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HOW CAN A COACH IMPROVE A PLAYER'S CAPABILITY ?
(From Table Tennis ABC by
Zdenko Uzorinac)
Table tennis is one of the most
complicated sports. It requires countless skills, both tactical and technical,
speed, stamina, dexterity, ball control, shrewdness, good reflex and quickness
in decision-making, strong nerve system and tireless diligence. Mastering table
tennis is similar to climbing steep steps, which are numerous and you do not see
where they end. Furthermore, the ascent is not the same all the way, and
although you might believe that the worst is over you still might have to climb
the steepest part.
Istvan Korpa
"When you start to work with a
player, first of all you have to establish his strong and his bad side. This has
to be done from the point of view of general and specific physical condition on
one side, and on the other his technical-tactical and psychological condition.
Once I have established a picture
of his mental state, only then is it possible to go on further.
I believe that a coach must have a
vision of how his player is going to perform in a certain period of time. If I
work with a young player, my plans will go further in the future, for example
with the intention of him being ready in the last year of his/her junior status.
On the other hand, if I have an older player who has already acquired some
automatic features, it will be more difficult to teach him some new things. So,
the next move is to set a goal. It is very important, as a player without
motivation will not make any progress. At this moment details have to be
specified. I strongly believe that depending on the age and quality of a player
he himself should be included in the future plans. He should not be left aside.
The player must believe that the goals and plans are realistic and that they can
come true.
We start from the point that the
coach works with his player daily, or at least 3-4 times a week. If that coach
is simultaneously a national team coach, this becomes almost impossible. In such
cases, more or less defined periods for practicing are decided upon
(preparations for a new season or for the important competitions), and the
working period with players can last two or three weeks.
Table tennis has become an
extremely fast sport due to the development of materials (and due to constant
speed gluing) so players must firstly be fast in (legs, waist and arm). I would
just like to point out that if I want to develop the technical abilities of a
player, primarily his physical condition has to be increased. It is not possible
to improve or develop the player’s ability without developing his skill to move
at the table, at least not to international level. At this point the
difficulties usually start. Therefore you have to stand behind the player,
persuade him to practice, give him support in difficult moments, accurately
estimate when to stop practicing, give a pause...but nevertheless always have in
mind that pressure in practice must be gradually increased all the time in order
to develop some abilities.
Best practice and best time for
doing it in order to improve condition is in the preparatory period, during
summer before the season starts, but one should bear in mind that at least two
months are needed to develop or increase physical readiness of a player.
There are two types of players. One
type has great "touch"; I would call it Waldner type. Such players play with the
ball constantly, experiment all the time, and almost develop their own
technique. The coach must take care that experimenting does not go on endlessly
and at the same time take care that the player does not loose his conception of
the game. Sometimes the coach has to influence the player to create his own
profile, to find his personal game style. This type of player learns quickly,
but is not steady enough so it might happen that he has for example "a hundred
forehands". The second type of a player is less talented regarding his "touch",
but is far more persistent in his work, and sticks to the agreements made with
his coach. He works at each practice with full concentration and seeks his
goals. You can make better plans with him, as he does not have so many ups and
downs in his development. For example the Belgian player Saive is such a
player.In any case I think that both "types", knowing of course that there are
more shades between these two extremes, are capable of reaching and making
excellent results. Nevertheless the coach has to know how to approach each
individual and get under the skin of each player in order to lead and develop
him as an individual."´
Libuse Uhrova Grafkova
"When defining the intensity of
practice one should distinguish among certain players. Most of the top players
are not robots who do not think, who execute demands of their coach without
objections. The player himself is the only one who knows exactly how his body
reacts to load. Nevertheless we do not wish to diminish the importance of a
coach in the whole process.
On the contrary, the coach has to
pay attention to what the player feels. Best results and good shape can be
achieved if one possesses ability to sympathize with the competitor and know
when to increase or diminish the intensity, to understand him and correct the
load in cooperation with the player.
Pursuant to the stated, it is clear
that in top quality table tennis we can not be orientated only to constant
growth of volume and load intensity, as each player has his own individually set
limits.
The player must be conscious that
if he is taken in a certain selection but can not follow the scheduled working
programme and does not show sufficient tendency of progress, he will fall out of
the programme."
Radivoj Hudetz
"According to my opinion the coach
who really wants to help his player to develop his game must not have ready made
shapes according to which he wants to mould the player. The coach must try to
discover the specific individual abilities of his player, and he should mould
the player accordingly. When the coach possesses the idea of how a game should
be played in order to make a successful table tennis player, and wants to put
each player within this frame, only in a few cases (when the individual’s
ability fits such frame) the player will be able to develop all his abilities.
However, such situations will be
quite rare, and many talented young players will not be able to develop their
own abilities to their maximum and achieve the results, which they objectively
could if all their individual abilities were applied. The coach has to search
for the best solutions for the game style and practice of each player
individually – only then can the abilities of each individual be fully explored.
In all this the coach must have the
instinct for appraisal of objective top abilities of a given sportsman, since if
you succeed in realizing even 100% of the player’s abilities, this 100% might be
enough only for creating a solid player for a league competition. On the other
hand another player might become a great champion by using only 80% of his
abilities.
A successful coach must be able
to value the abilities of an individual and must find a way to guide the player
to reach this goal."
(From Table Tennis ABC by
Zdenko Uzorinac)
Copyright © Zdenko Uzorinac & Tibhar. All rights reserved.
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