Change of Coach – A Painful Experience

     I think, for a professional athlete, change of coach could be the most traumatic experience in the sports life, particularly he has been my personal coach for nearly three years and I expect he can guide me till 2012 London Paralympic Games.

It just happened by the end of May, that was three weeks before the Thailand Open.  The incident was so painful that I dared not touch it to hurt my feelings.

     Till today, my emotion and mood settled.   After all, I was forced to make this drastic tragic decision so far as I found I got no progress in my table tennis skills in the past few months and he seemed to have lost his sincerity in coaching me continuously.

To deal with my tournaments in the second half year of 2011, I quickly found another coach on 22 May 2011.  He became very important to me as the rest of tournaments were crucial to my eligibility for participating 2012 London Paralympic Games.  Understanding well his potent role, he was willing to accept the job.

My new coach is still at his teenage and just leaves his team recently.  Despite he is not a very experienced coach, he is very sincere in coaching me.  The most important is that he has great passion to face challenge so as to WIN competition.  To be sure, he himself continuously participate tournaments as well.

Different coach bears different techniques, skills and playing styles.  The new one teaches me a proactive and aggressive form which I am still learning.  To be luck or not, after the change of coach, I got my first gold medal in the single event this year, in Thailand Open in early June 2011.