Almighty Coach

"Have you heard that the new Coach Li was directly assigned to team one?"

"Really? He was assigned to team one? Usually, new coaches are assigned to team two first, aren’t they?" someone questioned.

"Of course, it’s true! I’ve seen it for myself. He was assigned to team one by Coach Gu. It seems that Coach Gu values him very much!" the coach of team one said.

"Over the past years, Gu has picked several coaches from other places, and there has never been a coach who was directly assigned to team one," said the other.

"Yes. Who is this Dai Li? If he was assigned to team one, he may have a strong background, or maybe he is the son of a leader," someone said with disbelief.

"Don’t guess blindly. Dai Li is a real talent!" said someone who had known about it.

"Du, you are quite familiar with Bin Wang. You must know something. Can you share with us?" someone asked.

Du replied, "Did you all get a new physical training program? It was made by Dai Li."

"Oh, it was him who made it? To be frank, it was a great physical training program," sighed the man.

Someone opposed and said, "It is not a big deal. This kind of physical training program is quite easy for me, so why haven’t I been assigned to team one by Coach Gu?"

"Can you make seventy-eight physical training programs for the team in one week?" Du countered.

"What did you say? Seventy-eight physical training programs, for the whole team, in one week? How is that possible?" the naysayer said.

"You can’t do it, but Dai Li is able to make seventy-eight physical training programs in a week. And these programs are now in our hands," Du said. "If you don’t believe it, you can ask other coaches if they’ve got the new physical training program."

However, nothing could be kept secret forever in this world. As the seventy-eight physical training programs were sent to each coach, the news that Dai Li was assigned to team one was also spread throughout the national table tennis team.

Nevertheless, it was also a great challenge for Dai Li to be in team one. In team one, there were several world champions and grand slam players. They had both reputation and strength.

They were all successful athletes. However, as a newcomer, how to get these world champions to follow his instructions, and train them according to his program, were the first problems for Dai Li.

Standing in the shoes of these athletes, it’s easy to understand. They would feel like, "I am a world champion, and the backbone of the national table tennis team. You are just a young and new coach, not an athlete. And as a coach, you haven’t got any brilliant achievements. So why should I obey you?!"

When Dai Li went to the Sports Department of Tsing Hua University, he also encountered similar problems. At that time, he quickly convinced Guohong Liu, Xiaotian Xin, and other athletes, by pointing out their shortcomings, then, finally, his training went smoothly.

But this method didn’t apply to the national table tennis team. After all, table tennis is a highly technical sport. While acting as a physical coach, it is obviously unpersuasive for Dai Li to talk about the skills of table tennis with these athletes.

The national table tennis team boasts China’s top table tennis coaches, many of whom have trained world champions. Therefore, they are more experienced than Dai Li, in terms of table tennis skills.

What’s more, the athletes of the national table tennis team began to play table tennis at early ages. Most of them have been trained for more than two decades. They are much better than Dai Li in professional skills. If Dai Li wanted to tell them how to improve their skills, it would be just like teaching a fish to swim.

Besides, there are athletes who are simply had no flaws at all, like Anshan Wang. While for the backbone athletes of the national table tennis, such as Pengfei Cui and Xiangxian Zuo, the only problem was their physical pain, as they had no problem in skills.

Therefore, it was impossible for Dai Li to use the method that he had used in Tsing Hua University. If he wanted to attain the athletes’ trusts, he must come up with other methods.

...

Bin Wang looked at Dai Li in the distance, his eyes full of worry, while Zhizhong Gu showed an indifferent expression.

"Gu, I’m quite worried about whether or not Li can convince these guys. Consider the four backbones of our team. Shuang Pang is young, so he tends to be more obedient than the others. The world’s No.1 tennis player, Anshan Wang, has a modest and introverted character. Xiangxian Zuo has always been outgoing, and he is good at getting along with others. But Pengfei Cui is a troublemaker by nature, and doesn’t listen to anyone much. An ordinary coach cannot handle him at all!"

Zhizhong Gu smiled and said, "This might be the second test for Dai Li! It is a practical test. The physical training program he wrote before was but a theoretical examination."

"Aren’t you going to help him?" Bin Wang asked.

Zhizhong Gu shook his head and said, "Fire tests pure gold. Athletes need to experience setbacks in order to grow up, especially the young athletes."

"But I think Dai Li is good enough, we don’t need to give him more tests," Bin Wang continued.

"There is no doubt that he is good enough, but I think he has more potential," Gu added.

"We should not only focus on the present, but also pay more attention to the future. Such a young coach as Dai Li is the future of China’s table tennis. When we were athletes, China’s table tennis was ranked first. When we were coaches, China’s table tennis was still the No.1 in the world. So I hope that, when we retire, we will still be No.1 in the world," continued Gu.

When Gu said these things, his eyes were full of hope, "These athletes are stronger than we were, when we were younger. They have stronger bodies, more prominent skills, and more reasonable tactics. If they retire and become coaches, they must be better than us. That’s what we expect of our national table tennis, that each generation surpasses the preceding one. Only in this way, can our table tennis stand at the top of the world."

Just as Gu said before, it was only a theoretical examination to have Li make physical training programs. Sports, after all, are based on practice. It would be useless to talk about many theories, without putting them into practice.

Daily training is the main basic work for a coach. If we can’t ensure sufficient training, even if we have great theories, we are just researchers, rather than "excellent coaches".

It also applies to teaching. Each school has a department that is responsible for teaching research, and the teachers there also have rich experience. However, the "great teachers" in parents’ eyes are the head teachers who have higher graduation rates. These head teachers cannot compete with these professionals in teaching theories, but they have great teaching achievements.

Li’s goal is not to be an armchair coach, so he must face the challenges he will encounter in the future. It is quite difficult for Li to make these world champions follow his training program. So Dai Li knows that, if he wants to win the recognition of these world champions, the key is to change!

The best way to win the trust of these world champions is for Dai Li to make efforts to help these athletes realize that his training will bring them changes in a short time. However, for these backbone athletes, who are quite excellent in all aspects, it is by no means easy to give them changes in a short time. Hence, Dai Li must find an appropriate breakthrough to achieve this aim.

Finally, Dai Li chose "Arm muscle training" as his breakthrough.

Professional table tennis players have a common characteristic, namely, the forearm of the ball-holding hand is longer than that of the non-ball-holding hand. So, the muscles of the ball-holding hand are obviously stronger than those of the other one. As such, to the naked eye, it looks like one arm is longer and stronger than the other. This is mainly because athletes have been playing table tennis since childhood, so the growth of their bones and muscles have been affected, causing this inevitable result.

That’s not the case with people who haven’t been playing table tennis from an early age. Of course, in China, those who have not been trained in table tennis since childhood are unlikely to be professional players.

The human body is a coordinated system and each movement made when playing table tennis is a part of the whole body movement. If two arms were different in length and size, it is bound to affect the integrity of the whole body. So, if this defect can be improved, athletes would quickly feel the systematic "changes" in their bodies.