The culmination of the CJBBA Chicago Open and Project 2024 weekend finally came to a close on February 29th with Jimmy Pedro leading a 2-day training camp for our Senior and Junior classes at Tohkon Judo Academy. Sensei Pedro is 2x Olympic Bronze medalist, World Champion and the most successful coach in US Judo History. He was the driving force behind Kayla Harrison, Ronda Rousey, Marti Malloy and Travis Stevens.
Sensei led us through his gripping strategies, his turnovers, his tokui waza (taiotoshi), his "Split the leg" pass, his situational randoris and his visualization methods. Over the course of the 2 days, there were probably 60 people on the mat and we enjoyed his insights into how he trained his athletes to win and the importance of visualizaton. And of course in true, judo fashion, we took him out to a feast at Sun Wah BBQ. It was an amazing experience and we look forward to seeing him again soon.