What is Judo?
Judo is an Olympic Martial Art established in Japan in 1882.
Judo translates as “the gentle way” as there is no striking techniques and it focuses on grappling and throwing techniques.
Judo offer’s a full body fitness workout with a balance of strength training, cardio, flexibility and balance. The aim in judo is to learn how to defend yourself with practical skills and provide sustainable life long activity.
In our classes, we have had people join later in life in their forties and fifties seeking a way of keeping active. We strive to allow people to go at their own pace and develop their ability as best as they can. The only trick to improving is consistency and showing up week by week.
Classes run twice a week on Mondays and Thursday at 8.15pm till 9.30pm
WHAT DO WE LEARN?
Judo is a martial art which places emphasis on learning how to throw. Each class contains a mixture of movement, breaking balance and learning how to take grips to throw an opponent.
Classes also teach how to pin, arm-bars, strangles and chokes. All techniques are supervised by an instructor or instructors.
What does a typical class look like?
Each class starts with a warm up for about 15-20 minutes. The warm up focuses on stretching, strength training and most importantly breakfalls.
As Judo includes throwing, we spend time emphasising how to fall correctly and safely.
After this we typically perform a dedicated technique with some combinations with the throw.
We also include time learning a dedicated ne-waza technique such as arm-bar, choke or strangle.
With time permitting, we will do 1 or 2 min rounds of sparring Judo (Randori).
How do i progress?
In Judo, adults progrees through a structured grading system following the Irish Judo Association syllabus. In a grading, one of the coaches will take you aside to demonstrate different throws, hold-downs (osaekomi), different types of falls and a few Japanese expressions to check for knowledge. As you progress throught the grades, the challenge will become gradually harder.
For beginners, it takes no less than 6 months training twice a week to earn a yellow belt with other gradings occuring based on consistency and improvement. It is important to note within the Club, we can only grade to Green Belt (3rd Kyu) after that the coach will discuss with you on attending the National Gradings held in Dublin 3 times a year.
Club Gradings
- Yellow Belt (5th Kyu)
- Orange Belt (4th Kyu)
- Green Belt (3rd Kyu)
National Gradings
National Gradings are held in Dublin and consist of either a Performance or Technical Pathway.
For Performance Pathway, you must win two fights and complete a theory to earn your Blue Belt and after 6 months, you must win another two fights and complete theory for Brown Belt. For Black Belt, you must earn 100 points which equals beating 10 other Brown Belts with an Ippon.
In a Technical Pathway, this is for those who do not wish to fight. The theory for your grades is more substantial and you must pass a dedicated theory test in front of a national instructor. These are practical assessments completed in a Judo Gi.
Killarney Judo 