Three coach revalidation events were held at Wolverhampton University, Walsall Campus from 20 to 21 July, with the aim to equip coaches with the skills and confidence to serve their members better.

Sessions were led by Technical Officers Keith Merrick and Steve Gawthorpe and included technical gradings for level 1 and 2 and a preparation for the performance session.

On the Saturday, coaches all worked together to discuss, explore and demonstrate the technical syllabus. Each session explored the techniques from basic tachi-waza and ne-waza principles and how to apply them to coaching.

Afterwards they all had the opportunity to produce their own technical sequences and they came up with some great combinations. Sunday began with a preparation for performance coaching session for 24 judokas of various grades and experiences ranging from 9 to 49-years old.

This innovative session included new experiences for many of the judoka in warm up routines, application of progressive tachi-waza and ne-waza technique, conditioning methods.

It ended in a final test of what they had learnt in the form of light randori.progressive tachi-waza and ne-waza techniques and conditioning methods.

BJA Technical Officer Keith Merrick said: “It was encouraging to see young judoka engaging in a multitude of new things for them and coming out of it with a real sense of achievement. The sessions were extremely popular with over 50 bookings.”