Please Join Us!
The mission of Sparks challenge camps is to intensively train athletes in key areas of rowing development while exploring their personal relationship with performance.
Families who register early receive our best pricing. As spaces fill in our carefully designed programs, rates increase gradually to reflect remaining availability. Optional cancel-for-any-reason insurance allows cancellation up to two days before camp.
Category
Challenge
Ages
15
-
18
Master Biomechanics in Kyoto
At Sparks, athletic breakthroughs happen when you understand how your body actually works. This two-week program takes you to Japan to work with sports scientists using testing protocols typically reserved for national teams.
You'll undergo lactate threshold analysis that maps your exact energy systems and Peach Powerline biomechanical testing that captures real-time data on your power transfer efficiency. Sports medicine researchers from Kyoto University Medical School explain how elite rowers' bodies adapt to training load, with tours of their cutting-edge facilities.
Training centers on small boats where you immediately apply insights from your data. You'll row Kyoto's waterways and Lake Biwa using personalized power targets and stroke rates revealed by your testing. A former national team coach synthesizes your telemetry, lactate curves, and video into a performance roadmap that shows exactly which adaptations will impact your boat speed.
Mindfulness sessions and exchange with thoughtful Japanese athletes are both aimed to help you develop the body awareness that makes data interpretation more intuitive. With a 1:3 staff ratio, you get continuous feedback connecting your numbers to your technique.
This level of sports science access is unprecedented for non-elite athletes. The same biomechanical engineer who worked with Olympic medalists will analyze your stroke. The same university researchers who publish in leading journals will decode your physiology. These partnerships exist nowhere else in rowing.
You'll leave with a complete physiological profile and the analytical skills to optimize performance using objective data rather than guesswork.
Our challenge two week programs offer athletes a chance to improve their athletic self-awareness (rowing "IQ") so they may better pursue rowing performance. The Japanese Training Challenge provides intensive small boat technical training with Japanese coaching and biomechanics to inform a more scientific approach to rowing.
First: you should aspire to improve your relationship with athletic performance.
Second: you should possess the emotional maturity necessary to integrate with the group and your own relationship with performance.
Finally: you should possess the fitness to get the most out of the program.
Step 1: Initial Application
Submit your registration and pay the $895 deposit; we will accept the deposit to process your application and hold your place. If you are not offered a place, the full deposit is refundable.
Step 2: Video Response Prompts
Sparks uses video response prompts to get a genuine sense of who you are as an athlete. Keep your response natural and conversational. We're excited to hear your authentic voice and learn what drives you.
This program informs athletes' approach to rowing performance by enabling the self awareness to guide independent development. Athletes should seek a deeper relationship with rowing performance, possess a drive to learn and improve, and an adventurous spirit.
The application contains these response prompts:
- Tell us a story about a team (yours or another) that stands out to you and why it means something to you.
- Tell us about a time when you had to choose between what was right for you personally and what was right for your team. What did you do?
- How would you like to grow as an athlete and why?
- Why do you want to attend a Sparks camp? Also, what specifically draws you to this program?
- Please provide a brief summary of your rowing experience including a recent 2,000m ergometer score. Alternatively if you don't feel your 2K is representative of you - while we'd still like to see it - you can also provide a 5K run time.
- Please provide a short (~1 minute) video of yourself on the ergometer or water.
(Please do not worry about editing or perfect quality - 10-20 strokes from the side will do.)
The prompts will be submitted on your Sparks user dashboard and are due within 14 days of initial application.
Step 3: Zoom Interview
You will schedule your interview from your Sparks user dashboard after you submit your written application. During the interview we will talk about the program, your written application, and how the opportunity aligns with your experience, values, and goals.
Step 4: Decision
Upon acceptance full payment is due by March 1. Full payment is due within 14 days for applications received after March 1.
Admissions occurs on a rolling basis. Timeline for decisions is within a week of the interview; if your timeline is shorter, we can work with you. Written applications must be submitted within 14 days of initial application, and interviews must be scheduled within 30 days of initial application.
At A Glance
Excellent Staff at Low Ratios
Thoughtful Admissions
High Standards of Behavior
Reading and Writing at Camp
Healthy Hospitality
The Reflective Cycle
Camp Focuses
Small Boats
Sculling
Mindfulness
Exercise Science
What goes into a Sparks Camp?
You get more out of a Sparks camp because we put more into a Sparks camp*
*These numbers are an approximation across all of our camps.
†Housing includes meeting and activity space for the camp during the day as well.
FAQ
What is the cancellation/refund policy?
Camp purchases are fully refundable minus transaction fees until March 1 for summer camps.
- We strongly recommend you purchase travel protection with cancel for any reason coverage.
- We offer these plans from Travel Insured International during the check-out process for our four and five day camps and during final balance payment for deposit-based multi-week camps.
- Learn more about travel protection here
- If you withdraw after the above dates, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever (including, but not limited to: voluntary withdraw, illness or injury, summer school, security concerns or other reasons).
- If your camper leaves camp after it starts, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to: voluntary withdrawal, illness or injury, dismissal by Sparks (due to discipline, behavior, lack of fitness or motivation, etc.) security concerns, or any other reason. Any costs incurred by Sparks as a result of an early departure are the sole responsibility of the parents.
- In the unlikely case a camp does not proceed, we'll work to notify you by March 1. You'll be offered a different program or a refund. In some cases, we may extend the 'go, no-go' date. We recommend buying your flight after March 1 or later, if we advise.
Do you offer scholarships or discounts?
Our prices increase as spots fill. The earlier you register, the better the price you’ll get. We also offer travel insurance that provides "cancel for any reason" coverage until 2 days prior to camp.
Regarding Scholarships:
Please see this link to our NCAA Compliance webpage.
What level of experience is necessary for this program?
It is the desire to use rowing to gain a greater perspective on how you relate to yourself and the world that characterizes ideal Japan program athletes. Your ability to use rowing for these purposes will also be reflected in your ability to guide your rowing performance after the program ends, so we do seek motivated athletes.
Talent is relative: a fast junior will not stack up to a fast collegiate athlete. The rowing aspect of this program mandates intelligence, thoughtfulness, responsibility, and humility.
Tell me more about admissions - how selective is it?
Our admissions process is the most thoughtful in the sport and we evaluate each athlete on a case by case basis.
While we look 2K and rowing experience, we are also very interested in your motivation and passion for rowing. At our camps, the drive to improve leads to increased maturity and thoughtfulness - which leads to performance.
We also consider your ability to live, train, and support others in a community committed to utilizing challenge for personal growth. Sparks camps are unlike traditional training camps in that progress in self-awareness per your relationship with performance is as important as acute technical progress. Ideal candidates will complete the program with gains in both self-awareness and corresponding ability to improve long after camp ends.
Japan requires students possess the maturity to remain open to large amounts of reflection and mental exertion in order to improve their approach to performance. They also must be able to keep up with the group during the training sessions when in small boats. As a result, we primarily seek "thoughtful drive" (i.e. the maturity and desire to intake an process a large amount of information in a short period), a degree of self-awareness that powers that drive, and 1-2 seasons of competitive rowing experience (and equivalent fitness) for this program.
We welcome your questions either via phone or in the chat box in the right hand corner.
What differentiates Sparks camps and the this program specifically?
We are the only camp in rowing with a full-time staff that has academic and professional backgrounds in experiential education. We also have a summer operations staff (many are returners that teach during the school year) who buy into the idea of personal growth at camp not just for campers - but for themselves as well.
The result is a culture sincerely committed to the power of rowing as a personally transformative experience built on vulnerability, thoughtfulness, responsibility, and initiative. These qualities along with our values of growth, kaizen, and plus one stroke dictate the culture our camp community forms around. Our focus is on utilizing rowing to create the self-awareness necessary to master one's relationship with performance.
Japan is the only rowing camp for juniors in the world that offers the opportunity to unite the study of mindfulness with rowing and connect with a completely different culture based on a shared love of rowing. One of the Sparks company values is Japanese: the concept of "Kaizen" implies the idea of continual pursuit of perfection without ever achieving it. This is what we do every time we put the oar in the water. The program is based on sharing this value across a large cultural divide in order to enable student growth and perspective.
What can you tell me about college recruiting and the this program?
Learning in-depth mental skills in Japan that have a following amongst college rowing coaches can stick out on a resume - but you will need to be able to apply them long after the camp has ended if they're to have impact in the recruiting process.
After recruiters take your academics and erg score into account, coaches may be interested to hear about how you pursue rowing as a sample of your resiliency and character.
What you take from this program is meant to help you in that pursuit.
Japan is an opportunity to challenge yourself to grow based on being in a completely foreign place. It's also an opportunity to be a student of the sport and the mental skills inherent to developing as a rowing athlete in order to pursue rowing with the mental framework to advance faster in the sport.
How big is the program?
Sparks multi-week cohorts are typically between 12 and 16 athletes. Coaching and operations staff ratios are set at 1:6, making overall staff to student ratio 1:3 - however, sometimes it is even lower.
Of chief importance to us is the quality of our cohorts - which we believe is a product of admissions, staffing, and group size to facilitate activities (eg. sweep boat rowing v. singles) as well as friendships that last long after camp ends.
We seek the highest international-quality level in coaching staff and our senior operations staff is made up of former rowers turned educators with a number of years of prior experience in our camp system; many hold graduate degrees in education.
What can you tell me about housing and supervision at camp?
Students are housed in western style accomodations in Kyoto and Tokyo.
At Sparks camps, we have two staffs: a coaching staff and an operations staff. Our operations staff is responsible for the experiential education and pastoral care at camp. In Japan, we generally have one coach and two operations staff for 12 athletes.
Tell me about safety at Sparks
We employ safety and risk management practices from the adventure education industry, where some risk is inherent but must be quantified insofar as educational value. These practices are initially employed in program design and we work hard to train operations staff to seek to maintain an awareness of specific risks at all times. No outdoors programming can guarantee safety, however professional management of risk is key to the art of providing consistently excellent experiential education programming.
Please also see our essential eligibility criteria
How do you handle travel to/from the camp?
The commitment is a long flight. The positive news is that getting to Tokyo on a near direct routing is not difficult to do.
We prefer students fly into Haneda airport (HND) as it's smaller and therefore easier for us to collect them. It's also closer to the city.
The journey itself is part of the camp experience. This camp invites athletes to take a personal journey with the sport at its center. While getting to Tokyo is not as complex as the South Island of New Zealand, the flight is long and the distance is felt.
Our Program Director (already on the ground in Japan as students arrive) tracks student travel into Tokyo, where they pick campers up from the airport.
Needless to say, you will fill out a travel form after registration that enables our staff to make sure your camper arrives and departs camp safely.
If you have questions, we're happy to answer them in the box in the lower right side, or you can schedule a call with us.
I have questions before I apply. Is it possible to speak with someone?
Certainly - we completely understand your need to connect about this commitment!
We just ask you schedule a call with us (click here) given we're a very small office.
Where are camp forms found?
Camp forms are issued at least six weeks prior to camp on our site via your dashboard.
We're considering providing this camp but want to ensure we can provide a solid program. To help us make the best decision, we'd love to hear from you!If you're interested in attending or learning more, please take a moment to share a bit about yourself. By filling out this form, you're not committing to attend – you're simply letting us know what would make this camp meaningful and how it aligns with your interests.
Once we’ve gathered feedback, we’ll be in touch!