Mike & Steve attend BJA National Coaching Seminar

Recently the British Judo Association held its first

'Shaping the Future' national coaching seminar,

90 of the countries top coaches including our Head Coach Mike and Elite Coach Steve attended the two day course which saw the European Judo Union's and IJF Coaching expert Hiroshi Katanishi 8th Dan lead a variety of technical mat based sessions aimed at various levels of a Judoka's long term training development. Mr Katanishi is one of the busiest experts representing the European Judo Union ‘Improve your club’ programme which is aimed at coaches improving the technical excellence of 8-12 year olds

Also joining Katanishi Sensei was from the University of Tsukuba Yusuke Kanamaru, who was a silver medallist from the 2001 World Championships and a bronze medallist from the 2007 World championship.

The course was a fantastic opportunity for Mike and Steve to discuss ideas and theories with the other top coaches in the UK.

There were some friendly faces joining them as the Western Area had sent Simon and Eva along too.

Attending and engaging on these type of courses is part of the Drake Judo Club ethos to be able to continually educate our coaches to the higest standards possible which in turn is then cascaded down to our members at club level. We intend to put a number of players through their UKCC level 1 coaching qualification and Ross will be undertaking his UKCC Level 3, this will give the club the enviable position of being one of only a handful that has two Level 3 coaches(Mike is currently level 3)

Over the coming weeks Mike will be working on some specific sessions which will include the elements which were covered on the course, Simon will no doubt be doing the same at Western Area training