Throughout the past few days, the Swedish Judo Federation in collaboration with the European Judo Union held its’ first refereeing seminar for Adapted Judo in Stockholm. The weekend long seminar was in conjunction with the Swedish Judo Federation’s national coaching education program, where coaches and referees welcomed to attend all sessions. The meeting saw 44 participants from 14 different countries embracing and developing their knowledge within adapted judo.
There were many topics discussed some of which answered the following questions;
- What is a disability?
- Which disabilities do we encounter?
- How do we compete? Dynamics between athlete, referee, and coach.
- What is divisioning and why is it important?
- Can you train and/or compete in Kata?
- How do we apply grades?
EJU lecturers were the tremendously experienced Kerry Tansey and Matthijs Elema. The feedback of the participants was nothing short of rewarding.
Head of Adaptive Judo in Sweden, Mr Dick Rösselharth;
Contemplating over this weekend’s fantastic triple event. Adapted judo coach education combined with a pilot of Adapted judo referee seminar co-hosted with the European Judo Union and on top of it all a competition for our athletes, a perfect practice opportunity for the coaches and referees.
It has been an absolute please to be able to co-arrange this pilot seminar. Truly inspiring to see the impressive turnup and so many new coaches and referees to be welcomed into this collaborative and sharing adapted judo community. Lots of lessons learned during the weekend moving forward in further strengthening the adapted judo community across Europe.
Referee, Luka Jandric – Serbian Judo Federation;
My impressions are extraordinary after the seminar in Stockholm. I think the organizers made a lot of effort to bring adapted judo closer to us so that we could understand it better and be able to judge. The team that conducted training for coaches and referees did a really nice job and thanks to those wonderful people for their wonderful energy.
EJU Adapted Judo Project leader, Marina Draskovic;
After a great weekend in Stockholm, I would like to thank the Swedish Judo Federation for the initiative to start educating referees on the topic of adapted judo rules. The 14 countries present at the seminar are proof of general interest in adapted judo. I believe that this year we will set up an education system for referees within the EJU. As always, adapted judo comes with positive energy and motivates all of us to create strong foundations within EJU for judokas with different abilities.
EJU Referee Commissioner, Nuno Carvalho;
Stockholm was the centre of Adapted Judo for the last three days. A gathering of people willing to develop a common system so their passion can move forward to the next level. One of the big concerns in Adapted Judo competition system is the uniformity of the Refereeing rules.
The main importance of this aspect has to do with the quality and with the credibility that we all want to give to Adapted Judo competitions. Everyone, from Athletes to Coaches, and of course the Referees, must have a guideline and they must follow it to have the same understanding regarding the several situations that come across athletes, coaches, referees.
Adapted Judo brings with it a specific part much different that we can find in mainstream competitions, and it’s looking at it that we need to find the so desired uniformity, namely in the Refereeing Rules.
These last three days were very important to achieve this gold in a very near future, and very solid steps were given towards that. Uniformity of the rules, quality of the Referees, two decisive factors that we need to guarantee to have a successful system in Adapted Judo competitions.
The starting shot was given!
Author: Szandra Szogedi