I initially got into contact with EdinburghJudo in early 2020 when I was looking for a place where I could do an internship in an English-speaking country, which was part of my studies. I asked my club CEO (who is an IJF official) if he had any contacts, and indeed, he is regularly working together with IJF Secretary General Dr. Lisa Allan, who then kindly brought me into contact with Sarah Clark, CEO of EdinburghJudo. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I had to postpone my time in Edinburgh for about two years until I finally made my way to Scotland in February 2022.
My stay lasted ten weeks. During this time, I stayed at Mike’s flat, an old friend of the club and a real character who was looking after me. The first week in Edinburgh there was a judo camp for children at the club as some kind of holiday program. I took part there for the whole week and got to see a lot of different games that I’d never seen before. The idea of a judo club having its own facilities and professional coaches to organise such a day-time experience during the holidays stood out to me. All in all, I was stunned by the big community room in front of the tatami, which is used by members and their parents as a gathering point and place to get some tea and watch the classes.
After the camp, I got to visit the regular training sessions. Both to coach the kids’ classes for the wee ones, as well as the senior sessions at night, where I trained as a regular athlete. Over all those sessions, I could see the differences in training and judo in comparison to what I know from Germany. Be it the different warm-up routines, the big focus on kumi-kata (grip fighting) and uchi-komi (repetition training), or the relatively low number of nage-komi (throwing practice). It was surprising to me, and I soon started using different techniques to adapt to the different styles. What I never got used to though, is that there can only be a handful of couples that do randori at a time, so I always had a lot more and longer breaks than I would have had back home. As my stamina is quite poor, I could often use a wee pause anyway!
After the training sessions, often head coach Billy Cusack would give me a lift back to where I stayed, as he lived close by. This often gave us a great opportunity to discuss all sorts of topics: judo, history, society, politics and much more. I will never forget the first time Billy gave me a lift and drove into the tiniest closes in the new town to show me mews and tell me facts about different architectural features.
Of course, I also got to know a lot of the other athletes from the club who I would sometimes go out with and who taught me the most important vocabulary. Who knows, maybe it’ll be useful to know what it means to "pull a bird"... and I’ll never forget St. Patrick’s Day 2022! Apart from the boys I had some fun nights out with, I also made some true friends that I’m still in close contact with.
I’ve come back to Edinburgh several times, not only for judo but also when I've been on holiday with my mother. Of course, I had to show her the club and attend a training session too. Another two times, I have stayed for several weeks at Mike's flat to do some more judo and visit the friends I’ve made.
