Contents
The eight themes of judo
Paak renders judo as (age band × theme). The eight themes come from the sport's own structure — the federal teaching method and Kodokan pedagogy, not a generic template:
| Theme | What it trains |
|---|---|
| Ukemi & breakfalls | The four falls — back, side, front, forward-rolling — the belt-examined safety base. See Throws & breakfalls. |
| Movement & tai-sabaki | Posture (shizei), displacement (shintai, tsugi-ashi / ayumi-ashi), body turning — the motor base the federal method teaches as its own young-band block. |
| Nage-waza | Throwing: uchi-komi, nage-komi, the entry curriculum, the Gokyo families. |
| Ne-waza | The ground: pins, turnovers, escapes, transitions — submissions only where age permits. See Ne-waza. |
| Kumi-kata | Gripping and the grip battle — the opening game. See Grip fighting & tactics. |
| Situational randori | Randori under constraint (grip, technique, score situation) — never scored as a shiai. |
| Kata & forms | Segmentation, uke/tori role work, criteria-focused repetition. See Kata & judging. |
| Physical | Judo's own conditioning: grip strength, pull-push patterns, tumbling agility, gentle isometric neck work. |
Reishiki (the salute, etiquette) is examined in the federal progression but is not a drill theme: no source publishes drillable etiquette content of its own — it lives in the coaching points of every drill (salute, respect, control of the partner).
The outline: warm-up, two mains, a situational randori
The form Paak's generator reproduces: a warm-up without high intensity (ukemi, movement, gentle conditioning), two mains on the chosen theme, a situational randori applying the day's behaviour under real opposition, a cool-down. Minute counts are a coach's choice; what each block contains traces to the published canon.
| Block | ~ min | Traced content |
|---|---|---|
| Warm-up | 10 | Ukemi (always), tai-sabaki movement, agility — never high intensity |
| Main 1 | 15 | The day's theme in cooperative form — static then moving uchi-komi, technique set down |
| Main 2 | 15 | The same theme toward graded opposition — nage-komi, kakari-geiko, yaku-soku-geiko |
| Situational randori | 15 | The constraint that rewards the day's behaviour (imposed grip, imposed family, score situation) — never scored as a shiai |
| Cool-down | 5 | Gentle mobility, stretching, the salute |
The sequencing rule: the fall before the throw
The France Judo progression examines ukemi belt by belt before the corresponding throws, and tournament data says why: the standing phase injures (more injuries in tachi-waza than in ne-waza), and in under-15s fractures — clavicle first — dominate. Concretely: a nage-waza main is scheduled after a warm-up that contained the worked family's ukemi. O-goshi waits for mae-mawari-ukemi; o-soto-gari waits for ushiro-ukemi. Paak's generator encodes this: the judo warm-up draws from the ukemi theme first.
Safety woven into the outline
| Point | The rule / the evidence |
|---|---|
| The technique gate | No shime/kansetsu before cadet (FR) or U18 (CH/DE); no sutemi/makikomi for the young — see Age groups & technique gates. |
| The head | Loss of consciousness = day over, at every age; concussion suspicion = immediate matte; head alone on the mat = direct hansoku-make for the named youth categories (France Judo arbitrage 2025/2026). |
| Young necks | Developing brain, weaker neck, proportionally heavier head: neck work in gentle isometrics only, never a loaded bridge for the young. |
| Weight | In under-15s, losing more than 5 % of body weight OR being overweight are each documented injury risk factors — no youth weight-cutting, never a numeric loss target. |
| The elbow | Open growth plates through adolescence: cadet armlock work stays slow, controlled, submission announced. |
| The mat | The tatami and the safety area are judo's protective equipment — no helmet, no pads: protection is the learned fall, the mat, and the rules. |
Dosage per band
At u9, everything is play: falling games, grip games, turnovers, courses — animation before fine technique, and a ground game with no submissions at all. At u13, the foundations: ashi-waza as the leading family, uchi-komi becoming nage-komi, kumi-kata taught within its youth bounds. At u17, the gate opens properly (cadet), the standing-to-ground seam settles in, 2025 refereeing literacy is trained in practice shiai. At sen, the whole curriculum — randori fed by kakari-geiko and yaku-soku-geiko, kata as a discipline, and for veterans the federal adaptations (shortened contests, strangles forbidden from 60 in competition).
FAQ
Why a situational randori rather than a practice shiai?
How much ukemi per session?
Does kata belong in an ordinary session?
Sources
The France Judo teaching method and Kodokan pedagogy (uchi-komi → nage-komi → kakari-geiko → yaku-soku-geiko → randori) for the named forms; France Judo — progression and national arbitrage 2025/2026 (belt-examined ukemi, head rules, technique gates); IJF — Contest Rules of 22 February 2025; the corpus's medical literature (BJSM systematic review 2013, BJSM review 2018, 2023 tournament review, the French paediatric series) for the numbered evidence. Paak judo corpus, files 00 (the eight themes), 03 (technique and pedagogy) and 05 (sport science) — verified September 2026. No federation publishes a turnkey minuted session: the split is a coach's choice.