Mike Newton, one of our SkillsActive & Nancy Ovens Bursars for 2009, has recently embarked on his trip to Japan. After more than seven months of planning, Mike travelled to Japan last week where he is spending time at Sagami High School to shadow some of Japan’s top children’s judo coaches.

Mike, with over 30 years experience in the sport,  is a judo stalwart in Rutland. Since helping to establish Vale Judo Club in 2003, Mike has helped grow the membership of the club to more than 180 members – more than half of which are girls or women. Under Mike’s direction, five of the club’s junior club members have gained places within national judo squads since the club was established. Helping deliver 13 classes each week, Mike has helped grow the club’s coaching team from two to six coaches and also establish a schools judo programme. Today, the programme delivers judo courses to more than 550 children from eighteen schools around Rutland.

Mike has always been keen to develop his skills, and over the last few years has been studying towards a Foundation Degree in Sport Performance at the University of Bath, during which he has gained exposure to various international coaching systems.

Japan therefore is the next step in Mike’s skills development where he can learn more about how the sport is coached and how it is related to education, with Mike commenting:

“There is not a wealth of learning opportunities like this in judo here in the UK, so what I wanted was to create a learning experience that would be more beneficial to me than another coaching qualification. Going to Japan will allow me to develop my understanding of how to teach core and advanced judo technical skills to children and improve and extend my range of coaching methods and techniques. I hope to increase my understanding of how judo is delivered as part of the school curricula and community and how the sport of judo is being developed in Japan. My specific area of interest is the infrastructure in place that helps coaches to identify, select and nurture talented junior judo players.”

Already, just a few days in, Mike has seen and learnt a lot. Here are a few of his thoughts from the first few days of his trip that he has been sharing on his blog:

“It was great to visit the dojo and judo office this morning and having had a look at the many trophies on display and had a tour of the dojo it becomes very obvious how effectively their judo development system is working and how proud they are of it.  I am interested in discussing how they identify the more talented students to invite to the school – will let you know when I find out.”

“The question that I have started to wrestle with is if we are to have the same competition successes from GB players, can we implement and encourage many of these concepts/methods/attitudes to be adopted in the UK or are our cultures too different? I think that the answer is to try and implement a few of these concepts, the benefits have been obvious for Sagami High School and its judoka.”

To find out more about what Mike has been observing on his trip, and the thoughts and ideas that he is bringing away from the experience, visit Mike’s blog for regular updates, photos, videos and more.

Mike received one of six SkillsActive and Nancy Ovens bursaries, awarded annually to paid and un-paid individuals working within the sport, fitness, playwork, outdoors and caravan sectors. The bursaries are designed to help individuals improve their skills through an innovative training programme outside the scope of regular training. You can also read more insights from some of our other bursars on this blog, courtesy of Naomi Harling and Rachel Light.

For the past four years we have invited applications from across our sector for funding, courtesy of SkillsActive and the Nancy Ovens Trust, to allow individuals to undertake a personal development project to enhance skills and knowledge outside of the day-to-day work environment.

Rachel Light helping young athletes

This has encouraged development in ways quite removed from traditional training, with work experience and shadowing of top coaches in a certain field proving a popular way to glean the personal insight that perhaps doesn’t exist when undertaking a training qualification.

This year, out of over 50 applicants, we are delighted to have chosen five bursars who will be blogging for us over the course of their time on the bursary. They’ll be introducing themselves here over the coming month, but here is a quick introduction to two of them.

Rachel Light
Dorset swimming coach Rachel Light plans to spend two weeks in Australia this summer to discover the secrets of the nation’s sporting success so that she can assist top young athletes in this country.

Rachel has focussed her work on, and is particularly passionate about, those just outside of the elite sporting programmes. It is difficult for those just outside the top programmes to continue at a high level, so Rachel assists by providing them with guidance ranging from nutrition to strength and conditioning that they would otherwise receive from their NGB.

Judo coach Mike Newton

Read more about Rachel’s bursary here and check back over the coming months to see how her plans for the trip progress. You can also listen to Rachel discussing her trip, and read more, over on the BBC Dorset website.

Mike Newton
Rutland judo coach Mike Newton plans to spend a month next spring in Japan, the home of judo, in order to shadow top children’s judo coaches. Having helped establish Vale Judo Club in 2003, Mike has since established the club as one of the leading clubs in the region with members in national squads, as well as developing a strong schools judo programme.

You can read more about Mike’s dedication to the sport and youngsters, along with his planned trip to Japan here, while you’ll find him blogging here soon.