My martials deed has been to try to bring out the best in others. In the most extreme cases, It has been natural for me to want to explain and meet people at the point were they are individually. The fun is not the level or direction practitioner has but the commitment. It”s fun to show out a Hon-kesa gatame to a newbie like anything else, when the inspiration in the person is there.

It”s the same when I teach music. It”s not what you teach but what communications you have. Here I can see the similarities between music and martial arts.I was recently at a clinic (lecture) with a very famous and awesome drummer. He described his development in the same way as a judoka could describe it. In the beginning you fool around and just do all things until you decide. This judo i want to get involved with. Then you go into a practice phase and that means a lot of training,training and more training.

In improvised music so the aim is not to repeat yourselves all the time without acquiring a large vocabulary on the instrument. Of course, as a musician like some kind of phrasing and have a certain timing. That I would also say that a judo / martial artist has. A judoplayer builds up their language to their favorite techniques and timing. This is a certain time of his life to do this. Yet as an elite athlete fails and is injured so wear it even on a musician although he lives clean and pure.

He spoke also about to re-evaluate how he was and how he wanted to sound, and this sounds like the same phase as a judoka go through if there are other ways to do things. Judo notoriously is not primarily about competing without training but focus on body and mind. Music has been and is still a big part of my life but also judo. The exciting thing is the interface between them, which to me is very clear.

I can just see how my own development. From 6-1 kyu, I was like a vacuum cleaner and tried to learn the system as good as possible. What I can see today was that I learned to sort up techniques in groups, which I will now not forget. When I graduated 1-5 dan so it was much up to me and here I see a difference in how I wanted to do things.

Obviously, it does matter what age I was in and I can only tell you what it was / is for me. The determination that the drummer told at the clinic to succeed in some things, I recognized when I graded to 1 dan. I thought about my footsweeps I had to do something different. Every opportunity I got so I stood and filed on the sweeps that needed much timing.

I can say that my drumming got the same treatment as my sweeps. Where I stand today, I still play music and teach but I do also in judo. My understanding of judo is wider than when I graded to 1 dan, but so it with the music. I have had the opportunity to be a referee in judo both national and international. It was a big event for me is when I was selected for the Special Olympics which is a very big handicap competition and at the time went on in Athens.

A big thing for me is that I got the chance to be the leader of the methodology, the new Assistant and club training courses along with some awesome talented colleagues. I think that martial arts is still among the most fun you can keep on doing. It”s still fun to see people get better and that you follow them on their development journey. I am also grateful to got meet and train with good people.

Micael Öberg

Stockholm Judo Dojo