Over the weekend, the first Children’s Kata Festival took place and began in a small judo country, Iceland. Recently graduated from the University of Hertfordshire With a PhD, Dr Slavisa Bradic explained to the coaches everything about the methodology to be used with children when it comes to kata. "Children’s kata is in fact basic judo. Through a customised methodical process of learning judo techniques, it helps to adopt judo principles and judo values," explains Bradic.
This new Children’s Kata Festival was attended by EJU president Dr Lazslo Toth and by the president of the national judo federation of Iceland, Mr Johann Masson. "The goal of the project is to help children in their judo development and help our judo community to develop their training and understanding of kata both from the coaches and the children's point of view. What the children learn is the basics of judo such as kumi-kata, movement, action and reaction, ukemi and of course the mental aspect such as concentration and memory," details Slavisa Bradic, before adding, "For now, the project uses only elements from the nage-no-kata and the katame-no-kata, with additional exercises as an introduction to randori training."
After the practical session, where the coaches taught the children how to learn kata, there were kata demonstrations where the learned techniques were shown. In addition to the coaches, many parents also enjoyed the activities. All participants received certificates of appreciation from this historic first children's festival. After the demonstrations, the first national kata championship was held. Twelve couples competed in the kyu and dan categories.
"This is certainly a big step for the Icelandic Judo Federation. I must express great satisfaction with the quality of the content of this project. This year, this Children’s Kata Festival project will be held in several more countries and I am sure that it has huge potential because children are the future of every society, including our judo society. Therefore, if children learn judo technique and judo values along with the basics of judo through kata, I am sure that we can change the world for the better. It is an EJU project but one that I plan to expand around the world because I think it has the potential to promote judo values through methodically adapted judo kata teaching for children. In this programme, the kata is just a tool through which we teach children the basic techniques, principles and values of judo in a fun way and, of course, we can keep the kata from being forgotten," concluded Slavisa Bradic.