As people have been made aware of a number of sessions and from posts on Social Media, we have been looking into a different way of producing our Club Gradings.

This is in aim to help raise the standard of Judoka we produce and to find a means encourage the ones that want to compete regularly.

Our gradings will be split into two routes – competitive and non-competitive.

Competitive Route: If you choose to go the competitive route the player will need to collect 100pts that will be put towards their next grade. Players will earn 10pts for entering a competition and will collect 10pts for a fight and 20pts for a win, with the max points earnt from a competition being 50pts.
Competitions must be recorded in the players License Book, with the date of the comp as means of proof.

Non-Competitive Route: For players that want to take this route will simply be required to show more theory knowledge. You will be required to know the theory for the grade you are going for as well as pass grades; e.g. If being graded for 9th Mon, you will need to know the 9th Grade theory, as well as knowing and demonstrating the main sections for the previous grades.

This system has been devised upon looking at the old BJA Grading model and looking at the current Dan Grading model, and shares similarities with both.

As with anything there will be a ‘teething stage’ where we want people to come to us with questions/problems so we can use them to evolve our grading model to help our Club produce the best players we can, and above all allow our players to become the Judoka they want to become.

We have a Grading coming up on 20th July – this will not be enforced for this date; if you have started work on this system and are able to produce the evidence where needed – brill! If not do not worry. However after 26th Oct the new system will come into function and will be used for the next grading on 25th January.

We hope the above makes sense, and as stated please come to us with any issues you have – we want to work for the benefit of all our players!
Yours Sincerely,
Westerleigh’s Coaching Team