Penn judo club is on the rise

In a small nook in the back of Pottruck, a new team at Penn is growing slowly but surely.

With international attention on the sport at a high following the Olympic Games, the judo club at Penn is working to gain notoriety and relevance on the university’s sports circuit.

Functionally nonexistent until last year, the club was revived by Wharton sophomore Harry Robinson, who quickly took it upon himself to get to work on attracting new members.

“I was the only member of the club at the beginning of the year,” Robinson said. “So for a while, I was president, vice president, secretary and treasurer.”

Robinson’s first step was to find someone willing to teach the new club. He reached out to his own sensei from a club in Bryn Mawr, Pa., who helped arrange for Will Dampier — who was teaching at the Drexel Judo Club — to come to Penn a couple days a week as well.

“Once I actually had someone teaching, we could start having regular practice,” Robinson said.

Together with Dampier, Robinson quickly got to work, holding open practices and promoting the team on campus. A diverse number of new members from all types of athletic backgrounds showed interest, ranging from practicing judokas to former wrestlers and jiu-jitsu practitioners.

With a legion of new members in place, Robinson quickly ran into another roadblock in his effort to keep the fledgling club afloat: retention.

“About half the people who went to the first practice wouldn’t show up again,” Robinson said. “But that meant that half the people that I pestered into going once would actually stay.

“I got about six people, seven people that way. And then, they got a few friends to show up, and by the middle of the first semester, we had a solid dozen, 15 people at every practice.”

Armed with a solid core of judokas, the club finally began to compete against other schools in the middle of last year, though on-mat success was hard to find at first.

With Robinson and one other teammate being the only club members with black-belt experience, most competitions were focused on giving the newer, less-experienced members on-mat experience rather than gaining podium finishes.

But as time passed, most club members had grown accustomed to the technical aspects of a typical judo match, and the club ended the 2011-12 season on a high note.

As the calendar turned to the 2012-13 season, though, Robinson was forced to face yet another unforeseen challenge: facilities issues.

Deprived of its normal practice space in Hutchinson Gymnasium due to ongoing renovations and asbestos issues, the club was forced to relocate to a small space on the second floor of Pottruck, with Robinson storing necessary equipment in his fraternity house.

“We’ve had a lot more trouble getting practices going,” Robinson said. “We don’t have as much space, but we can expand some more once we get some more attendance.”

Those who have stuck it out during the club’s search for a home have plenty to look forward to, as the Drexel-Army-Navy Tournament looms on the horizon in December.

This year will mark the fifth consecutive year that a Penn contingent will attend the tournament, which is traditionally dominated by the service academies.

With a good showing, perhaps the Penn judokas will be able to get off the mat and thrive.

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