The Hampshire Academy is a project to prepare young athletes physically and mentally for the higher levels of the sport of Judo. The focus is on teenage athletes from 12-18 years of age. We have recently incorporated as a limited liability company so as to give us a legal structure.

Our goal is to help athletes, this takes time, energy, people and sadly money. As such the academy needs to generate revenue to invest in the coaches, athletes and support staff. To this end, we shall be working on events and merchandise and of course delivering Judo in schools and clubs.

It is our aim to work with hampshire clubs and the coaches in those clubs to help ensure that their players are able to travel a scientific training programme. A programme that allows the player to develop in their own time and way. A programme that is unique to the individual athlete.

In the coming months we shall be working hard to contact all the clubs in Hampshire to discuss the academy and how they can help their players extend themselves and move to becoming athletes. It is important to us that players remain affiliated and loyal to their clubs. The club that plants the seeds of success should (we think) benefit when those athletes grow beyond the club and start to aspire for international glory.

We will also be extending the work we do in clubs and schools. This will include the direct delivery of coaching into schools and clubs as well as less direct activities such as helping clubs and club coaches with long-term planning and session planning. We shall also look to help find new opportunities for coaches to do what they do best.

This will help the academy become a viable entity financially. It will also help hampshire clubs and coaches financially. This will support the development work we aim to do with athletes. We will also be putting on events, such as the camp we attempted to arrange previously, competitions and training sessions are also on the cards.

If you are interested in the development of young Judo athletes in Hampshire, then please do get in touch with us. We need people of all sorts to help the project take shape in 2011.

sorry for the silence, but we have been quietly working in the background. The academy project is still alive and well and taking shape. We have explored a few options and will continue to do so.

One option that we return to over and over is the idea of having an academy building somewhere in Hampshire. The Academy building would become the focal point for extra training for the young up and coming Judo athletes in the county. Obviously it would be a large financial investment and also require the time and energy of a large number of people to make it happen. Lastly, it would also require a building with D1 (or D2) banding, to allow us to use the building to teach Judo. These sorts of buildings are incredibly hard to come by and councils have proven in discussions quite concerned about change of use on industrial or retail units. If anyone has experience in this sort of thing please contact us.

On the athletes preparation side, we have plans in place to work closely with the hampshire squad managers. Watch this space!

Once again, if you have a young Judo player which you think has talent or are a young player with talent; please contact us so we can include you in our plans.

just a quick post to say that despite appearances on the site, we are actually progressing really well behind the scenes.

The schools Judo side of the project is proceeding the most quickly and easily. We have some classes setup for the new term already and potential for more. It is soon reaching the point where we shall need more coaches, which is great. The community sports club projects are moving along nicely, with a club looking to be started in Bishopstoke in a month or two, all things being equal.

The academy programme itself is the slowest moving, which is to be expected. The aim is now to launch with a development camp, we shall be writing to all the clubs and coaches and referees etc asking them to identify talented young Judo players at secondary school age. We will then send invites to these players specifically along with invites to their coaches. We shall also invite all the other clubs and players; but depending on venue and interest we may/will limit attendance to those identified as talent.

The aim of the camp will be to get to know the players and their coaches. We need to understand what the players and coaches are like as people and also we want to test them a little to see how they handle themselves in a camp situation. There are lots of clues to be picked up about a player by putting them into a camp situation and seeing if they thrive or dislike it; or both.

We will probably not be launching the camp until after the September 2009 Hampshire Judo Association Committee meeting and will need 2-3 months of preparation time, so as you can see the Academy Camp is still quite a way away.

But the ball is rolling and awareness of the project grows with it.

Lance

We would appreciate any assistance introducing Judo into your local school. Please do contact us if you think you can help.

The Academy is in the preliminary phase of development, we are planning how we shall deliver Judo within schools, through community sports clubs and also through an “academy programme”. the “academy programme” is our programme to prepare young athletes to enter serious training within the British Judo Association or University performance programmes. We also wish to provide pathways for refereeing, coaching and other roles within the Judo and wider sporting community; for example Strength and Conditioning, Medical or Sport Science support.

Our plan is three phased, starting with the schools programme; feeding into the community sports clubs and from the clubs into the academy programme.

We will be posting our progress via this website and will endeavor to share our progress openly with interested parties.