BKA Level 1 and Level 2 Kendo Coaching Course

Cambridge, UK – 14 December 2025

BKA Kendo Level 1 and Level 2 coaching course - Cambridge 2025-12-14

TL;DR

The BKA is pleased to announce a Kendo Level 1 and Level 2 coaching course, to be held in Cambridge on Sunday 14 December 2025, optionally preceded by an exhausting but invigorating godo-geiko on Saturday 13 December.

There is a complex application procedure, detailed below. You must:

  • find two supporters who will recommend you,
  • study a stack of coaching documentation,
  • write some essays,
  • practice coaching under observation,
  • and have the observing coaches submit their observation statements.

All this must be completed by the PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Tuesday 30 September 2025. Successful applicants will then be invited to the course.

Course description

Would you like to serve your dojo and local community by becoming a kendo coach? Have you already been helping out with the training in your dojo but now wish to get licensed officially?

A Level 1 coach assists a dojo leader. A Level 2 coach may independently run a dojo. For a quick one-page guide to the BKA Coaching Programme Levels 1 and 2, please see the Coaching Program Quick Guide.

For full details on all four BKA coaching levels, see the full Coaching Program.

“Course” is perhaps a slight misnomer: maybe “assessment and advice seminar” would be a better description. On the basis of your submitted coaching portfolio (essays and observation statement) you are admitted to a one-day interactive seminar. The point of that session is not to teach you from zero how to become a coach: you will be expected to have already studied and practiced that. Instead, we shall interactively review all the duties and responsibilities of a coach, highlighting aspects where the essays of the attendees show incomplete awareness or understanding. There will be a chance to ask questions about things that didn’t work for you and discuss various scenarios. It is expected that the participants who submit a complete portfolio by the deadline and demonstrate readiness and maturity at the session will be handed their coaching certificate menjo on the day.

By popular demand from past participants there will be a brief ji-geiko at the end of the day between the course attendees.

Extra kendo opportunity (optional, and at no extra charge): we also arranged an amazing 3-hour godo-geiko session on the day before the coaching course, so you may amortise the trip to Cambridge by coming to that as well and getting a great workout with a multitude of kendoka from many dojo from London and the South-East. Previous editions of this godo-geiko event have been very successful, with over 40 participants from over 10 dojo, from kyusha to 7-dan. The 4-dan and above offer themselves as motodachi for the whole 3 hours, whereas the lower grades queue up to fight them.

Application procedure

Step 1: Register your intent

Find yourself a proposer and a seconder. Both must be BKA coaches of level 2, 3 or 4. If you are applying for L2, at least one of them must be L3 or L4. Apply as soon as possible through the BKA website (“Events & Booking” section), naming your proposer and seconder after having asked them, and ensure they confirm their endorsement of your application by logging into the BKA website with their own credentials. Only after both of their confirmations are received will you get access to an extensive treasure trove of study materials on kendo coaching that you need for the next step. We recommend you complete this initial step as soon as possible because you will need quite a bit of time to go through all that documentation (which you don’t have yet). There are 22 documents for you to study, many of them several pages long.

Step 2: Study the course documentation and practice coaching Study

the supplied coaching documentation with care. This will take you a while. You will need to write some essays and agree to the BKA Coaching Code of Conduct. You must submit your essays by the PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION DEADLINE (see top of page).

In parallel, arrange to do some coaching under supervision. This may involve travel, for either you or the observer, so plan ahead. At least one BKA coach, of level higher than the one you are applying for, must observe you while you coach and must submit an observation statement about your coaching on the BKA website, also by the PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION DEADLINE, according to the BKA guidelines supplied to observers. Your portfolio is incomplete without that observation statement.

Step 3: Submit your completed portfolio

Ensure all the parts of your coaching portfolio are filed on the BKA website, both by you and your observer(s), by the PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION DEADLINE. As a summary, you will need:

  • Declaration of acceptance (by you) of BKA Coaching Code of Conduct
  • Coach applicant’s statement, filed by you
  • Health and safety essay, filed by you
  • Children and vulnerable adults essay, filed by you
  • Running a club essay (only for L2), filed by you
  • Observer’s statement(s), filed by coaches of higher level than you are applying for

We recommend that you prepare the essays as plain text files on your own computer and then paste them in the forms on the BKA website, as opposed to writing them directly in the forms.

Invitation

After the PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION DEADLINE the course leader will check all the submitted portfolios (this may take a while). Candidates with a correctly completed portfolio will be individually invited to attend the course.

Logistics

Please bring a pen, a notepad, your bokuto (even if you won’t stay for ji-geiko), your BKA licence booklet and a packed lunch.

The event will be mostly a desk/notes/seminar/discussion session, but we will use the bokuto at some point for teaching practice. By popular request there will be an optional half-hour or so of ji-geiko just after the end of the course. Therefore, feel free to come either in kendo clothes or in loose civilian clothes such as a tracksuit.

The course will be Kendo-centric but Iaido and Jo practitioners are also welcome, provided that their Bu still recognises the coaching certificates issued by the Kendo Bu. If you are keen on ji-geiko, besides a brief bout at the end of the day, note that we are also running a fantastic godo-geiko in Cambridge the previous day (different venue: University of Cambridge Sports Centre, Philippa Fawcett Dr, Cambridge CB3 0AS, 16:30 to 19:30). On previous editions of this godo-geiko we had over 40 attendees from over ten different dojo, from kyusha to 7-dan.

Consider coming on the Saturday and staying the night. To attend, register for the godo-geiko by Friday 31 October 2025. For accommodation in Cambridge, check www.universityrooms.com, www.airbnb.com, www.booking.com, www.expedia.com or your favourite online booking aggregator.

There is no charge for attending the coaching course. I serve as a volunteer and venue hire will be covered by the BKA. There is no charge for the godo-geiko either, if you register in advance: venue hire will be covered by my dojo, Tsurugi Bashi, the University of Cambridge Kendo Society—but you must REGISTER by the above deadline or you will be charged five pounds at the door.

Web application

With grateful thanks to Malcolm Smalley, we are piloting a new sign-up procedure hosted on the BKA website. This streamlines and simplifies a much more cumbersome procedure based on google forms and manual emails that I had been using in previous years. Nothing is perfect the first time round so I expect we’ll have to iron out some wrinkles as we go along. Contact me at the email address above, professor+bkacoachingcourse at stajano dot com (yes, with an actual plus sign), if you encounter problems. Please be patient, remember that the coaching programme is all being run by volunteers in their spare time and rest assured that it will all be sorted out in the end.

I am setting aside a separate tech help page with additional details and answers to technical questions about the BKA coaching course application website.

Course location

Girton Parish Council Pavilion Hall, Girton Recreation Ground, Cambridge Road, Girton, Cambridge, CB3 0FH (parking available) Time: 10:00 – 17:30, plus optional half-hour of ji-geiko

Course instructor

Professor Frank Stajano, BKA Regional Coach Level 3, 5th dan kendo, Dojo leader of Tsurugi Bashi (University of Cambridge). professor+bkacoachingcourse at stajano dot com (yes, use a plus sign in the email address).

Important dates

  • As Soon As Possible: apply on the BKA website (“Events & Booking” section) and have your proposer and seconder confirm their support, so that you will be granted access to the coaching course study materials
  • Tuesday 2025-09-30: PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION DEADLINE (no further coaching course applications accepted past this date)
  • Friday 2025-10-31: registration deadline for optional godo-geiko (register by that date for free entry, else pay 5 pounds at the door)
  • Saturday 2025-12-13: optional 3-hour godo-geiko in Cambridge
  • Sunday 2025-12-14: one-day coaching course in Cambridge