The frustration of combat sports
After outdoor sports, indoor activities were allowed to resume their activity on Wednesday for adults. A recovery conditional on an absence of contact. So recovery certainly, but recovery somewhat frustrating for athletes. Like Denis Codinach, head of the MMA karate mix at the Dojo Brestois, who questions the interest of this return to the gym. “We are still happy to find the rugs again, that’s obvious. But we resume for a month without contact before cutting for the summer. And it remains a mixed recovery: we have students who pass their exams, others who are in professional internship … We will leave with half-groups so it’s really not easy “, blows the Brest coach .
The authorities’ measures prompted the entire team to review their methods. “I had to adapt all my pedagogy, to buy specific equipment to be able to make everyone work,” continues Denis Codinach.
François Brélivet, judo teacher at the Plouzané dojo, also had to adapt to the constraints, by multiplying the stratagems to prevent his students from touching each other. This notably involves the use of rubber bands to reproduce the holds while respecting the distance. The judokas, for their part, regret not being able to practice their activity normally. “The situation is frustrating because judo is above all about contact”, complains one of the licensees. And to this lack of contact is added a more than limited workforce. “Normally, there are about thirty of us on the tatami mat,” laments the teacher.
But this problem is not specific to contact sports, and concern is growing within associations. At the Badminton Club des Manchots de la Rade, in Brest, coach Frédéric Wattebled also recorded a decline in the workforce. “There were about fifteen of us in September. There are only six of us today, ”he notes.
Team sports are starting to get used to
Faced with the same constraints, indoor team sports were also able to resume a semblance of normal activity. The difficulty of adaptation is rather relativized by the head of the women’s sector of Elorn Handball, Jérôme Venzal. Outdoors and by definition without contact for many weeks, amateur handball has become accustomed to this mode of operation. “We hadn’t stopped, so the players had more or less the rhythm. We were used to contactless, we’ve been on it for a while. Now, we try to vary, to integrate reinforcement in our sessions, ”he says.
In Saint-Renan, the volleyball players have also returned to their gymnasium. “It’s complicated to get people back on the road at the end of the season without competition,” said coach Kévin Chantelou. The players, for their part, are rather optimistic. “Club life is resuming. The organization of an internal tournament will do us good, ”smiles Olivier, one of them. Amateur sport therefore resumes an almost normal activity, pending June 30 and the final phase of deconfinement. Finally.
Support a professional editorial staff at the service of Brittany and the Bretons: subscribe from € 1 per month.
I subscribe
