Between October 29th and November 1st, CS Bronx Powerlifting Club Bacău hosted a unique international event as part of the JUDO4ID Training of Trainers Programme. The event consisted of two seminars.
The Play to Improve! seminar focused on judo games designed for training children with intellectual disabilities. It also evaluated the objectives and skills developed through each game. Judo coaches and PE teachers were supported in understanding and implementing judo games. Each game was built on a skill that a Special Needs judoka must acquire to achieve self-confidence, autonomy, and adaptation. During the seminar, participants were taught, in a playful way, how to teach various judo movements and how to build techniques that are clear, easy to execute, and natural to replicate.
The Keep it Simple! seminar addressed the deconstruction of judo techniques used when working with Special Needs students and their methodological structure. Participants learned how to: explain judo techniques in the simplest way possible; create a strong methodological structure for judo training; break down techniques into smaller parts and then recombine them step by step; adapt each technique to accommodate every student, regardless of their disability level; modify techniques to ensure every judoka can participate.
CS Bronx Powerlifting Club Bacău, the project coordinator, was represented by a team of 14 coaches, with Daniel Zodian, the club’s head judo coach since 2009, leading the judo activities. The club also invited one prominent figure from Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacău: Mihai-Adrian Sava, Dean of MCEIF Bacău, who has an extensive expertise in judo.
Judo Klub Bežigrad (Slovenia) was represented by a team of 14 judo coaches. Their participation in the JUDO4ID project reinforces their strong commitment to making judo more inclusive and accessible to all participants. Robert Kojc, an active promoter of social inclusion through judo with the Slovenian Judo Federation and a Kodokan kata specialist, as well as Tina Pestotnik, a judo coach with numerous projects for judoka with mental disabilities, were present.
The partners with expertise in adapted judo included the Special Needs Judo Foundation (Netherlands) and the Swedish Judo Federation (Sweden). The presence of experts such as Tycho van der Werff, Tomas Rundqvist, and Arian Noordzij—the top adapted judo referee in Europe—provided invaluable opportunities for the JUDO4ID team to learn judo games, practice kata, and understand the competition and refereeing rules for adapted judo, both for shiai and kata.
The most intense part of the seminar was the direct interaction with the Special Needs athletes from CS Bronx Powerlifting Club Bacău. The athletes not only had a great time practicing fun games and kata but also received valuable training for the Venray Get Together Tournament 2024, where they will compete.
What a wonderful experience… To be continued.
