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.

I’ve been in Australia for about 10 days now and my trip is awesome!  To say I am learning a lot is an understatement.  All the Australian’s have been so accommodating to me and have looked after me as well as sharing information on their success of swimming.

I first arrived in Canberra on Friday 14^th August and my journey over seemed to never end.  From Bournemouth – Gatwick – Dubai – Singapore – Brisbane, then waited for six hours at the airport for my next flight on Qantas.  I flew then to Canberra and straight to bed when I go to my B & B.  The weekend was rest and recovery and Sunday night I met up with the boys from Parkeon, one of my sponsors, who took me out for a meal in the City.  Canberra is a strange city, it is so incredibly beautiful, but yet so small.  There are a little over 350,000 people living in the city, although I have no idea where they were, as it always seemed so quiet.  Walking round the city I wondered how all the businesses could be sustained with sales and paying out rent, rates, stock etc.

On Monday my first meeting was with the Australian Institute of Sport.  It was a little out of the city in an area where there was plenty of land.  The place itself is huge, offering tours round the facility with athletes for the tourists that come and visit.  Athletes can live on site for short or long stay, they can also study at university and use the facilities whenever they like.  However in order to receive this kind of treatment they have to be on the Australian World Class Program.  Dave Pease met me and kindly showed me around the Aquatic Research & Testing Unit, a place where they have developed all their own technology and use it to analyse the swimmers.  It truly was sensational and I can see how and why their swimmers are at the forefront of the sport – for the time being anyway. 

I had the opportunity to chat with Dave and he answered many questions and concerns for me about swimming in the UK, however I must add with Michael Scott on board at British Swimming, I really think we are going to see massive developments to elite swimming in the UK.  This is something the Aussies are concerned about as many people who work at the AIS tend to jump ship and come and work in the UK.  After I had finished with Dave he took me to meet Greg Shaw, a senior athlete nutritionist.  Greg spent time with me showing me the structure and support in place for educating swimmers at youth level in nutrition and explained exactly how they do it.  He also told me about a scheme they have running for school children too,  something I was fascinated with. 

After Greg I also met with Julian Jones Head of Strength & Conditioning for the AIS.  This was a very interesting meet for me seeing as one of my main focuses is strength & conditioning.  I showed him an example of a brochure I had given to me, by someone high up in a swimming related company, of exercises to help improve core stability.  When I was given it I laughed and thought it was very poor considering it came from a high level company.  When I showed it to Julian he laughed too and told me that we should keep this document in place for the kids, because it means to them we will never beat them at swimming.  Something I found very amusing.  However, it has now inspired me and also given me the confidence to approach them about doing something much better.  Since coming away from the AIS I have been completely inspired and now have a number of ideas that I am going to implement when I get back to the UK.

The following day I headed out to Swimming Australia where I met with Tim Arnold.  He spent a great deal of time with me explaining about how the sporting structure works in Australia and where swimming fits in to everything.  He was extremely helpful and again demonstrated a fantastic support network for swimming right from grass roots level through to elite.  This to me was valuable information, as before I came to Australia I believed they had a fantastic support infrastructure in place and this was confirmed.

The Wednesday was my last day in Canberra and my flight to Brisbane was leaving at 11am.  This was just enough time to swing on by ABC Canberra Radio Station for my LIVE interview with Alex Sloan.  This was a follow up interview, as I had already chatted with Alex before, although I have to say I wasn’t expecting to go out live on the radio.  However I managed it and coped with it just fine.  On my way to the airport I heard Alex read out some of the text messages that had come in after my interview, which was great to hear as it seems people are interested in what I am up to.

The weather was warm and sunny in Brisbane, 26 degrees to be exact, which is great seeing as this is their Winter.  I picked up a hire car from the airport and then Thursday I headed down the coast to visit Surf Australia, which is tucked away in a fantastic beach resort.  I guess I was expecting to see fantastic things when I got to Surf Australia.  They had told me about their High Performance Centre and after seeing fantastic facilities at the AIS I was expecting a little too much.  Their facilities is just a 25m swimming pool and a large gymnasium that’s open to residents, as well as elite surfers. 

Having said that, I shouldn’t put them down, because what I found out about them is that they too have a fantastic structure and network in place for surfers from learn to surf through to World Class Athletes, and what they do is incredible, seeing as they get very little funding.  Because surfing is not an Olympic sport their funding is massively reduced and they still manage to produce the some of the best surfers in the world.  I picked up what I needed from here and will pass back to the British Surfing Association.

On Friday was another meeting, however this time with the Queensland Academy of Sport.  Well what can I say truly lovely people and again amazing facilities.  I was shown around their centre and their rehabilitation unit, which again is second to none.  They have some of the world’s finest athletes who come through their centre and what they do for these athletes is inspirational.  They help them get back on their feet either after injury or if they need to find work or study.  The QAS work closely with the athletes and are always there for them.  Something I felt was commendable. 

Whilst there I met a young male long jumper who will be at the next Commonwealth Games and also a female High Jumper who should be at the London 2012 Olympics.  I was introduced to a great guy who is Head of Strength & Conditioning for the Queensland Swimming Team and I learnt so much from him.  He is a Doctor in his profession and was able to answer my questions of concern about some of my young athletes.  Again a truly inspirational character and a thoroughly nice guy!  Lawrie Fabian showed me around the facilities and passed me a contact for a head coach in the UK, as he felt he would benefit from using the Young Athletes Training Academy, it just so happens this head coach is based at Poole Swim Club.  Right on my doorstep!  Can you believe it I travel 12,000 miles across the globe and am given a contact in my own town? How fantastic is that?  Lawrie should be coming to the UK next year on his own research mission.  Lawrie was telling me that for years all the other countries have admired the Australians success at sport and have often come over and taken back new ideas to implement in their own country.  Apparently the Australians feel they are being left behind, so are running their own research projects now!

The weather this weekend has been scorching hot and I have taken some time out to catch up on work and on my tan   In Queensland they are having a heat wave and tomorrow (Monday) will be the hottest day on record so far.  Tomorrow is a new day and I have a last minute appointment with Swimming Queensland and also a meeting with the editor for the Brisbane Times.  Stay tuned for more info…

Bygglelegeplads/building play yard

In my visit to Denmark, I was able to visit two different free time homes.  Free time homes offer out of school childcare for children. The first free time home was in Aarhus, named Skraenten and was situated down a sandy road (the name Skraenten means a ditch). This free time home was open from 11:00am until 5:00pm and could have 150 children. The facilities available included a large house used more in winter, and a range of outdoor space and outdoor opportunity.

Bygglelegeplads: Inside the childrens play space.

The children came from age seven. Some children were able to make their own way from school and some children were collected from school. Animals and adventure play were prominent characteristics of this free time home.

There were rabbits, goats and chickens that belonged to the children, an area for outdoor cooking,  and across the sandy road an area where the children built with wood and tools, and played in their creations.The children in this provision had a mass of space in which they could freely access, inside the house as well as the outdoor environment. This project was inspirational in the way that they presented after school childcare for children.

Central play room

The second free time home I visited was in Esjberg and was based in school, for around 80 children.  Although the children did not have access to adventure play and animals as in Skreanten, the children had a variety of spaces that they could use indoors and out. The children were able to move to different rooms and levels. Freedom, choice and space to move around were prominent in this free time home also.

From both of my visits to free time homes, it seems to be evident that in Denmark the children have great access to risk and challenge through their ability to use tools and to be in spaces where no adults are present to adulterate their play.  Their play spaces seem to be truly their own.

Younger children's playroom

On the 10th August I arrived in Copenhagan at 12:30pm. Most of the afternoon was spent travelling to Aarhus, and checking over the locations of the various projects that were planned for visits. I arrived in Aarhus at approximately 6:00pm, and after a stroll and some food, tried to get some sleep for my busy day ahead!

On Tuesday 11th August, at 8:30am I arrived at Børnehaven Ajstrup Gl. Skole (child’s garden) which was a kindergarten for Danish children aged 3 to 6 years. The meeting place was in Aarhus, where parents dropped off their children. Some children played, and some had breakfast. The parents were welcome to have coffee and have a chat, and the staff were so  friendly. It was a welcoming social space. This provision makes space for 120 children in total. Three buses were scheduled to arrive at 8:00am, 9:00am and10:00am to take the children and the staff to Ajstrup – 17km away.

Children playing in the garden (Courtesy Ajstrup website)

After my short visit to the meeting place and upon sitting on the bus, I felt overwhelmed at how fantastic this provision felt already – but it doesn’t end there! Upon arriving at Ajstrup, we were greeted by Christian who gave us a history of the provision, and he showed us around the outdoor area. There were chickens, rabbits, and horses. The children helped clean and care for the animals. The children were surrounded by nature, and had the day to be in their own space, do their own thing and play in their own way. The children were happy, ran around freely, and could access whatever part of the outdoors they wished to; a large sand area with a tap nearby for mixing, a garden with berries and herbs, wooden houses and huts, trees to climb, rocks to sit on, wooden structures to explore and play with. These are just some examples of the endless open ended play opportunities at Ajstrup.

Lunchtime was a fantastic social occasion. I was able to eat with the children and the staff. The children decided when it was time to eat, and could do anytime from 11:30am until 1:00pm. The staff carefully monitored this so they knew which children needed to eat. Lunchtime was freely in a variety of open spaces and children came naturally together with friends and the staff, ate, chat  and then ran off to play again!

Children in the sandpits (photo courtesy Ajstrup website)

Afternoon observations included a boy digging in mud with a spade, barefooted covered in mud, but totally engrossed in his play. Two girls were transporting soil in wellington boots, near to to a puddle of water on a piece of plastic. They made a pile of soil, paddled in the puddle and stepped in the soil pile to make muddy feet! They laughed and giggled, stepped in the puddle to wash it off, and started the game again!

The buses arrived to take the children back to the meeting place at 2:30pm and 3:30pm. I got the bus back to Aarhus at 3:30pm, and felt drained by the amount of informaton I had taken in, yet excited and inspired by what I had seen and explored.

I watched my slide show of around 150 photographs in the evening,  and again was overwhelmed by the positive experiences, independence, and confidence that the children were given by play opportunities outdoors with nature.

My day at  Børnehaven Ajstrup Gl. Skole was amazing. My thanks to the staff and the children, who made me feel so welcome.

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote my blog and in that time so much more has happened in the run up to Australia.  Last time I wrote that I had almost obtained all the sponsorship money for my trip, well now this is completed and I managed to raise MORE than the money required for the trip, which is truly fantastic.

To my joy Lush, a global cosmetic company came forward with the remaining money and generously the Borough of Poole and Poole Tourism has also donated some money.  As I managed to raise a little more money than required the remaining money has bought me clothing with all my sponsors logos on them and a tripod and microphone also for my trip – more on this will be explained later.

The meetings in Australia have now expanded and I have also gained further interest from the press in Canberra.  I decided to make contact with ABC 666 Canberra Radio and a producer from Alex Sloan’s morning show came back to me and said they would love to interview me on the telephone before I arrived and then get me in to the studio when I am in Canberra.  This is fantastic, as it means I am able to spread the word globally about my project! So on Thursday 30^th July I carried out an interview with the radio station, which can be listened to here: Rachel Light interview.

Since Lush has kindly sponsored me, they too are working hard on obtaining press during my trip.  At the moment I am in liaison with their UK press office to arrange this.  It is also pretty big news for Parkeon too, another sponsor of mine, as at the moment they are getting ready to deploy a contactless electronic ticketing system using smartcard technology for the process of charging patrons for public transport.  Smartcard has already been deployed in Perth the only thing different for Canberra is they have no rail system.  Bizarrely my younger brother is a programmer for Parkeon in Poole, and the guy I am meeting with in Canberra used to be my brother’s boss.

Another piece of great news is a few weeks ago my mum suggested I should look in to a cameraman filming my trip seeing as I am having a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet with all these fantastic organisations in Australia.  I therefore made contact with Channel 4 and Sky to see if it was anything they would be interested in.  Unfortunately Sky came back and said they are already supporting many projects and they did not have the budget.  However Channel 4 suggested I contact a production company to see if it would be something of interest to them, as Channel 4 use production companies to make documentaries.  They sent me a link for a directory of production companies and a came across a company who have been absolutely amazing!  Glasshead, based in London, are interested in my trip and also in my plight to improve education and training on health and fitness to young athletes in the UK.  A lovely lady Faye called me and has told me Glasshead are working with SkillsActive already and looking to put together a production for the Olympics and this could fit it.  HOW AMAZING IS THAT!

Unfortunately because of the short notice they are unable to send a camera person with me for my trip, so I have been loaned a camera from Sport England and will have to film myself.  Now I am no camera person and have no idea what I am doing with a camera, let alone made it any good for TV.  I therefore arranged to meet with a freelance news reporter, Richard Slee, who runs his own company called  Look out Media and well, what can I say, a truly kind man who spent nearly two hours with me talking to me about my project and how best to film, shots to take and what will happen when I return.  He has also said he will help me get my story on to the local news.  Now the pressure is really on!  Best get good with that camera…  I’ve spent the last few days filming everything and I’ve still got so much to learn!

Once again I would like to say thank you to all my sponsors:

• Lush
• Parkeon
• British Surfing Association
• SkillsActive/Nancy Ovens Trust
• Borough of Poole
• Poole Tourism
• John Maughan
• Talbot Heath
• Animal
• Sport England
• Young Athletes Training Academy
• Four friends Melissa King, Russell Palmer, Peter Light (younger brother), Janet Head

I would also like to say a massive THANK YOU to my mum, who has been so supportive to me, listened to me and helped me to stay strong and focused.

Only 5 days to go now. Stay tuned for more news…