Sunday April 11th, James Mulroy and Cecilia Evenblij organised and hosted the second in their series of six International Online Inclusive Judo Trainings. Once again it was an amazing success with nearly 90 participants from 8 countries including Ireland, Switzerland, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland and Spain. A special thanks to our Italian friends who delivered part of the session.
Next session will take place on 16th May.
In the Netherlands, judo is done in a tent!

Dutch authorities have decided judo is an indoor sport and indoor activities are not allowed during the pandemic.. however, a tent is not considered indoor, so SNJF of the Netherlands hired a big tent to teach in, every Saturday. It is not ideal, it is cold (5 degrees Saturday april 10th), parents are not allowed to watch and participants have to be under 26 but at least we can do our favourite thing!
Apart from that we do a 1-hour video lesson twice a week, on Wednesday for the younglings and on Friday for the more advanced judoka.
A training in Switzerland!
SNJF/BeterJudo workout response video
So- Tycho together with his daughters Lilo and Nikki made 7 days of simple exercise video instructions for our members, and we asked them to put their exercises on video. Watch the Dutch SN judoka perform!
A report from Italy
Emanuela Pierantozzi OLY, one of the team members, wrote an article in the Italian Judo magazine about our project!
You can download the PDF here. It is in Italian but Google Translate can help you with that.. If you are not Italian, of course.
Snow Judo in Switzerland!
Of course it is not easy for all those Judo clubs out there, to keep their members close and occupied. In Switzerland this is no exception. Watch Cecilia’s team playing in the snow!
Christmas Wishes from Judo in Armonia
Our friends from Judo in Armonia (Verona) have some Christmas wishes for the world..
AutJudo in Barcelona!
Meet the group of prof. José Morales Aznar, performing Judo in COVID-19 protective gear.
Christmas greetings from locked-down Switzerland
Cecilia and Mario perform their last Judo class before the Swiss COVID19 lockdown, and send their Christmas greetings!
Pictures and video provided by Cecilia Evenblij and Marco Bontognali
Judo in Armonia experiments with music for their autistic judoka!
We’re very glad to show you all our latest great collaboration, which involves our special judokas and music. Huge thanks to Francesca Lorenzini, who’s graduating in Music-therapy at “E.F. Dall’Abaco” in Verona, for the commitment and passion she’d already shown while planning this new project with our volunteers.
We had our first judo&music session the first week of October; in this video, you can see Francesca playing the ukulele and using music as reinforcement during our adapted judo training session. She was accompanying our judokas during some games and exercises, playing different rhythm and tunes, in the strong belief that music can help our athletes to improve.
Pre-existing studies show that music is proven to be a valuable tool for ASD people, as they seem to show a greater understanding of music than verbal language. Furthermore, according to studies related to the specific use of the rhythmic element of music, music allows lowering the level of perceived fatigue, improving the quality of the movement, containing altered emotional states and increasing attention spans.
Enjoy here in this video our first steps in this very exciting journey!
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