Tip 10. Have big goals

When Inoue first fought the incredible Shinichi Shinohara in the final of the 1998 All Japan Championships he was taken completely off guard by the sheer power of his opponent. As he said to us, ‘From the time I started judo till the day I retired, Shinohara is the only judo player I found to be such a formidable opponent’. Inoue could do nothing to combat Shinohara and was easily defeated.

It is how Inoue dealt with this defeat that is interesting. He went away and spent day after day practising; trying to find a way to one day beat Shinohara. After three years of training Inoue eventually did it, beating Shinohara in the 2001 All Japan Championships final. For Inoue the contribution having Shinohara as an adversary made to his own judo is clear, ‘I think it was because I pursued a player such as Shinohara so closely, that I won the All Japan Championships, World Championships, and the Olympics’.

The moral here is clear; if you ever come up against an opponent who you feel that you’ll never be able to beat, just think of that 1998 All Japan Championship final when Inoue first faced Shinohara.