Ahcène Goudjil – In the Beginning was Teaching

23/04/2025

Ahcène Goudjil, born on 22 February 1968 in Argenteuil (France), is one of the founding teachers we meet when we delve a little deeper into the Clarisse Agbégnénou phenomenon. The one who was in the coaching chair during the (brief) seasons at the national level of the future six-time world champion. This was the case, for example, at the French championships in Montpellier in November 2012. In addition to the emergence of seventeen-year-old Amandine Buchard and the first of Anne-Fatoumata M’Baïro‘s nine national medals to date, the competition confirmed in thunderous fashion that the Argenteuil U63kg champion, who had already won the Tokyo Grand Slam in 2010 (at just eighteen!), had not a second to lose at this level. A protective coach, without falling into the trap of Bentham’s panopticon, Ahcène Goudjil was able to find the right carburation to allow his diamond to gradually find her marks in the federal arena, before seeing her join the RSC Champigny after the Rio Games and gradually build the system that suits her best… Nearly ten years have passed and the man is still as interesting when it comes to talking about the big things in life as he is when it comes to the minutiae of the discipline. All the more reason to listen to him. – JudoAKD#036.

A French version of this interview can be found here.

*A few tips between two randoris during the international training camp in Casteldefells (Spain), a month before the Rio Olympics. ©Anthony Diao/JudoAKD*

How did you get into judo?

I was nine years old and I didn’t know anything about that sport when I signed up.

How did that happen?

It was a poster of two people fighting that made me ask my parents to sign me up. At first it was just my older brother and I who were signed up by our parents, but later my two younger brothers asked to join as well. The gym was just down the road from where we lived in the ZUP of Argenteuil, so it was very practical!

Why did you enjoy it?

It was the first medals that got me hooked. At first it was great because all my friends had signed up for this new sport that had just arrived in our neighbourhood. Then, little by little, a lot of them stopped.

Yes, it’s often like that…

My brothers and I continued until Serge Pintos, the technical director of the club, left. He was a passionate judoist and a company director who had to move to Senegal for work from 1984 to 2014. He now lives on the outskirts of Montpellier… When he left the club, we were a bit orphaned. It was my aunts – who weren’t judokas! – who accompanied me to the various French cadet, junior and senior championships, both national and FSGT… To give you another idea of the « orphaned » and therefore VERY amateur side of my approach towards judo, I was always accompanied by my aunts during the French Excellence Championships – the current First Division – when I was still a junior…

Go on, tell us about it…

That day, in March 1988, I started to laugh at the sight of a man sitting next to me, eating baby food while I was enjoying my meat sandwich made by my mother and my can of Coke! This man, whom I didn’t know and who was in the same weight category as me, had already won an Olympic medal in Los Angeles and, although he was bronze medallist at the French Championships, he went on to win the Olympic title a few months later in Seoul. This man was Marc Alexandre and I didn’t know who he was…

What did you do at these 1988 French Championships?

I lost in the first round, but I was proud to see my name on the scoreboard at the emblematic Pierre de Coubertin gymnasium, where the first World Judo Championships were held in France.

*An evening training session at the Institut du judo with Paco Legrand. ©Laëtitia Cabanne/JudoAKD*

Is what you liked most about the sport when you started still what you like most today?

When I started I liked the game the most. Taking the other person down, scoring ippon and preferably in a standing position. I loved fights where the rules were set and you had to use tactics to trap the other person. I fought a lot with feeling, reaction and movement. I loved to move. Nowadays I don’t train much because I devote all my time to training others. But yes, the driving force is still the game. Tricking others, with a sharper, more developed sense of tactics and therefore much greater efficiency.

What were the stages in your understanding of this activity? Was it a matter of meetings, discussions… questioning, perhaps?

The first step was when I joined the ACBB (Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt) in 1989. I was twenty-one. That year I beat Alain Arnault, the French junior champion, who was at ACBB, in the semi-finals of the FSGT French championships. In Argenteuil, my rival club, there was a certain René Rambier, the director of the French teams, and it was one of his rivals who advised me to join the club where he used to train and who spoke to the manager at the time, Jean-Pierre Gibert.

What did you discover when you joined the ACBB?

I discovered not only what it was like to be at the top level, the morning sessions, the training on the ground – although I still didn’t like it – but also that there were lots of competitions all over France where we could compete. It was a real discovery for me, who had never done any individual competitions apart from the official ones! I got to know the federation, the French champions, the INSEP, the top clubs…

What happened next?

After leaving the ACBB, I continued to work for the city as a sports educator for another ten years. It was also a great learning experience because I worked every Wednesday morning and during the school holidays with people like Josianne Tripet, a member of the French national team in the 70s and 80s, Josefina Homminga, a senior European medallist for the Netherlands in 1977 I think [and 1979, ed.], Simon Culioli, a technical manager for Hauts-de-Seine, and Baptiste Leroy, a top-level athlete and director of the French men’s teams for the Paris 2024 Games.

What was the next step?

The second step, and certainly the most important, gave me a more scientific understanding of judo. It was meeting a man called Dominique Thabot, my teacher at university. He had been French university champion and technical director of the Oise region for a season. Fortunately for me, he preferred to remain a physical education teacher. So he went to teach at STAPS in Paris 10 Nanterre. He was close to us. So close, in fact, that one day, when we were about to compete in the French university sambo championships in Nice, I asked him if he could come with me to my girlfriend’s house to ask her parents for permission to organise a party at her house after the French championships.

That’s funny…

In fact, there was always a great atmosphere at the French university championships. The stakes were completely set aside in favour of the pleasure of competing together. It was all about the people. I was as carefree and successful as I was in my younger days as a cadet and junior, when I didn’t have anyone to accompany me!

What did you learn from him?

He taught me kumikata, opening, tactics, and also the importance of nutrition, physical preparation, biomechanics… It was then that I started my subscription to the magazine Sport et Vie, which lasted for many years. I had finally understood that to be competitive in judo, you have to master the five spokes of the performance wheel… But it took years of learning and practice for all this to sink in. Obviously, it was a bit too late for me as an athlete to benefit from it. It’s more as a coach that it’s served me well.

*On the road to the 2015 European Games in Baku with Clarisse Agbégnénou ©Archives Judo Club Escales Argenteuil/JudoAKD*

You have already mentioned these five spokes of the wheel of performance during an international training camp in Spain in 2016, when I was writing about Clarisse Agbégnénou’s first Olympic summer for the French bimonthly magazine L’Esprit du judo. Can you tell us again what it’s all about?

The five spokes of the performance wheel are technique and technical-tactical schemes, physical preparation, nutrition or a healthy lifestyle, mental preparation and/or well-being – you feel good on the mat when you feel good in life -, social and family environment and listening.

You have played a major role in Clarisse Agbégnénou’s career. How did you meet her? Why her and why you? The astronaut Thomas Pesquet‘s first judo teacher told me that he, the teacher, was proud to have crossed paths with this particular student. Is Clarisse one of those students who sometimes reveal their teacher?

I first met Clarisse when she met a pupil of mine, Lucie Perrot, in the final of the U14 Coupe Île-de-France. I thought Clarisse was a bit of a mess, but very competitive. In fact, it was the only match Lucie didn’t win by ippon!
Clarisse and Lucie knew each other because they went to the same primary school in Asnières. Then I met Clarisse again at Pôle France in Orléans, where she was staying with Lucie. I went to Orléans every two weeks with some experienced athletes from Argenteuil, so I could follow my athletes from the pole. After a few friendly exchanges, Clarisse asked me one day if she could join us in Argenteuil. We even had a training session together before she left for the European Cadet Championships, because she was sure she would come to the club. But she was only fifteen and her parents didn’t want her to leave her club at that age. They felt it was too early for a change, which I completely understood.

And yet she came in the end…

Yes, because the following year, still a boarding student at Pôle d’Orléans, she came back. I told her that her parents should call me, and they did! So we all had dinner together, her family and me, at Lucie’s parents’ house in Argenteuil. And at the end of the meal, her father gave her the go-ahead to come to Argenteuil.

There must have been a lot of people who wanted her to come…

And how! Every day, a coach from one of the top clubs with whom she was training in the mountains every year would call her to say she had to go to his club… After she won the French First Division title in January 2010, a club president didn’t hesitate to call her during her training in January to ask her to go to his club… In 2013, after her first European title and World Cup runner-up finish, the biggest club in France at the time called her back… So, to answer your question, why her and why me, I’d say that there are no coincidences in life and that this meeting allowed us, both of us, to develop the skills needed to perform at a high level. As far as I’m concerned, this coach-coached relationship has given me a lot because it has enabled me to challenge myself whenever necessary to strive for excellence.

You’re not the first coach to speak out about the recruiting Clarisse was subjected to from a young age. Many people criticise these recruiters for going behind their backs, which makes relations between training clubs and big clubs tense. What would be the best practice at federal level to moralise all this and allow athletes to avoid being caught in the middle of conflicting loyalties and impossible equations?

I’ve never been against recruitment, because if athletes respond to recruitment, it’s because they want to leave. How do you keep players who want to leave? The problem is that a club invests a lot of money in supporting its athletes through training camps, competitions, equipment and the provision of a coach. What’s more, local councils are practically the only providers of subsidies, so it’s not a good sign if athletes leave to join another council. One solution could be to compensate the training clubs according to the level of the athlete and the number of years the athlete has been with the club…

*With Lahna, his eldest daughter, during a training session at the Institut du Judo. ©Laëtitia Cabanne/JudoAKD*

As an educator, what has changed between the time you started and now in terms of the reasons that lead a child to sign up for judo (or their parents to take them)? On the other hand, are there any motivations that have remained the same?

It seems to me that a lot of children today are hyperactive, and judo can help parents channel that energy and make their children more attentive. What’s more, the participation of women in judo has increased significantly in recent years, as has the practice of judo in priority areas of « urban policy ». The 1,000 dojos plan, launched by France Judo in partnership with the French government, will help to significantly increase the practice of judo in these areas. While there are many applications, there is little infrastructure to meet this high demand. On the other hand, the motives, which will remain the same, are still the tireless publicity of the medical profession, which continues to direct parents towards judo in order to channel their energies, encourage diversity and also help them to develop their self-confidence.

In an interview a few years ago, the Dutchman Chris de Korte (1938-2024), who trained Mark Huizinga and Edith Bosch, among others, said to me: « There is the Olympic dimension, the traditional dimension and the dimension that consists of educating children’s bodies and minds. A judo teacher must be competent in all three areas. He must be able to teach katas; he must be able to make himself understood by children; and he must be able to accompany those of his students who wish to go further into the question of competition. My judgement may seem harsh, but I believe that there are no longer any teachers capable of teaching each of these three aspects correctly. Because it takes time, attention and investment, both on the part of the teacher and the student. The contemporary cult of speed and immediacy is an obstacle to the internalisation of the martial dimension of judo ». What do you think distinguishes a teacher from a coach and an educator? What connects them?

For me, it would be presumptuous and, above all, inappropriate to judge the qualities or rather the duties that a teacher « should » have. There are many teachers and professors. Giving your time to others in order to improve them is in itself a noble thing, a gift of yourself, just like our teachers in the French educational system. So if the teacher has a preference for katas, competition or teaching, he or she is free to give the lessons he or she wants. A teacher is someone who passes on teaching, pedagogy and techniques and trains his students to do so. A trainer will therefore put into practice different tactics to achieve the different techniques developed by the teacher. He will also have to provide the physical condition necessary to carry out these technical and tactical schemes and, if the objective is competition, he will also have to train the pupil in the various parameters of success, the wheel of performance.
An educator plays a vital role in the development and education of children. They work to ensure their well-being and development. When I was a physical education teacher, some colleagues told me that we are not educators because we are not their parents. I replied that a teacher must also be an educator. So although there are differences between a teacher, a coach and an educator, for me they have always been one and the same.

You’ve seen a lot of journalists at work, and you know that we’re a complex and diverse bunch, and we’ve discussed that a lot. What do you, as a reader, look for in an article? What questions would you like to see asked of athletes or coaches that you regret not reading or hearing enough about?

What I’m looking for in an article, as in a discussion and in life in general, is intellectual and philosophical nourishment. It’s about learning, enriching myself, getting answers to problems and questions. For example, staying with sport and judo in particular, I would have liked to understand and have answers to the success of the French men’s judo team, which won four individual medals at the last Olympic Games, but also to the absence of a gold medal for the women’s dream team. Is it fair to say that the media pressure surrounding the Games at home was greater for the girls than for the boys? I would have liked to see these questions explored in more depth to get some real answers that would allow us to move forward in our quest for performance.
The same goes for the announcement of the selections. When should this take place in order to give the selected athletes the best possible conditions? It was decided not to make the same « mistake » – if there was one – by selecting the chosen athletes so far in advance that the pre-selected athletes would be physically and mentally exhausted. In the end, this did not change anything in the U70kg category, where the athletes successively failed at the Tokyo Olympics for one and then at the Paris Olympics for the other. And their direct rivals became world champions… just before the two Olympic Games!
The same goes for the U78kg category where, beyond the fierce competition between Madeleine Malonga and Audrey Tcheuméo, it would have been interesting to analyse Madeleine’s counterattack at the Games. Why did she give up the round when she was in a position that she masters very well and with which she has scored many times on o uchi gari? After the fight, the journalist said to her, referring to her opponent, « What happened to Patricia Sampaio? She got in your way very quickly ». He asked the question while giving HIS answer! Madeleine was crushed and finally said: « Afterwards, that’s sport! » And yet, there was a technical fault that needed to be analysed as a whole so that it doesn’t happen again… I’d ask Madeleine Malonga the following question: why did you let go of the round you were holding so tightly by trying to belt your opponent? And then, depending on her answers, I’d keep asking her questions until she found the answer herself.

Interesting indeed…

In fact, what I regret not being able to read or hear in the questions asked of athletes or coaches are questions that enable us to understand the cause of the cause of a defeat, an injury or any other given problem, so that we can find the solution. How many athletes get injured because they think ‘well, that’s top level judo’? Some have even stopped their careers because they were convinced that their body couldn’t cope with the numerous injuries!
Take the example of an athlete who goes jogging and sprains his ankle while jumping to avoid a puddle. The cause of the injury is obviously the presence of the puddle, forcing the athlete to jump to avoid it. OK, so next time we’ll mark the ground better and we’ll be able to jog without any problems. However, if we analyse the cause of the cause of the problem, we find that the athlete was overweight, that he had had little sleep the day before and that the run took place after a long journey whose purpose was to relax. These parameters change everything.

If today’s Ahcène could give some advice to the Ahcène who, at the age of nine, tied his first white belt, what would he say?

This Ahcène had many fears, so I would tell him: « Listen to your inner guide », because we often look elsewhere for what is inside us. Well, the Ahcène of today is the result of HIS choices, because behind a choice or a decision there is always a consequence. And these choices are the fruit of all the memories of my childhood, of my education, of my parents and grandparents. Everything that makes my life’s path the way it was meant to be! So, ifs and buts are enough, as one of my dear friends would say, you can chop wood. But if I had made different choices, such as studying sport to better support my pursuit of high performance, then my life’s journey would have been completely different. And when I realise where it has already taken me, I can only be happy. I have extraordinary children, an extraordinary wife, and I still benefit from my parents who sacrificed their lives to raise their children. I have loving in-laws, and I have flourished in my work, whether as a physical education teacher or as a judo president, professor, educator and coach.
I think this advice will be more useful to the Ahcène of tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow. That person will be called Kiyan, Lahna and Ambre, my children, if he (the Ahcène of today) continues to work on his memories to erase everything that prevents him from raising his vibration rate. These are the many layers on the body that are gradually being removed as the work is done. And this is a long term process. – Interview by Anthony Diao, Summer 2024 – Spring 2025. Opening photo: Conversation with Morgane Arthuis. ©Laëtitia Cabanne/JudoAKD.

A French version of this interview can be found here.

Bonus – An autumn evening in 2010 at the JC Escales-Argenteuil: