finger injuries in winter

I haven't really been doing much today as I am just relaxing the last few days before the nationals this weekend. I am really looking forward to competing as I have had really good training and preparation due to the fact of me being in brazil recently,

it is now coming into winter in australia and this is the season where your fingers really cop a beating. Winter here is rather cold and due to the amount of grip fighting in judo it is crucial to make sure your fingers are warm before training.

I thought I would post some strategies I employ to make sure my fingers don't get injured in the winter time.

It is always important to make sure your fingernails are short, this is to protect them from getting ripped of during grip fighting as well as preventing you from accidently scratching your fellow competitors.

On the way to training I make sure I put on a nice warm pair of gloves. Then by the time I get to training my fingers are pretty warm.

Lastly I always tape my fingers and in some cases I buddy tape them to stop them getting stuck in my opponents gi while grip fighting.

I'm a firm believer in scheduling randori (fighting) early in a session and then complete a technical session afterwards, but in winter I always schedule randori to be later on in the session to make sure everyone's fingers are warm.

another good strategy to employ in winter time is to encourage less grip fighting. I try to get the younger students to adopt one of jigoro kanos fundamental ideas of using your opponents grip against them opposed to breaking grips.