-
UCF Study: Judo May Help Health, Social Interaction of Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder
UCF (the University of Central Florida) have confirmed what we really already knew: Judo may help people with ASD to function better in society. Read their article here!
-
EOSN (SNJU 2021 event, Ireland) is now CANCELED
-
Our Technical Director and his uke are European Kata Champions!
This is the official EJU aftermovie of the EJU European Kata Championships. The SNJU Technical Director Tycho van der Werff (yondan) and his uke, David Lefevere (nidan) became first in Katame-no-Kata!
If you want to see what that looks like: This is their winning performance.
-
SNJU Board Members receive TWO awards
This weekend during the EJU European Judo Championships, the EJU Social Inclusion Award was granted to our Technical Director Tycho van der Werff (the 2019 award) and IK Sodra, the judo club of SNJU President Tomas Rundqvist (the 2020 award). SNJU is proud to have this important prize awarded to two of our board members, and it will certainly encourage us to keep up our work in the progression of Special Needs Judo. -
Online Inclusive Judo Training (11/04)
Sunday April 11th, James Mulroy and Cecilia Evenblij (SNJU board members) 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. -
Christmas Greetings 2020
Please enjoy Christmas Greetings from Italian members and friends
The board of the SNJU would like to wish all our members, friends, sponsors, volunteers, officials, coaches and our amazing athletes a Very Special and Safe Christmas and New Year
2020 was an extremely challenging year for everyone. A year that saw many of our tournaments, seminars, courses and trainings being cancelled or postponed.
We foresee these challenging times continuing in the first half of 2021 but rest assure we are still working hard in the background preparing for events, projects and trainings once some normality has returned to the world.
The SNJU continues to be a progressive force in the development of worldwide SN/Adaptive judo. 2020 saw our membership grow again with many new countries and federations becoming members. We truly believe together we can do more!
2020 started off well for the SNJU as we launched our European Erasmus Project “Autjudo” with our research partners from Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland. This project will explore the benefits of judo for people with autism and other disabilities. The project will run for three years and will produce an International Adapted Judo Best Practice Handbook as well as scientific findings and papers relating to the benefits of judo for people with autism.
Competition Opportunities: Tournaments opportunities were nonexistence for most of the year. Many of our planned major tournaments were postponed or cancelled including the World SN Judo Games & BENG in the Netherlands, The Swiss SN Open and Erasmus Conference in Uster, Switzerland and the European SN Games in Ireland.
The Swiss SN Open and Conference has been rescheduled for June 2021 and the European SN Games have been also rescheduled for October 2021. Further details will follow in the New Year.
Development courses: Our online courses were incredibly busy throughout 2020 as many took to online learning during their imposed spare time. Our Adaptive Coaching Course was by far the busiest with a large number of coaches from all over the world signing up to learn a bit more about adaptive judo. This of course is a very positive development because as the popularity and demand for adaptive judo grows worldwide so does the need for knowledgeable and enthusiastic coaches.
We approach 2021 with the same enthusiasm and drive as planned for in 2020 and aim to keep moving forward.
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 2021.
The SNJU Team
Tomas, James, Tycho, Cilia, Bob
-
AutJudo in Barcelona!
Meet the group of prof. José Morales Aznar, performing Judo in COVID-19 protective gear.
-
Introducing JUDO CLUB ŽELEZNIČAR MARIBOR Slovenia
As part of our Special Features section, we would like to introduce Judo Club Zeleznicar Maribor, Slovenia. This club is a recent and welcomed addition to the SNJU family; this is their story.
Judo club Želežničar Maribor is one of the oldest judo clubs of Slovenia. We are located in the second biggest city, the city of Maribor. Since our founding in 1954 we have produced a number of top fighters – sportsmen, who achieved the highest domestic and international successes. The name of the club has been embeded in the minds of judoists ever since. We have been proud of our members’ achievements, have taken their loses with dignity and learned from their mistakes.
The club performes judo in various age groups, i. e. pre-school judo group, U10 judo group, U12 judo group (girls and boys), U14 judo group (girls and boys), U18 judo group and recreational group for adults. In 2019 we’ve established an inclusive judo group for children and adolescents and have successfully performed it ever since.
There have been people with specific impairments included in our regular programmes up until 2019, but since then they are participating workout in a secluded group, so that children with mental impairment (such as autism, Down syndrome) and other impairments (cerebral palsy) can participate. They wouldn’t be able to take place in judo training otherwise.
The goal of the inclusion group is to be able to allow every individual to develope and performe to his best abbility possible and to achieve success, gain confindence and feel accepted as a part of a group. It is our endevour to make children with impairments feel equal amongst peers, so socialising in group practice and other club activities and events is of essential meaning. Individuals, that are able to take part in regular practice despite of their impairment are included in regular training acitivities. Therefore, individuals have been included in the pre-school judo group and other age groups. For instance, in the recreational group for adults a judo master II. dan, who was totally blinded by disease, participates and it is a great honour for us to be able to practice by his side. We are participating annualy in the national inclusive judo competition and organise tournaments within the club.
We are extremely proud that our non-inclusive members have accepted the group as equal and are willing to participate in the group’s trainings to help out. Every person that steps onto our club’s tatami is an important part of the club chain and equaly significant. There is a common spirit of respect, help, co-operation, support and genuine joy about our members’ achievements that dominates our club.
-
Open letter from the SNJU Board
-
SNJU Membership
Dear Valued Members & Friends,
The SNJU are now moving into our fifth year in operation and what an amazing journey it has been so far.
Our membership continues to grow and currently stands at 58 different bodies spanning 29 countries worldwide. This includes 6 national federations, 18 organisations and 34 clubs. This is incredible for the development and promotion of special needs judo and it is our plan to keep moving in this positive direction.
Membership to the SNJU is renewable each year and is due on the 1st April 2020. We invite all our current members and all new members to join us for the coming years. There is a small administration fee of just €20 which can be paid through our website at https://snju.org/product/snju-membership-renewal/ . An undated membership certificate will be issued once payment is received. As we are a non-profit organisation and run by volunteers, any proceeds collected will be used to further promote and develop SN Judo worldwide.
In addition to the increasing membership, we have also had great success in the number of SNJU supported events over the past year and some really exciting events coming up this year.
Our main supported events are the World SN Judo Games & BENG Tournament in Beverwijk, Netherlands 3 – 5th April, The Swedish SN Judo Open, Lindsburg 21st May, Swiss SN Championships, Uster 18– 20th June and the European SN Open in Ireland 15-18th October. Our new international online SN event calendar is now available on our website https://snju.org/calendar/. If you would like anything added to the calendar please forward the details and we’ll add it.
The SNJU team were also the main contributors to last year’s EJU Festival in Croatia where Special needs judo was a topic for the first time ever. It is planned to further develop our presence at this year’s event in June.
Also in the past year the SNJU team have collaborated with the EU and a number of partner countries to develop an Erasmus+ research project that aims to research the positive effects the sport of judo has for people with autism. This is a three year project and you can follow its progress from here http://recerca.blanquerna.edu/autjudo/
Following the success of our on-line SN referee development programme last year, we have recently launched our new on-line SN coaching programme. More information and registration can be found here https://snju.org/coaching-and-training-course/
And finally we would like to thank you all for your continued support and we look forward to seeing and working with you all at some stage in the future. If any of our members would like to hold/host an event or workshop and would like assistance please do get in touch as we have a number of very experienced experts only too willing to help. Remember:
Together we can do more.
