Olympian visits IC Judo

In early March 2012, judoka from the Imperial College Judo club arriving for what was otherwise another regular evening of hard judo practice at ETHOS, found themselves very unexpectedly honoured by a visit from the Olympic Champion (Athens 2004) and World Championship judo gold medallist (Brazil 2007) and nine times All-Japan Women`s Judo Champion (2002-2010), and multiple silver & bronze medallist at various Olympic Games & World Championships, Ms Maki Tsukada sensei.

In fact, so low key was her visit, that none of us instantly recognized this champion of champions in our presence at the dojo, and indeed her very humble nature gave us no clues, as she helped us set out our tatami mats in preparation for the class.

It was only on the mat, at the formal start of the session when Glenn our coach introduced her to us, that we gasped in awe at her presence before us! But this champion had just been helping us set out our mats! Amazing lady or what!?

... so low key was her visit, that none of us instantly recognized this champion of champions

Tsukada sensei proved to be every bit a great champion, through her humble and generous and kind nature, during our two training sessions we have had with her. She has amazed us with her skillful demonstrations of her favourite throwing techniques: ouchi-gari, kouchi-gari, and osoto-gari. She also joined in our (often hilarious) warm up games as well as our newaza and our standing randori sessions and has given us much inspiration and treasured advice throughout. Always eager to encourage us and to allow us to throw her with good technique, and always gentle when throwing us in return. There will be many a young judoka amongst us, who will always remember and treasure their times with her and will have the fondest of memories of wrestling or throwing or being thrown or being presented their 4th kyu belts, by a true champion of champions. I am also sure those preparing for the upcoming BUCS judo championships in Sheffield next week, will have been inspired by these amazing times with her, and will fight with more confidence and skill as a result. We will always remember being amongst a true and humble champion who smiled and laughed with all of us and joined in our games and set out our tatami mats even before most of us had arrived for our class that evening in early March.

We will always remember being amongst a true and humble champion

Ms Maki Tsukada sensei has since retired from the Japanese judo squad and will be working alongside the Japanese Judo Olympic Squad, in the forthcoming Olympic Games. We thank her from the bottom of our hearts for finding the time to be part of our club, and we sincerely wish her well in her work and hope that she will always remember, as all of us at the judo club surely will, the larger-than-life times and laughter, smiles, warmth and ippons we all shared, if only too briefly, in the dojo at ETHOS, Imperial College. Many happy ippons yet to come Tsukada sensei! Sayonara and domo arigato gozaimasu!