Preface:

The question whether graduations are advisable for each judoka is hard to answer. Whether people graduate or not should depend on the performance, perception and needs of the judoka. The social value, which this form of rewards involves, plays a very important role within the culture of the Dutch Judo Federation (JBN). However, standards and values as well as the concept of disabled people are continuously changing. Therefore, it is good to list all the positive aspects of graduation for disabled judokas on one hand, and the current social view on the other hand.

Positive aspects of graduation:

1      Visible rewards

2      Through training, judoka’s are able to qualify them selves for a

          higher belt.

3      A higher degree offers pedagogical possibilities such as offering

          responsibility towards others.

4      Purposeful studying for an exam, followed by graduation

5      Standardization, where regular judokas receive belts as well

 

The JBN did stick to the standard skills for a long time. If a candidate is deviated from the requested and described techniques during the exam, the candidate failed.

Differentiated rewarding did not appear out of the blue, there is a strong demand to commit the level of the judoka’s performance systematically. Most sport organisations choose to focus on functional methods instead of standard methods. Hereby a system is used which measures the sport technical abilities of the athlete.

Still some prudence is in order and receiving a Dan degree should not be the only goal of the judoka. Cees, an autistic man answers to the question; why he wants to obtain his 1st Dan degree. “I really want that because than I am finished and I can quit with judo.” Judo means everything for Cees, he lives for it, never misses a training, collects judo books and participates to every tournament. His parents declared that he quitted swimming in the past when he obtained his diplomas.

 

Experience shows that many problems could be prevented if possible advantages and disadvantages are recognized in advance. In order to give the judo teachers and the examinations committee a guideline, the JBN board aproved a exam procedure for disabled judokas, you can find here

There for judoteachers have to use a special exam application form

For supporting the judoteachers the JBN created a grading manual for the disabled, you can find here

BvdE

Every person is an individual and should be assessed so, besides an assess-ment does not need to be standard and should assess the possibilities which the judoka obtains. Still overall judoka’s receive not always a regular Judo fedration belt and some times adjustments are made in their judo passport. Our experience in this matter is that main stream judoka’s adjust in a natural way to special needs judoka’s. Even in a training session where judoka’s are unknown to each other even speak a different language. It lays in the structure of the sport that the better judoka always adjust to the level of his opponent, even in randori-waza. The first principle of judo is responsibility for others, our believe is that adjusting the belt or what ever to point out the special needs judoka is unnecessary and stigmatize them

BvdE

Order here our grading Manual for Dan grades

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