Pieces of Jigsaw Coming Together

Have you ever assembled jigsaw puzzle before? Especially the ones with more than 1000 pieces? If you have, I can share with you that training Aaron is just like assembling jigsaw puzzle. Obviously you will start to group together similar grain of colors and then trial fit as many pieces as you can. You may not see the results yet but you know you have to be patient and keep at it.  There will be times when a few pieces will fit together. Then a cluster of them will fit with another cluster. Gradually, a tiny section of the picture will come together nicely. That was how it was with Aaron.

Quiet in his ways, Aaron suddenly came alive after just two and the half months. He now was able to place a net shot and then return a base line in succession. If you give him a half court, he can return a cross court drop or a cross court smash. He can even do a back hand flick across the net. On a good day, he could be stretched for shots that he normally could not take. Heck, he even attempted some deceptive strokes. I started to wonder how did he put all these together?

Could it be the holistic approach that has contributed to this paradigm shift in his game? How come Ryan’s progress in contrast was painstakingly slow? We used to focus on strokes in the first 2 months. When my wife had to undergo a minor surgery in mid September, she could not join us in our training sessions. Therefore, I had to improvise our training method a little by getting the boys to move around the court  more while I fed shuttle on all 4 corners. While one was training, the other would pick the shuttles and they took turns. After just two weeks on this drill, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly came together so beautifully for him.

It could well be his diligence and his attentiveness that brought out the talent in him. He went about obediently with his trainings, took our comments and advice without fuss and went about as instructed.  What a coach’s delight to get to train a player like him. The time is right now for him go into tournament to test his abilities. It would be an injustice for him not to start winning any medals.