The Beast's suggestion that I may be interested in getting coaching qualifications has piqued my interest. I am probably a year away from being ready to take the assessment. Primarily because I still have a lot to learn, after all, I've only been doing this for 9 months or so. There are other reasons, for example, I am still to discover what 'my' weapon/system is.
Still it looks like a good qualification to have. The BFHS (British Federation for Historical Swordplay) are trying to produce an equivalent to the UK coaching certificate and the syllabus looks pretty comprehensive. Between turning 15 and discovering what women are for, I spent a lot of time freezing my nuts off in a Topper (the boat, not the hat), or a Wayfarer. During this time I gained enough qualifications to prove I was competent, did some first aid training (focusing on drowning, shock and hypothermia rather than anything I'm likely to see when fighting) and spent time teaching Scouts the difference between close haul and long reach. A morning of this resulted in an afternoon of free sailing. I found it all rather enjoyable and rewarding. Anyway.. that was two summers of teaching.
The BFHS certification covers first aid, child protection (may be useful, after all, Scouting is one of the reasons I got here), Teaching ability (group and 1 to 1), and a range of other sensible and practical things.
I'm expecting quite a few differences between this and what I had to go through to instruct on water, and I would expect (even demand) that sailing criteria are far more rigorous than the BFHS.
As sports go, sailing is open to more serious accidents than HEMA. It may sound silly- after all how could sitting in a boat be more 'dangerous' than getting hit with swords? The simple answer is this- if something goes wrong in a boat there is only you and lethal amounts of water and the wind continues to blow. If something goes wrong with HEMA, you may get a broken bone but at the first sign of something serious- everything stops and those who can will step in and help.
As knowledge goes- to teach the basic principles you do not need to be an astounding swordsman. Theoretically you will become a good swordsman by drumming these in and developing perfect measure/true time/whatever the Italian version of BraveStaar calls it. The principles are easy to understand, perfecting them and using them under pressure is a different matter altogether. Sailing, you need to be able to deal with a lot more, mostly because there's no guarantee of conditions. You can play the odds, but even then you've still got to be able to bring people safely back during the uncommon but likely scenarios.
From what I've read so far the accreditation is good, and has a lot of use away from the salle. It is certainly something to keep in mind.
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Glad to see you're considering it, I think it is a useful qualification and does also make one eligible for the insurance arranged via the Fed.
ReplyDeleteThe aim of the qualification (Instructor Level 1) is to certify that someone is competant to teach at the 'assistant instructor' level. It is designed to be comparibe with the UKCC qualification, with a view to being recognised by them at a later date.
The criteria can be viewed by www.bfhs.org, but boil down to the following:
*Managing your class in a safe and fair way
*Ensuring the class are clear on what they are doing, and how they should be doing it
*Explaining the martial and historical context of the exercise
*Tailoring the class to the students taking part
It's not especially arduous at this level and I'm sure that the experience you describe would stand you in good stead.
Have a chat with the Plum. He did his assessment this past weekend.