I think it probably has been 2 years now since I last fought in a judo tournament. It was the Great Lakes Judo Championships with I was fighting in the black belt division and frax my collar bone during the match. I ended up finishing the fight and walking away with the gold. However, as soon as I hit the edge of the mat, I was dropped to my knees in pain cause of my injury.
I took those two years off and explored more into the no gi and mma fighting for a while. Two years later and now I am back. My first tournament back is going to be the same one I was injured at, the Great Lakes Judo Championships on OCT 3rd.
I havent prepared for this event at all cause I have been working tourds some grappling tournaments I have coming up. However, I think I will throw the gi back on here and there before the event and just wing it and see how I do.
I need to renew my Judo insc. I was under USJA but havent been since the injury because 1. I havent fought again in judo and 2. they have been dicking me around with paying me back for the cost of the injury. What other judo incs. is good to have?
Unfortunately, they're all crap. The AAU insurance is the most comprehensive and it acts as a primary insurance, but it doesn't cover judo events. As bad as it seems when you're trying to get paid on a claim, the USJA's policy is actually the best of the three.
Do remember that JA insurance, just like JF or JI is secondary, meaning
it kicks in after your primary insurance has paid out all it is going to.
Then there is the $2500 deductable. So you might not have as much
coming as you think if you assumed, as many do, that the insurance
from the judo groups is a major coverage.
I talked to Frank last night and he told me the same thing. Here's the thing, I didn thave any insurance when this happened. I didnt have any for 3 years. I just got it when I started my job a little over a year ago.
AND, this secondary crap is bullshit! They should make you have to compete with it then if already have your own. Cause at that point it's pretty much unless to the fighter and only money to them.
The secondary crap is because nobody could afford a JF, JA, or JI membership if it came with primary medical coverage. Unless you wanted a $5000 or more deductible, or worse.
What Im saying though is why do you HAVE to have it to compete if you already have insurance. That's what I don't understand. If you already have coverage, then the secondary should be optional.
I'm not highly informed, but I thought you just had to have a membership to compete, and not their insurance? I was a JA member the other year and for some deal they were running got the insurance free, but it was optional(or I thought anyway), since it was seperate from the membership.
AAU's insurance covers all it's members in all it's sports. Thus, the judoka, who are a very small number of the overall pool of insured, basically get a cheap ride along with the much lower risk sports AAU offers.
JA, JF, and JA are strictly Judo, and don't have anywhere near the overall membership numbers of AAU.
It's all a matter of relative risk.
I brought up this to the USJI insurance committe a few years ago. The head of the committee looked into it (he was/is a insurance underwriter himself). He said there was no way Judo could get into the same sort of policy with the same company as the AAU.
In fact, all the new regs you see about coaching certs, etc., are basically driven by the insurance companies and the USOC.
The insurance is liability insurance for the people who put on Judo events. Without it, nobody could afford to run them. Well, you CAN get private MA event/dojo insurance, but I don't think most people who run small events could afford it.
Imagine you are running your uninsured shiai. Some idiot does a head dive and becomes a quadrapalegic.
Guess who is going to get sued, whether it's your fault or not?
That's right, the tounament director and everybody else in sight at the shiai.
So this insruance is pretty much not for us as fighters at all but cause the tournament itself needs insurance and cant afford it so they make up all pay for it for them ..... ???