each other. The Sport Sector works on Event Management, Rules and protocols and where a new project is developed, mainly if it’s about competitions, the Sport Commission is called to help with the organization and to give the EJU trademark on the event management. In practice it means to do supervision to the events, to ensure the application of the rules and international protocols, but also to help putting mats before the competition, if needed.
It isn’t only our experience in many years of judo or love for the sport that contributes to the smooth running of events, but many have careers that complement their EJU life.
Actually, it is not a case that I was asked to take care of this project: I’m not naïve with the topic of cognitive impairments and disabilities. Judo people meet me in competitions either as EJU delegate or with my national Olympic team but on the other side of the life I’m a psychologist and I’ve a PHD in Neuroscience; before starting my adventure with my national federation in 2017 I’ve worked for ten years as neuropsychologist in the department of Neurosurgery of a big hospital in Milan, and in the last couple of years I’m doing consultancy to the National Institute of Social Security right in the area of disabilities. In the Get Together I’m just making available to the EJU different competences I acquired in my life.
Author: Thea Cowen