Irish national team: How to?

deegs

Hi guys…

I have a question… that stems from a problem

Martial arts are generally a small minority sport in Ireland and except to us… it’s may not that sexy!

Usually we have very little funds and we are expected to cough up for the important things ourselves…

Based on that, can I ask for some information on how your org manages or runs its national squad?

In kendo we have a World championships every 3 years (last one was in Brazil in 2009 Next one in Italy in 2012) and 2 European championships every other year (Hungary 2010, and Poland 2011). We only have one worldwide organization so they are the main targets for a national squad. One international a year to prepare for.

We are coming up to a big world championships in 6 months time and I’m hoping to learn from other martial arts to give us a bit of an edge.

Basically the panel members should train 3 or 4 times a week with their own club and get together once a month for a 6 hour session usually. Normally these training sessions are run throughout the year but this year we are considering limiting it to 4 months before the comp and maybe going a little more intense.

Now our main problems are as follows…

We have no cash.
So we cannot support the team when they travel, or even train at national training days. Also they panel are responsible for their own kit etc. But that means no cash for support staff - management, coaches etc.

We have very few training in Ireland (under a hundred) and less still willing to put themselves forward for a spot (we maybe get a panel of 10 for 5 places on the final team) Costs and commitment are barriers… apparently! But also I guess when they see poor performance and their fellow club mates not interested they also are not interested.

I think those 2 points are killing us…

Those that commit to the team are fairly young with little experience and none are really suited to coach technically so we use our most senior to drill us the national training sessions. But this may not be the correct methods of focus, we all have experience teaching in our clubs, but not coaching and international level team…. If you see the difference…
And we can’t really afford to import a high ranked coach… but I guess I’m personally not sure we can afford not to pay for one… for our team’s sake as opposed to our economic sake.

Because of that we have no fitness or nutrition plans for our athletes and no psychological training at all. If an athlete wants to pursue these aspects they will do so on their own and there is no onus on anyone else on the panel to follow suit. In fact I’m not sure it’s even encouraged amongst us. In my experience over the last 6 years the team training sessions do not improve performace... we get that from our own clubs, and the improvements to team bonding is neglibable.

Also because we have such low numbers interested in a spot we find there is low competition and motivation for a spot on the team… motivation for the Irish national team is once a month as opposed to every second of every day in the 6months leading up the event itself…

We have passionate people but without experience we just cannot pull it together

So do you focus on the technical aspects of your sport? Is your coach well respected internationally? Nationally? or locally? And are fitness, nuitrition and psychological aspects included? Is there anything else you could suggest?

I’m sure we’re not alone and I really love to hear some stories from your own sports on how you drive motivation and deal with coaching to make a really strong Irish team to be proud of!

Cheers lads!

smacl

Good post. I've trained in the dim and distant past for quite a few international tai chi / tui shou (chinese wrestling) competitions, both as an individual and part of a team. Now this is a real minority sport in Ireland, with no local competitions that I'm aware of, but is quite popular elsewhere. In 2002 we put together a team for the European championships which did very well, with all of us coming out in the medals. We were lucky, in that we had a great coach and determined team, and for me at least some of the key points to success were as follows;

- Set up a training plan and stick to it. For me this was training six days and resting one day, and included running and weights as well as sessions with the squad. It came out as ~6 hours training with the team and another ~6 training by myself.

- Set you diet and lifestyle up to maximise the benefits of your training. This meant no booze or late nights, and plenty of sleep. Diet wise, I followed advise from the fighters body, which I found excellent.

- Pace yourself for the training period. For us that included sticking to the above for three months, and letting family and friends know that normal service would be resumed after that date. It also meant avoiding injury, and enjoying the rest day so as not to crack up.

- Train to play to each squad members strong points, and identify and correct obvious weak ones. Don't waste time on new techniques, or techniques that don't work well in competition format. Focus on the places where competitions are won or lost. For us, this was very often in the split second at the start of contact, and the relatively few 90% techniques that lead to a score, rather than the very many 10% techniques that look great but rarely work. These techniques are different for everyone, so you have to spend time and look at what will work for each person, and where their weaknesses are. We had one lad that could pull hip throws out of nowhere at the most bizarre angles, for him they were a 90% technique, for the rest of us a 10% one.

- Train to win. Take a guess at how hard your opponents are training and make a point of training harder. I always found it a great motivator as I was running in the pissings of rain, or endlessly punching weights to my imagine my opponent doing the same training, and making sure in my minds eye that I put in the extra mile. Being stronger, fitter and more focussed than your opponent goes a long way to papering over cracks in your technical ability, and is within everyone's reach.

- Practise the exact competition format with the full formal rules and draconian refereeing. Its too easy to lose points for simple technical mistakes, and you want to get rid of all this stuff before the day.

- When you get to the mats, cheer your own guys on loudly, win or lose. Let them know your there, and that they're part of a great team.

- Most importantly, after the competition, take a major night out on the lash, celebrate what you've achieved, and remember then and only then that its just a game.

It's a hell of a lot of work, so you have to make sure that outside of ability, every member of the team is willing to put the work in.

deegs

Thanks man... solid advice!
I'm going to get a copy of that book!

smacl

Good luck with the competition, and remember that having the passion is the most important part.

deegs

Actually man, can you talk to me about your coach... was he just the most senior guy doing it in Ireland? Like your teacher from the club outside of the competition?

You know, what makes for a good coach? Passion is critical I agree, but beyond that was there any sports psychology or special trainings plans? if so did you make them yourself or get an outside specialist in... someone who didn't have a clue of your sport for fitness, nuitrition or psychology?

You say you did 6hrs training a week on your own and 6 hours with the team? How far did ye have to travel to train? We got peeps from Galway, Dublin, Cork and Kildare. The logistics of one nightmare a month is a balls let alone every week. I was hoping for every 2 weeks, but news from the top looks like it might be every 3 or 4 weeks.

Oh: Congrats on teh medals man... no small feat!

smacl

My coach was, and by times still is, Paul Mitchell. Most senior is a rather ambiguous term, in that there are guys in Ireland that would have been training longer, or would possibly be more widely known in chinese martial arts circles. Paul is a dedicated practitioner, seriously motivated, and very well respected by the head of our style, Dan Doherty. One of Dan's principles, which also became Paul's, is to try to teach people to be better than you are yourself, which goes quite a long way to people approaching their full potential. FWIW, Paul ended up taking gold in 2002 in all the events he entered without losing a single point in any of the matches, and went on to win the world championship in shuai jiao the following year. Having the opportunity to train with someone that much better than you really brings your game on. I always regarded myself as a very average martial artist, but by training with people who are good at what they do, and working hard themselves, you can't help but improve. I reckon every coach will be different, and being a good student is as important as being a good coach. From a training perspective, we got advise on what we should be doing to get into the proper shape. Psychology wise, it was more about following a lead. By six hours and six hours, I'm talking about twelve hours training per week, which is possibly quite light for some formats but enough for what we were doing. I know the lads that do full contact at a reasonably high level would put in quite a few more hours.

The idea of only meeting as a team once a month seems to me like the major obstacle in your plan. If you have people who are local and willing to train at the same level two to three times a week, I'd say that's a necessity rather than a nicety. We were all based in Dublin so didn't have the travel obstacle to overcome. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, you should possibly consider selecting your panel such that everyone has strong local training partners. It's totally unfair on those out in the boondocks, but such is life. Six months is a short period of time, but if you have people in your own club that are willing to commit time and effort to some serious training, go for it. Good for you and good for them. You want to spend your time training, not waiting for trains.

deegs

Wow, I woulda thought there would have been more Irish representatives here!

Ok, how about elite athletes training for an international fight?

Dave Joyce

Hey Deegs, wow, I really know where you're coming from there. Had the exact same problems when we first decided to compete in the WEKAF World Championships in LA in June 1996. No money, NO EQUIPMENT (until 6 weeks before we left for the US) and no experience of ANY kind in stickfighting events.

We committed to going the previous November and I sat down and decided that there was no way we could compete with countries with lots of experience and expect to do well. So, I decided to adopt a Jack Charlton tactic of just putting our opposition under pressure for the entire fight but particularly if after an exchange they decided to back off at all, I coached our guys to immediately chase and close them down not giving them any space at all. Short on skill high on fitness/aggression.

If we were going to use tactics like these we quickly realised that we would have to have a really good fitness level and embarked on a 6 month training programme from Jan to Jun training 3 days a week minimum with a monthly squad session and whatever other training you could get in each week. Most of the lads also trained Muaythai with me, so they got lots of supplementary training. Everyone of them stopped drinking (and there was a couple of right lushes in the squad:)) and worked their ass off for all of that period.

How did we fair out? Well it caught a load of guys by surprise and out of a small squad of 7, my brother won a bronze medal, 2 guys won their opening bout and four of us were beaten by the eventual winner of the division. Eventually with lots of competing and experience we totally changed the way we fought to a more refined skilled level. We never went to ANY event without taking at least two medals and that was at British (not enough people training to hold an Irish championships so we had to compete in theirs), European and World level. Don't know if any of this is any good to you guys but hey jump in there and give them hell

deegs

Great advice and great to see ye doing well!! Congrats, great attitude!

General Zod

Deegs, we should really focus on having raising funds for a national championships before we raise funds for a few people to go to internationals.

but then again I admit to knowing nothing (and rightfully so) about KnahE finances.

deegs

General Zod wrote: »

Deegs, we should really focus on having raising funds for a national championships before we raise funds for a few people to go to internationals.

but then again I admit to knowing nothing (and rightfully so) about KnahE finances.

Thanks for the comments, im not a member of the governing body for kendo in Ireland so I kinda don't want to get involved in their policy, but if you have issues or concerns you should contact them directly.

But as a hopeful prospective team member I posted this thread to find out what other minority sports do specifically with regards to coaching of their national team. I'd like to stay on topic, feel free to PM me if you like, to discuss anything else.

deegs

smacl wrote: »

- Set you diet and lifestyle up to maximise the benefits of your training. This meant no booze or late nights, and plenty of sleep. Diet wise, I followed advise from the fighters body, which I found excellent.

Thanks again man, just finished this book and I can't reccomend it highly enough. Some parts are a little american, but some really good info in there...
Ta!

smacl

deegs wrote: »

Thanks again man, just finished this book and I can't reccomend it highly enough. Some parts are a little american, but some really good info in there...
Ta!

If you enjoyed the book, Wim Demeere's blog might be worth a scan. Wim's also the Belgian national san shou coach, and trains a lot of people for competition, so he might well be able to give you some tips on getting your team organised. He's usually pretty good about answering questions, especially if you start off with a comment that you liked his book