BMABA Dojo Manager

Dojo Manager is your all-in-one curriculum workspace inside MyBMABA. It gives you a private, structured environment to build grading syllabi, manage your technique and drill libraries, plan your curriculum visually, and collaborate with other instructors.

Everything lives in one place, saves automatically, and is yours to own and manage without any external approval process.

Dojo Manager is built for Lead Instructors who want to move beyond a spreadsheet or Word document and have a proper working system for their club's curriculum.

Typical uses include building a full graded syllabus from beginner to black belt, maintaining a reusable technique library that feeds into multiple syllabi, storing warm-ups and drills for session planning, mapping how techniques progress and relate to each other, and collaborating with co-instructors in real time.

Non-lead-instructor account types can access Dojo Manager only if a Lead Instructor has shared a syllabus with them directly.

Earlier versions of MyBMABA included a centralised syllabus management system where techniques were submitted to BMABA for review and approval. That system has been retired.

The intention behind it was sound but the execution created an impossible situation. Martial arts pedagogy is vast and deeply personal to the art and the instructor. What constitutes correct or appropriate technique in one tradition may be entirely different in another, and BMABA does not have the authority, the expertise, or frankly the remit to adjudicate that. Approving and declining techniques means making value judgements about what constitutes legitimate martial arts instruction, and that is not a role that serves our members well.

The new system is entirely self-managed. You build your own library, you set your own standards, and BMABA's role is to provide the best possible tools to organise and present your curriculum. The pre-designed templates exist to give you a useful starting point, not to define what you should or should not teach.

Your membership tier determines how many syllabi you can create and whether certain features are available.

Bronze members can create one syllabus and access the Technique Library, Drill Bank, and AI Assistant, but cannot invite collaborators. Silver members can create up to three syllabi and invite up to five collaborators per syllabus. Gold members have no limits on syllabi or collaborators and also unlock the Scrapbook. The tier badge is shown in the top-right of the main Dojo Manager screen.

When you open Dojo Manager you land on your syllabi dashboard. Each syllabus appears as a card showing its name, martial art style tags, status badge, grade and technique counts, and when it was last updated. If other instructors are collaborating on a syllabus, a people chip shows how many.

Pending collaboration invites from other instructors appear at the top of this screen as a banner, with Accept and Decline buttons.

A usage gauge shows how many of your tier's syllabi and collaborator slots you are using. Click any card to open that syllabus in the editor. Click the trash icon on a card to delete it (owners only).

The Tools row beneath your syllabi gives you quick access to the Drill Bank and a link to the legacy Zoho syllabus records for reference.

Click New Syllabus. Give it a name, select one or more martial art styles from the discipline picker, and confirm. A default grade structure is created automatically, running from 9th Kyu through to 1st Dan, with standard belt colours. You can change every aspect of this in Settings. Three content blocks are also created by default: Introduction, Background and History, and Examiner Notes.

Once inside a syllabus you have five tabs across the top: Kanban, Content, Visualise, Pedagogy, and Settings. The AI Assistant panel sits on the right-hand side and can be shown or hidden at any time. A presence bar above the tabs shows if any collaborators are currently editing alongside you.

The Kanban board is the main working view of your syllabus. Grades appear as columns running left to right. Within each column, techniques are grouped by category: strikes, kicks, throws, ground work, kata, and so on.

To add a technique to a grade, click the plus button at the top of any grade column. An assignment modal opens showing your full technique library on the left, grouped by category, with a search bar. Click any technique to select it, then choose the grade to assign it to, the requirement level (Required, Optional, or Revision), and an optional examiner note. Click Assign. You can also create a new technique or import from the pre-designed template library directly from this modal without leaving your syllabus.

Requirement badges appear on each technique card: blue for Required, amber for Optional, and grey for Revision. You can drag technique cards between grade columns to reassign them. Clicking the eye icon on a card opens a 360-degree view modal showing the full technique details, its grade assignment, description, and coach notes.

The note bubble icon on a technique card opens a threaded notes panel. You and any collaborators can add notes, reply to each other, and delete your own entries. Note counts appear as a badge on the icon so you can see at a glance which techniques have active discussions.

To remove a technique from a grade without deleting it from your library, use the unlink icon. The technique remains in your library and can be reassigned elsewhere.

The Content tab holds free-writing sections for anything that does not belong in the technique grid. Each block has a title and a body text area where you can write whatever is useful: a curriculum introduction, background on the style, grading criteria, examiner expectations, special requirements, or anything else.

Click Add Section to create a new block. You can rename any block's title inline and delete blocks you no longer need. Content blocks do not have a structure imposed on them, so write freely.

The Visualise tab generates a full colour-coded map of your entire syllabus showing how techniques are distributed across grades. Each grade appears as a stop on a vertical timeline. Technique pills are colour-coded by category and you can click any pill to see that technique's full details.

Between each pair of grades is a time pill showing the estimated transition time based on sessions, frequency, and session duration. Yellow pills indicate grades where you have not yet set custom timing. Click any time pill to open the transition editor for that grade, where you set the number of sessions required, sessions per week, and session duration. The view recalculates automatically and shows a total journey estimate at the top, covering total weeks, total sessions, and total mat time from first grade to last.

Each grade also has an expandable pedagogy notes section where you can write the key learning objective for that grade, what students need to demonstrate to progress, and what examiners should look for. These notes auto-save as you type and are stored per grade per syllabus.

The Pedagogy tab gives you an interactive relationship graph where you can draw connections between techniques to show how skills build, progress, and relate across your syllabus. This is for curriculum planning: mapping prerequisites, progressions, refinements, and combinations.

Technique nodes appear on a canvas. Click a technique to start a connection, then click another technique to complete the link. A label field lets you describe the relationship, for example "prerequisite for", "builds into", "combination with", or "refines". Existing links appear as arrows on the canvas. You can edit or delete links at any time.

The Settings tab covers the syllabus configuration and team management.

The Syllabus Details section lets you update the name, the martial art style (using the same multi-select discipline picker as the creation modal), and the status. Status options are Draft, Active, and Archived. Draft syllabi are works in progress. Active marks a syllabus as live and in use. Archived moves it out of your main view without deleting it.

The Grade Structure section shows every grade in a sortable table. You can drag rows to reorder grades, edit grade names and belt names inline, set belt colour and stripe colour using colour pickers, choose a stripe type (none, single, double, or tip), and set a minimum training months requirement per grade. Use Add Grade to add new grades. Grades can be deleted individually but this will also remove any technique assignments for that grade.

The Collaborators section is where you invite other MyBMABA Lead Instructors to co-edit this syllabus. Type a name in the search field (surnames are partially masked for privacy) and select the person you want to invite. They receive an email invitation and can accept or decline from their own Dojo Manager dashboard. Once accepted they appear in the collaborators list and can make full edits. The syllabus owner can remove collaborators at any time. Collaborators can leave a syllabus themselves from the same view. Silver members can have up to five collaborators; Gold members have no limit.

The Technique Library is your global, reusable bank of techniques. It is not tied to any single syllabus: techniques in your library can be assigned to any of your syllabi, or to none.

From the main Dojo Manager screen, access it via the Technique Library link in the navigation. You will see your techniques as cards in a grid, filterable by category using the filter bar, and searchable by name. Each card shows the technique title, description or coach notes, category badge, and any grade it is currently assigned to, colour-coded with the grade's belt colour.

Each technique can have a custom icon (chosen from a martial-arts-themed emoji picker), a custom accent colour that appears as a top border stripe on the card, a description, and a separate coach notes field for progressions, common errors, or examiner tips.

Click the eye icon on a card to open the full technique view. Click the pencil icon to edit. The trash icon deletes the technique from your library and removes it from any syllabi it is assigned to; this cannot be undone.

Click Add Technique to create one from scratch. Click Pre-Designed Techniques to open the template import browser.

The template browser is a two-step modal. First you choose a martial art style from a grid of nineteen options: Aikido, Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Capoeira, HEMA, Hapkido, Jeet Kune Do, Judo, Jujitsu, Karate, Kendo, Kickboxing, Krav Maga, Kung Fu, MMA, Muay Thai, Self Defence, Taekwondo, and Wrestling. Once you select a style, techniques are shown grouped by category with titles and descriptions. Search within the list if you are looking for something specific. Click Import next to any technique to add it to your library. The button turns green to confirm. You can import as many as you like in one session. Imported techniques are fully editable and become your own entries the moment they land in your library.

The Drill Bank is your library of session content, covering warm-ups, drills, partner exercises, games, cool-downs, and conditioning. Access it from the main Dojo Manager screen via the Drill and Exercise Bank button.

Drills are displayed as cards in a grid with category filter buttons across the top: All, Warm-Up, Drill, Game, Cool-Down, and Conditioning. Use the search bar to find by name.

Click any drill card to open it and edit. Each drill can have a title, category, duration in minutes, description, equipment (selected from a chip-based tag picker that draws from a configured equipment list, with the option to type and add custom items), skill level (All Levels, Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced), age suitability drawn from the age ranges you set in Club Settings, and coach notes for progressions and variations.

Click Pre-Designed Drills to open the template browser. For drills the first step shows five session type tiles rather than styles: Warm-Ups, Drills, Games, Cool-Downs, and Conditioning. Select a type, then browse and import exactly as you would with techniques. Each pre-designed drill entry shows its title, description, suitable-for tag, and suggested duration.

The Scrapbook is a freeform digital canvas for brainstorming before committing ideas to your library or syllabus. Think of it as a pinboard where you can think out loud.

You can add three types of item. Post-it notes are compact sticky notes ideal for quick ideas. Freewrite blocks are wider and better suited for pasting in longer content: technique descriptions copied from books or PDFs, planning notes, session outlines. Image blocks let you upload a photo or image file directly to the canvas.

All items are draggable by clicking the grip handle and moving them anywhere on the canvas. Width can be adjusted and background colour can be changed from a palette of twelve options. Everything auto-saves as you type or move items. The Scrapbook is a thinking space rather than a publishing tool. When you are ready to commit something to your curriculum, add it manually to the Technique Library.

The AI Dojo Assistant is a beta feature available across the Technique Library, Drill Bank, and Syllabus Editor. It appears as a collapsible panel on the right-hand side of the interface.

The assistant has deep context about martial arts curriculum design across all the styles BMABA recognises and is scoped specifically to dojo management topics. It will help with technique suggestions and progressions, syllabus structure and grade loading analysis, examiner note and introduction drafting, drill and warm-up ideas, pad combination sequences, lesson planning, and curriculum theory. It redirects to Intercom for platform support, billing, or account questions, as those are outside its scope.

Quick-access shortcut buttons are provided at the top of the panel so you can ask common questions without typing. In the Syllabus Editor these include Suggest techniques, Analyse gaps, Grade distribution, Intro text, and Examiner tips. In the Drill and Library views they cover Warm-up ideas, Partner drills, Cool-down ideas, and Pad combinations.

Each account has a daily limit of 20 AI requests that resets at midnight. A usage bar in the panel shows how many you have used and how many remain. Responses are clearly marked as beta and should be reviewed critically before use.

Club Settings stores your club details and global defaults used across Dojo Manager. Access it from the navigation menu. Fields include club name, contact email, website, and address. The Age Range Definitions section lets you set your own age band labels, which appear in all drill forms across the platform. Enter them as comma-separated values and the preview updates in real time.

When multiple instructors have a syllabus open at the same time, a presence bar appears at the top of the editor showing who else is active and which tab they are on. Avatars with a green dot are on the same tab as you; those with an amber dot are elsewhere in the syllabus.

If a collaborator saves a change while you are also editing, a change pulse banner appears letting you know and offering a Refresh button to load their updates. You can dismiss the banner and continue working, though refreshing is recommended if you are both editing the same section.

Invites are sent by email and require the recipient to log in to their MyBMABA account to accept. Both parties receive email notifications when invites are accepted or declined.

For any questions about Dojo Manager, use the support chat via the Intercom bubble in the bottom-right corner of your MyBMABA portal, or browse the Help Centre for further articles.