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Over 120 coaches descended on Lilleshall National Sports Centre for the ETTA Coaching Conference. With a jam packed agenda the conference kicked off with a keynote speech from athlete Lesley Owusu. Inspired and ready to get learning the attendees were treated to a variety of theoretical workshops and practical sessions. Split into groups the carefully selected and well delivered topics provided many with invaluable knowledge and firsthand experience helping to develop and extend each coaches knowledge and subsequently the way coaching is delivered in their future sessions.
Integral to the sessions were the eight recently appointed ETTA Regional Coaches (further detail click here) supported by the National Coaching staff, and various members of the British Table Tennis Federation performance coaching programme.
The sessions included (click to view presentations where available): Performance Analysis, The Art of a Good Corner Person, Dartfish Video Analysis Software, Competition Review, Clubmark and Young Officials Award Updates, Schools Sport Agenda, Multi-ball Theory, Coaching Update, Coaching Women and Girls, plus Talent Identification.
On the practical side the coaches were able to dust off their bats and participate in a diverse series of workshops including: speed and agility exercises for table tennis, working with advanced table tennis players with a disability, delivering the Butterfly Awards scheme, managing large groups with fun games, progressive exercises for developing strokes, core stability exercises plus a selection of high quality multi-ball drills.
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Charlie Childs, Vice-Chairman of ETTA Coaching, said: “Coaching sport is now recognised by all key government agencies as a vitally important skill, not just in the build-up to the next Olympics in London 2012 but long term. Consequently significant resources are being put in place for governing bodies to access to improve the delivery of this service. Alongside this development, the new Sport England strategy focuses on developing player pathways as well as participation, which dovetails perfectly with current ETTA planning. It is fair to say that never before has coaching, and indeed coaches, had such a wonderful opportunity to develop and improve. It goes without saying that it is vital we seize the moment and ensure that our sport of Table Tennis capitalises on this unique opportunity. In order that we can move successfully forward into this new and exciting era, the focus of this conference was specifically designed to achieve this and I believe it was well received”.
Jim Farrow, an attendee, said: “I thoroughly enjoyed my first Coaching Conference weekend, the subjects were interesting, informative, professionally run, well presented, and the venue superb.It was very pleasing to hear that funding was secured to enable the ETTA to recruit our best former players (Andrew Rushton, Natalie Bawden, etc) to enable a high level of coaching across the country, it seems very fitting as the ETTA would have put a tremendous amount of time/cost into these players in the past and we can now benefit from their experience and knowledge.”
It is hoped that the ETTA will be able to secure funding to ensure that the national coaching conference will be back on the agenda next year. There is even a possibility of rolling this out on a regional basis to provide greater opportunity for every coach to attend. Watch this space.
Download Presentations
01 Welcome - Charlie Childs
02 Coaching to Success - Lesley Owusu
03 Performance Analysis - Oliver Logan
04 Using MultiBall - Charlie Childs
05 Talent Identification - Peter Charters
06 Coaching Update - Dave Berriman
07 Development Update - D. Gray & M. Ireland
08 Working with Advanced TT Players with a Disability - Mark Palmer
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