DESTINATION@BRITISHJUDO UPDATE: STOCKTON-ON-TEES HUB

The Stockton-On-Tees Hub is the biggest of the Destination@BritishJudo areas with approximately 450 children attending 23 classes over seven clubs in the Teesside area.

They visit schools all over the area, ranging from East Cleveland (Skelton, Loftus & Brotton etc.), Redcar and Middlesbrough to Stockton and Billingham delivering taster sessions to thousands of children.

The hub also helps out with the local Schools Out Sports In Holiday club, where children from the Stockton-on-Tees area can come during school holidays to take part in various sports including judo, wrestling, boxing and other sporting activities.

They have a wide variety of children in the clubs with a range of abilities with a number of children with autism attending.

All the children work on an even level and learn at the same rate while making judo fun, exciting and a friendly place to come and learn.

Lately the clubs we have been working a lot on throwing with transitional movement to ne-waza, with movement and grip work being key to throwing correctly, ensuring they get the basics correct first and foremost. This gives an excellent foundation for the future of the players.

The coaches also use judo based games to not only have fun, but to learn key movement skills and speed training. The team also like to include as much exercise as possible to promote fitness in the children’s lives.

As well as normal judo classes there is a squad class.  The players in squad have been working on different grips this month, working on throwing with opposite grips and throwing from the wrong side.

They have been drilling turns in ne-waza and using control points for holds.  They have also been practising “Around the World”, a training tool used to improve holding and changing holds, while moving round uke who is trying to escape.

The coaching team recently learned this at the Shaping the Future weekend held at the British Judo Centre of Excellence at Walsall.

On Sunday 18^th March the hub also held their annual rumble event where 180 of the players from the hub came to compete in an entry level competition.

All of the children and parents enjoyed the event with a lot of positive feedback received afterwards.  All the players fought their hardest and did themselves and the team very proud.

Phil Hornby, coach for the Stockton-On-Tees Hub said:

“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the children for coming along and taking part in our clubs, their parents for supporting us all and the local SSP’s for their hard work in arranging our school visits.”