I have been working for some time on a practical product to help you better prepare your judo lessons.
But first, let me tell you a short story: my brother Beppe and I started teaching very early, when we were about 22 and 23 years old. Due to a federal disqualification that hit us, the official competitive world in Italy was gone, and with it, many of our dreams.
You should know that because of our disqualification, our Master, Cesare Barioli, was also disqualified. Therefore, no longer bound by the Federation, he put us to work teaching. We were very young but not inexperienced in teaching, as our Master often had us teach even when we were only focused on competitions; he would watch us and then correct our pedagogical errors or our tendency to explain too many things in a single lesson.
But let’s get back to the agenda, which is the real reason I want to tell you these things, and why I felt the desire to share a practical tool that helped me greatly in my teaching journey.
I soon found myself teaching every day from 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM, from children to adults, at the Ambrosiana in via Frua and at the Bu-sen. When I taught in via Frua, I would finish at 8:00 PM, not even change, and rush to the Bu-sen in via Arese, on the other side of Milan, for the last shift. Finally, after teaching, I could study and train until 10:30 PM.
But as I mentioned before, my agenda back then, where I noted everything down, helped me immensely in managing my lessons and everything I explained: the technical program I wanted to develop over the year, the progression of Kata techniques, or the hairi kata I taught in the various sessions.
In fact, if you think about it, an agenda is a tool that, beyond time management, also serves to keep track of what you teach, or to better plan and program what you wish to teach. However, my agenda back then was not like the one I have designed now, after 50 years of teaching, because back then I did not have a pedagogical plan to draw from and distribute, measured out for every lesson.
In the one I have designed for you, I have divided the lesson into five parts: warm-up, ukemi no renshu, kata no renshu, waza no renshu, and randori no renshu. In each part, I have included topics to explain or practice, giving you the choice of which exercise to perform and how much time to allocate.
I have named this agenda myjudoagenda™, and it can be used for all age groups except for children aged 4–5.
On the inside cover, you will find a legend describing the work to be done to teach comprehensive Judo, and on the first day of work, you will find a
pre-filled page with exercises I have included as examples.
If you are an experienced teacher, using the agenda might seem trivial, but I suggest it to help you become excellent, using it as your own wealth of
information to improve your ability to first analyze and then synthesize the lessons taught.
If you are a young (inexperienced) teacher, it will help you gain greater confidence in your abilities and serve as a tool for comparison with your
teacher and with me, thus avoiding the pressure of trying to remember everything and preventing improvisation from lesson to lesson.
