About the Instructors Training Strategy

The Gurnee Judo Club is a competition-oriented organization. Our focus is training our junior athletes to score and win at local, regional, national, and international events. We train to win and have fun doing so. Nonetheless, we are an all-inclusive club that offers something for all ages and abilities. We start with a low-cost beginner program that meets twice a week for an hour each session. Our advanced students do most of the coaching in our beginner program. They train new students usually one-on-one. The program includes strength and coordination conditioning. We teach the basics of falling, pins, throws, and submission techniques. Kids ages 6 years old and up are best suited to start judo. We take kids under 6 years old on a case-by-case basis. We work with our families to encourage siblings to join along with their brother and/or sister. We have found that siblings doing judo together develop a special bond and respect for each other…plus it simplifies travel and time management for the parents. We have many fathers who have joined alongside their children, and they have found that to be highly rewarding. When the beginning judo player is ready, they join the advanced class. Our advanced program is a serious curriculum with intense strength and coordination training, technical drills, and lots of player versus player/“live” or “randori” practicing. The advanced program trains four nights per week and usually competes twice a month. Our junior athletes are very good. We have numerous junior judo players that are ranked nationally. We have one elite adult/senior ranked judo player, who competed at the 2004 Olympic Judo Team Trials at the mere age of 15 years old. We have studied and modeled techniques, practices and procedures that work at competition and have developed a strategy of techniques with drills that have proven highly successful. We treat each kid in our advanced program as a candidate for a future U.S. Judo Olympic Team. Not all of our advanced players are gunning for an Olympic team spot; yet, they all make a significant contribution. We have many masters (30 years old and up) that train daily with the club, but they are technical officials, medical officials, or referees at tournaments. We have two nationally certified referees in our club. We have numerous junior players that we have developed into exceptional referees too. The Gurnee Judo Club is all-inclusive for all athletes. For instance, the head-coach is a nationally certified visually impaired judo coach with the American Association of Blind Athletes (AABA). And the Gurnee Judo Club is affiliated with the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association (GLASA). We offer a unique blend of training and development—centered on competition, oriented towards the family, and offered to all. You owe it to your family to come check us out.