Japanese judoka ,Jigoro Kano(right) and Kyuzo Mifune(left) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately in my spare time (well one of the many projects), working on the site for the local (Greater Moncton area) Judo club called “Musa Betsu Kyu”. It is run by Sensei Earl O’Blenis who is an excellent Judo instructor that we’re fortunate to have in the area. If you have a moment please signup for the site and/or Facebook Group and support the club.

The highlights of the site so far are the ability to pay for your monthly club dues online with a single click (for the forgetful you can either set it up as a monthly subscription or one-time payment), as well as two interactive charts; the first being the “Gokyo Tachi Waza” (Judo’s 5 levels of standing techniques) and “Ne Waza” (Judo’s ground grappling/wrestling).

Check out the new website/blog at:

monctonjudo.com

The “Gokyo” chart itself is here:
http://monctonjudo.com/2014/04/23/the-gokyo-of-kodokan-judo/

While the Javascript/CSS code behind it is here. I put everything on JsFiddle because it was meant to be generally available to the public and WordPress forbids FREE hosted accounts from writing plugins/extensions for custom code or features, or, even adding inline Javascript/CSS to posts! So that meant I had to link to it and include a “Back” history link to send viewers back to the main site when then wanted to go back to viewing the main site.

For the Ne Waza chart it was even trickier, where it had to be a private post on our hosted WordPress and not avaiable, I opted to go for the slightly less Mobile-friendly but still usable Image Map approach (with the Hosted Wordpess limitations, it was pretty much the only option that made sense):
http://monctonjudo.com/2014/07/11/the-gokyo-of-ne-waza/

The Martial Arts have been a hobby and philosophical journey of mine for several years. I’m of the strong belief that if you can overcome the obstacles that conquering your physical environment presents as well as the difficulties of training hard, then you can overcome life’s challenges and any other problems that present themselves. Trust me, solving an SQL query optimization problem or finding and fixing some tricky code bugs seem much less daunting than performing a hip throw on a 300+ lbs competitor.

Lastly, I have to mention that Moncton and NB-area readers should stay tuned for the always exciting “Kicks for Cancer” event, this year set for Saturday the 15th of November (2014).

More details on this and other events soon to come, see:
http://convio.cancer.ca/site/TR?fr_id=15382&pg=entry