2020-10-29
As we wish
all our members and friends a very Happy Christmas we reflect on the amazing
inclusive judo year we have shared together promoting and developing inclusion
in judo worldwide.
The SNJU
continues to be a progressive force in the development of worldwide SN/Adaptive
judo. 2019 saw our membership grow to an all time high with many new countries
and federations becoming members of the fastest growing SN/Adaptive judo
organization in the world.
In the past
eleven months we have achieved and surpassed some of our goals and ambitions
for adaptive judo and look forward to the joys and challenges of 2020.
2019
started off with our own board meeting in Switzerland at which we laid out our
ambitious plans for the year ahead. These plans included more development
courses, more competitive opportunities, more personal development and more
unity amongst countries with SN judo programs. This we not only spoke about and
planned – but also achieved!
Competition Opportunities: This year we staged and supported
the European Open SN Games in Sweden, the World SN Games in The Netherlands and
the Swiss Open SN Championships in Switzerland. In additional our team was the
lead support team for the Special Olympic World Games in Abu Dhabi.
Individually each of our team members supported and organized inclusion events
in their respective counties and helped many more in other countries.
Development courses: Our online SN referee course
continues to attract interested parties and has resulted in an international
register of developing SN referee across the world. We continue to host
workshops and seminars at all our supported events and this year we added some
additional seminars of interest including therapy/disability assisted dogs
programmes, SN tournament preparation, SN & unified kata to name but a few.
In
Switzerland this year we staged the first two day Coaching & Competition
Seminar and workshops. A large number of our members clubs/countries took part
in this incredible two day course which covered adaptive coaching, play &
contest rules, disability awareness seminars, Judo games workshops and much
more.. The event was run under the
aspics of Special Olympics Switzerland, Swiss Judo Federation and run by SNJU
directors James Mulroy and Cilia Evenblij.
Unity and Inclusion: The SNJU has been working very hard
to bring together as many SN judo organizations, clubs and federations for the
single purpose of raising awareness and further developing
adaptive/SN/inclusive judo worldwide. Early this year we had the ideal opportunity
to do just that. For the very first time in judo history SN judo was invited to
take part in the annual EJU Judo festival in Croatia. The SNJU were
instrumental in delivering seminars, workshops and advice to a number of large
interested audiences.
Other
amazing firsts was the inclusion of a number of teams who wowed the audience at
this year’s EJU Kata Championships with demonstrations of adapted and unified
kata. This we see as a major step forward in EJU thinking and policy and could
possibly open the door to further development in this area of our sport.
In other
News: The board of the SNJU are delighted and excited to be the major
contributors to the EU funded “Autjudo” Erasmus + programme. Funding was
secured and the research program will run for the next three years across six
European countries.
We approach
2020 with the same enthusiasm and drive as 2019 and aim to keep moving forward.
In 2020 we will be launching the long awaited online coaching course, this will
go live in early January. Supported competitive events will include the World
SN Games in Netherlands in April, the Swiss SN Open in June and the European
Open SN Games in Ireland in October.
In addition
we will be staging a number of seminars and workshops again next year at the EJU
Judo Festival in Croatia.
For now we
would like to wish the whole judo world and very Happy Christmas and look
forward to seeing as many of you as possible in 2020.
SNJU Team
Tomas, James, Tycho, Cilia, Bob
Source: SNJU (Happy Christmas – Year in Review