Associate professor, Ph.D. M.V. Gabov
Postgraduate student, honored trainer of Russia R.Z. Valeev
Professor, Ph.D. Yu.G. Martem'yanov
Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk

Keywords: skilled judokas, athletes with hearing impairments, specific gestures, competitive activity.

Introduction. Physical culture, sports and the Olympic movement play important roles and have a significant impact on the socio-cultural, economic and political life of both individual citizens and the country as a whole. People with impairments live in all countries of the world, regardless of their cultural level, social policy and economic development. According to the World Health Organization, the number of impaired people is increasing annually, which is related to environmental pollution and degradation, increasing complexity of production processes and injuries, smoking, alcoholism, drug addiction, fetal growth abnormalities, hereditary and incurable diseases, viral infections, military conflicts and acts of terrorism, a decrease of motor activity, an increase in the number of pharmaceutical substances – and these are not all the factors adversely affecting human health [2, 5].

Owing to the above, the issue of improvement of people’s health and organization of physical culture and sports classes for people with physical and mental disorders is quite urgent in the Russian Federation. Physical culture, sport, health, education and welfare institutions are entrusted to solve this problem. The Federal Law “On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation” (1999) contains a separate article entitled “Organization of physical culture and sports activities with people with impairments”, which states that impaired people’s involvement in physical culture and sport is an indispensable prerequisite of their comprehensive rehabilitation and social integration [4, 6].

Sport for people with impairments is seen as part of the international Olympic movement. Russian athletes participated in the Deaflympics for the first time in 1957 as part of the USSR team, and then in 1993 in the XVII World Summer Deaflympics as an independent team of the Russian Federation. In 1964, a new sport was introduced in the Olympic Games program – judo, and in 1992 women’s judo was added. All this served as an impetus and had a positive impact on the development of judo among athletes with hearing impairments not only in Russia but throughout the world, which made it possible to include judo along with Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling in the program of the Deaflympics [7].

The Deaflympics have been held 22 times since 1924, and the number of participating countries and athletes increases every year. Only 9 countries and 145 athletes took part in the first games in France, and 90 countries took part in the XXII Summer Deaflympics in Bulgaria in 2013 with 2,879 athletes competing. The organization quality of the competitions and the fitness level of athletes has significantly improved. Increasing competition in the international arena makes it necessary to find and employ the full potential of sports science for successful training and performance of athletes with hearing impairments in top-level competitions [4, 7].

Competitions of judokas with hearing impairments are held according to the rules approved by the International Federation. Exceptions are made for some changes of a technical nature related to the specifics of this group of athletes. A fight is operated by judges, and a second also participates in it actively. Only he has the right to communicate with a judoka during a fight, prompt him and give commands on how to behave in various situations of the combat. Currently, skilled judokas with hearing impairments are of approximately the same fitness level. Hence, one of the promising directions in the area of improvement of efficiency of competitive activity is development of special gestures for operational control of actions of a hearing impaired athlete by his second with due regard to his specific features and differences from healthy judokas [1, 3, 6].

The purpose of the research is to develop and determine the effectiveness of specific gestures used in a competitive fight for communication between a second and skilled judokas with hearing impairments.

Research method and organization. The research was conducted at the Department of theory and methodology of wrestling of Ural State University of Physical Culture, the private health institution – “Metallurg-Magnitogorsk” sports club, the municipal institution “Children and Youth Sports School №8” of Magnitogorsk. The following research methods were employed: study of scientific and methodological literature, pedagogical observation, educational experiment, analysis of competitive activity. 30 skilled athletes with hearing impairments specializing in judo were involved in the research.

Research results and discussion. Sports movement of people with impairments started to develop in the Russian Federation relatively recently, but thanks to the gained experience and the government support it becomes more and more significant every year and helps honorably represent Russian athletes at international competitions. At present, there is quite an acute problem of training of not only judokas with hearing impairments, but also training staff. A trainer should possess certain competences and remember that hearing impairment limits the information intake, distorts its content and perception, creates communication difficulties, complicates conditions of psychomotor development, evokes negative emotions and stressful experiences, makes spatial orientation more difficult, impedes motor skills formation, leads to a decrease in motor and cognitive activity, has a negative impact on the development of perception, thinking and memory. Mental and thinking processes of people with hearing impairments are characterized by instability and rapid fatigability.

Sign language is one of the main tools for organizing and managing the training process of judokas with hearing impairments. But in the conditions of competitive activity along with the sign language used to communicate with hearing-impaired judokas, an important role is played by specific gestures that are jointly developed by a trainer and an athlete. These gestures are especially important when the trainer acts as a second to the athlete. Specially designed gestures that are familiar only to the trainer and the athlete make it possible to manage the course of a competitive fight in a timely manner. In the course of wrestling the trainer signals to the judoka with specific gestures that provide enable the latter to quickly respond to the changing situation.

A judoka with hearing impairments in the conditions of extreme activity of a competitive fight is not capable of an adequate assessment of the situation due to his physical, physiological and psychological characteristics, so it takes him much more time than physically healthy wrestles to respond and make a right decision. Specific gestures provide a judoka a signal to certain actions: to increase his activity, to impose power pressure on the opponent or to adopt a high guard, to achieve a desired grip and to perform a specific technique. This enables the wrestler to assess the current situation, rightly use the remaining time, quickly adjust and change the use of both technical and tactical actions and the tactics of the entire fight, and as a result win a particular combat and the competition as a whole.

During the experimental work we developed specific gestures that a second makes to an athlete during a competitive fight. The specific gestures were divided into three groups:

1. A group of gestures the purpose of which is using certain positions, distances, movements and grips by judokas during a fight.

2. A group of gestures associated with the performance of technical and tactical actions in standing and lying positions, holds, submission and chocking techniques.

3. A group of specific gestures determining and adjusting the tactics of a competitive fight by judokas with hearing impairments.

Judokas of the experimental group learned the gestures we had developed and used them in the course of competitive activity simulation as well as during mock, training and competitive fights. The athletes learned to respond to commands of their seconds during breaks in fights initiated by judges to adjust the outfit, move from the edge of the mat to its middle, get from a lying position to a standing one and other unplanned situations. Then the judokas learnt to execute the commands right in the course of a fight during maneuvering, moving, performing holds in standing and lying positions.

Pedagogical observation of competitive activity indicated statistically significant changes in the index of reliability of offensive actions while standing in the experimental group. Before the experiment it was 0.88 + 0.48 c.u., and after it – 1.64 + 0.42 c.u. (p<0.05). The value of the index of reliability of offensive actions in the lying position was 0.3 + 0.12 c.u. before the experiment and 0.41 + 0.16 c.u. (p<0.05) after it. This suggests that the wrestlers performed technical and tactical actions in standing and lying positions that were more often assessed by judges in case of fewer attempts.

Positive statistically significant changes also took place in the indices of reliability of defensive actions. In the standing position it was 6.54 + 0.84 c.u. before the experiment, and 7.22 + 0.38 c.u. (p<0.05) after it. In the lying position it was 7.22 + 1.2 and 8.46 + 1.2 c.u. (p<0,05), respectively. This indicates that after the educational experiment the judokas lost fewer assessed technical and tactical actions in standing and lying positions.

The effectiveness of competitive activity was also manifested in the fact that the athletes of the experimental group won higher places in competitions. Thus, the place won in the competition by the judokas of the experimental group before the experiment was 7.15 + 2.75 c.u., and after – 4.30 + 2.86 c.u. (p<0.05). The wrestlers of the control group also had indices of reliability of offensive and defensive actions in standing and lying positions as well as places won in competitions improved, but the changes were insignificant (p>0.05).

Conclusions. At the present stage skilled judokas with hearing impairments have approximately the same fitness level, and development of specific gestures is one of the most promising ways of increasing the efficiency of competitive activity. Thanks to specially designed gestures trainers can give signals and instructions while seconding for quick correction and changing of technical and tactical actions, fighting style and tactics in terms of competitive activity. We have designed special gestures and proved the efficiency of using them in competitive conditions. This is shown in the improvement in reliability of offensive and defensive actions of a judoka in the standing and lying positions, and in the place won in the competition.

References

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Corresponding author: ManBorba@yandex.ru