Small movements, a matching challenge, and a little success that can be seen

In a 2026 coaching note on teaching physical education, the first concern is that children should be able to feel some achievement in judo. The advice is to begin with activities they can actually perform, and to let small successes repeat, so that confidence in the sport and a will to keep taking part can grow. Children new to judo wanted to pick up a new technique quickly and to throw a partner in a way that looked impressive. Asked to perform one technique in its finished form from the start, they found the movement hard and failed again and again. Achievement and interest dropped.

A throw includes breaking the partner’s balance, moving one’s body into the right place, and applying the technique so the partner goes over. A coach, the note argues, does better to divide one skill into several movements and let children learn them in order. Seoi-nage was among the techniques beginners watched most closely: carrying a partner on the back and throwing is easy to see and looks striking, so many wanted to try it, and then found it more complicated than it had looked, and lost interest. Seoi-nage has to flow from a grip and a break of balance, through the placing of the feet, a turn that loads the partner on the back, and the throw itself. Rather than asking for the whole sequence at once, each part is taught on its own. A child can first get only the feet right, then succeed at turning the body naturally as well, and so meet a small success more than once. Sports research is cited, without a calendar year, for the claim that a feeling of competence — the sense that one can do a movement — raises enjoyment of sport and the will to keep taking part.

There is also a remark that children feel more enjoyment in movement when the challenge fits them. The same coaching note found that repeating only easy movements quickly bored the group, while a hard movement from the first try made children lose confidence after a few attempts. So beginners are not all asked for the same level; difficulty is raised a little at a time, once an easier movement is familiar, so that they can feel themselves improving. The rear breakfall is given as a worked example. First, from a seat on the mat, children round the back and slap the mat with the palms, to ease the fear of falling and to settle a basic posture. Next, from a squat, they fall backward; the height is a little greater, the challenge larger, and the sense of achievement, when it works, larger too. Last, from a stand, they fall backward slowly. Doing that after the first two stages are in place eases the burden and the fear, and leads more naturally into a finished breakfall.

A short video, or a chart of judo techniques marked by difficulty, is used so that children can see what they will try that day, in stages such as beginner, intermediate, and a further challenge, and can see for themselves how far they can go. A sticker is added to the chart at each stage they complete, so that progress is visible. One child who had only been following instructions, once shown the present stage, the next movement, and its difficulty, began to say “I want to try the next one too,” and took a more active part. The hope is that judo then feels less like a hard, heavy sport, and more like an activity in which a new stage can be opened one at a time.

A difference of position that should not become a ranking of persons

The second part of the note is blunt: between coach and athlete there is a clear difference of position, but that difference should not become a ranking of one person above another. They should be able to speak, and to be heard. News accounts are cited in which verbal abuse, harsh treatment, and an abuse of power have been raised again and again in sports settings, and in which human-rights education has been widened in response. The Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province Sports Council is named as running a project to raise human rights in sport, against abuse of power, harsh treatment, verbal abuse, (sexual) violence, and other violations. A Yonhap report is cited of an elementary-school baseball coach who publicly used harsh swearing toward a student athlete and repeatedly used an insulting line such as “your defense is worse than the juniors.” The coach said it was meant to stir a will to win and to raise skill. The National Human Rights Commission did not treat that as a legitimate way to train, and pointed to the student as a minor still in the process of forming a personality, before being an athlete.

A coach teaches technique, and can also affect selection, evaluation, schooling, and the whole of an athletic life. In that structure, a coach’s words can be heard as a command that is hard to refuse. A young athlete may even take unfair treatment as something a player is simply supposed to bear. Respect for a coach and fear of a coach are not the same thing, and a relationship built on fear is hard to call education. Hard training and patience are part of the sport; humiliating a person is not. A good result in a match does not make every act along the way right. If sport is to have an educational value, how a person was treated in the process has to be weighed with the result. An athlete who has been harmed may also stay silent, worried about being seen as an awkward presence in the team, or about losing a place in the lineup. Human rights, the note argues, is not only a system for punishment after a case breaks, but an environment in which someone who has felt a wrong does not have to stay quiet.

What stayed in memory from learning judo, more than technique, was the greeting on entering and leaving the dojo, and the way a partner was met. Courtesy and restraint, seen later, were a posture learned before skill. Judo throws a person and still has to respect that person, and the same spirit should hold between coach and athlete, not only among athletes. Because they train close together for a long time, a small remark can linger. The same words can feel like advice on one day and catch in the mind on another. If a small hurt is not spoken, it can become a grievance, and trust can thin. The starting point offered here is ordinary talk: asking how an athlete is before and after practice, and making it natural to say what was hard or uncomfortable, while the coach also explains the aim of the work and listens. Listening is not treated as a laying down of authority, but as a way of deepening trust. Public swearing at a young athlete, or a comparison with another player, may tighten the room for a moment, and still, over a longer stretch, can undercut confidence and trust. When a fault is named, the need is to say what was lacking and how to mend it, rather than to lower the person. A chance to speak after training, repeated, may let an athlete follow a coach out of trust rather than out of fear. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A 2026 Korean coaching note on teaching judo to children by breaking skills into small movements, and on the relationship between coach and athlete.

Last updated: 14 November 2026