As John Saylor once described the rules of freestyle judo; “This is judo the way it ought to be done.” This phrase was repeated by many people over and over all day at the tournament. It was really a lot of fun with skillful, aggressive judo.NATIONAL AAU FREESTYLE JUDO CHAMPIONSHIPS FreeStyle JudoThe new IJF judo rules don’t affect freestyle judo (or AAU Judo in general for that matter) and it showed in the aggressive action throughout the tournament. It was good to see was a good cross-section of judo athletes, Brazilian jujitsu athletes, wrestlers and submission grapplers who all competed under a common set of rules that didn’t favor anyone. One coach came up to me after the tournament and said; “I love these rules!”