Approximately a year ago received a Phone call from a man who wants his children to train in a special Needs judo Group. After a few weeks he said he would like to talk to me, so he made an appointment. During this meeting he explained to me that he was suffering from terrible disease called MS and wanted some advice from me.

People who know me understand why, I have also a chronicle deceased called Parkinson.

Danny wanted to know all kinds of things, like how to continue to work and what to do if this was not possible anymore. How my wife and kids have respond to my disease and how to deal with it. But above all he wanted to know how to stay healthy, because he had heard that it was 10 years ago that I was confronted with this conical disease.

He was wondering how I managed to stay apparently to be so physical fit,

I told him that it is not going to be easy for the future, of course MS is a different disease than Parkinson. By Parkinson they know the cause and what to do to support you with medication and in daily life, by MS however they still don't have a clue what's the course.

On the other hand the medication that I use is only supporting and not solving the problem.

No stay in shape you have to work twice as hard as somebody who's healthy enough.

I have to bike every day at last 10 minutes, once a week I've a work out from a skillful masseur, two times a week still try to train my judo skills.

Sometimes I'm so tired I hardly can undress myself after training, mostly one of the judokas help me to take off my judo jacket. But I don't complain I'm still alive and kicking.

Then he told me that he was 1th Kyu and despite his illness to try to obtain his Dan grade and perhaps go even farther and become a good teacher in art of judo.

Well, I advised him to find a good partner (UKE) and to train Naga-no-kata, Naga-waza and

Ne-waza, once a week for about a year and after a year of training we are able to see if he was ready to do an exam.

Multiple sclerosis or MS is a disease that affects the brain and spinal cord resulting in loss of muscle control, vision, balance, and sensation (such as numbness). With MS, the nerves of the brain and spinal cord are damaged by one's own immune system. Thus, the condition is called an autoimmune disease.

Autoimmune diseases are those whereby the body's immune system, which normally targets and destroys substances foreign to the body such as bacteria, mistakenly attacks normal tissues. In MS, the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord, the two components of the central nervous system. Other autoimmune diseases include lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

The central nervous system is made up of nerves that act as the body's messenger system. Each nerve is covered by a fatty substance called myelin, which insulates the nerves and helps in the transmission of nerve impulses, or messages, between the brain and other parts of the body. These messages control muscle movements, such as walking and talking.

See a visual explanation 

Because Danny did a lot of voluntary work for the Dutch judo federation district Noord Holland I could easily nominate him for a special promotion.

But he didn´t want that, all he wanted was to do an adjusted exam in face of JBN NH district grade commission.

So we are practicing for some time and there are several conditions to do a proper exam.

The first thing we have to deal with is that Danny was slowly but steady lose his strength and ability to move around easily.

But then again we know that even it cost a lot of energy to train your body, it brings your conditional benefits also.

We know that MS patients function physically on their best when they have found a balance in rest/relaxation and physical exertion/strain.

A lot of literature about MS contends that chronically fatigue phenomena / symptoms are a mental state of mind.

I don’t know if this is true as Parkinson patient I know that training very hard (till you’re almost come to the point of exhaustion) is no option.

I tried that several times but it doesn’t work.

But what I do know is training without stress than we are better functioning both mental as physically, so I started to pick-up my tai chi and swim and spin on my home trainer instead of weightlifting. 

Fact is, even when we create the ideal situation during the exam for Danny, he can endure for 10 á 15 minutes, after that he has to recuperate for 15 á 20 minutes. Get some energy soda or dextrose when the session was very intense he might even lie down for a while.

So for the first Dan exam, we agree that the exam will be in 3 parts where this candidate doesn’t go all the way but perform on 80% of his ability. In this matter it is important that Uke is aware of his key role of helping Tori to perform his techniques properly.

Uke’s strength/power and movement must be a contribution to the performing of Tori.

For instance Uke push forward to make it easier for Tori to perform Ippon-seoi-nage, instead of Tori is pulling Uke forwards.

This is an standing example but it can be done in Ne-waza also.

This is a good way to help Tori to keep his energy level, during the exam.

The exam application was executed in a normal way with the attachment of a written application of the candidate.

The location of the exam was in our own dojo, the district grade committee had approved that Tycho van der Werff and I were entitled to subject to the examination

1.        First 3 series Naga-no-kata with an adjusted Kata-guruma (on the

          knees) and in  slower tempo.

2.        15 minutes recuperation

3.        10-15 minutes Randori starting Tachi-waza en ending with Ne-waza

4.        15 minutes recuperation

5.        Ne-waza kata both left and right preformed (own piece of work

          which will be offered to the Dan grade committee as an essay)

6.        The results of the exam

Danny preformed in his own tempo a good exam.

On Monday evening he was doing his Naga-no-kata so intense that we decided to leave it for today and asked him to the rest of the exam on Wednesday.

Despite the fact he was tense before the exam his preformance of naga-waza and ne-waza was even better than we seen on the Monday before.

The results:

Naga-no Kata was worth an 7

Naga Waza including Renraku-and Kaeshi-waza was worth an 7,5

Ne-waza including kansetsu-waza and shime-waza was an 8

The past year despite the progression in his illness, many hours of training has been done and this week Danny succeeds in reaching his first goal, the black belt was his.

This is an official Dutch judo Federation grade and we are proud to have trained with Danny and advising him in a final touch of the judo skills he needed

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