European Junior Committee
Report on the last International three-day seminar“Rules of Kudo I: Strategy and Tactics of competition fight”
June 19-21, 2024, Malta

From 19th to 21nd of June Kudo Malta hosted an international three-day seminar “Rules of Kudo I: Strategyand Tactics of competition fight” with a series of theoretical and practical classes for athletes of all juniorcategories – U9, U11, U13 and U16. About 60 people from 4 countries took part in it (Malta, Italy, Lithuaniaand Ukraine).
All sessions were led by Kudo Malta team coaches Dilyara Vakhitova (II dan), Alexey Matveev (II dan) andAlexander Zhuravlev (I dan). The event was also attended by instructors from the national teams of eachcountry – Ilaria Agresta & Paolo Meale (Italy), Vilius Tarasevičius (Lithuania) and Anastasia Kovalenko(Ukraine).
The 1-st and 3-rd days of the seminar were divided into two separate trainings for the different age groups:
U9 + U11 and U13 + U16, so the theoretical part and practical tasks were targeted within the special rulesetof the athletes. And the 2-nd day became common for all categories of athletes and it was based on working
out sparring tasks.

19-th of June, Wednesday
On the first day, the training began with a short general warm-up, and then moved on to the theoretical
block, where they made a brief overview of the rules and discussed the main ways to score a point for eachage group of athletes. Further, the athletes were divided into pairs, where they practiced a number ofexercises in each of the 4 ways to score a point in junior categories:– Precise kick to the open head area;– Strike that caused damage;– A continuous attack;– Takedown and ‘kime’.

20-th of June, Thursday
On the second training day we combined all 4 age categories of athletes and after an intensive warm-up, weimmediately moved on to practical work, where we worked out the tasks from the previous day in practice,
shifting them to real situations from the fights and separately paid attention to exercises on:– Practicing concentration in a fight;– How to see and use a moment to get a score. Timing and reaction exercises;– How to create a moment to score a point by yourself – a provocation, pulling opponent towards you andmake a counterattack.

21-th of June, Friday
The final third day of the training camp was again divided into 2 separate training sessions by age groups, ason the first day.
We started both sessions with brief overview of Kudo ruleset within age categories again and discussed
allowed and prohibited techniques and then explained how to choose the right tactics for the fight, how toadapt to the changing pattern of the fight and how to create your own recipe for winning a Kudo fight.
After the theoretical block and warm-up, the athletes were divided into pairs and moved on to game tasks,
where was a lot of work on movement, footwork, pressure, work as the first and second number against an
aggressive opponent, instant role switching by command, adaptation to changing pattern of the fight. Main
practical workout blocks:– Switching between fighting styles depending on the course of the fight;– Work as the first number and an aggressive manner of fighting. Working as the second number underpressure against an aggressive opponent (interrupting the attack, getting the advantage);– Imposing your strengths on your opponent in a fight (how to act when the fight is not in your favor, planA/plan B);– Perfect combination in Kudo, taking into account the specific rules of age groups (standing up, clinch,
takedown + kime and also submissions specifically for U16 age group). Each athlete should create ideal
combination by himself using his strong sides and combinations.

Resume:
The first tactical elements have already been tested by athletes at the Malta Kudo Open Junior Summer Cup
2024 tournament.
We expect to see even more results at the next tournaments of the first half of the year of the upcoming
2024/2025 sports season.