6 November 2009 - It's all about coaching

It's all about coaching! Rome (ITA) - 6 November 2009       The third day of the 2009 World Archery Coaching Seminar was oriented towards coaching, under the coordination of Mr. KIM Yung-Tak, the famous international coach from Korea.  Nino Oddo (FITA Coaches Committee) delivered the first presentation of the day, on the Italian coaching education system for archery. He used several statistics to show the very good coaching services provided in the Italian archery clubs. The Italian coaching education system should inspire attendees of this seminar, since it is a simple system that has proved its effectiveness.   Mauro Gatti (in charge of the psychological preparation at FITARCO) explained the principles he uses in assisting the Italian archery teams and the skills he is trying to develop. Mr. GATTI demonstrated impressive professional skills during his lecture. The audience was captivated.   The day continued with a presentation of the Olympic Solidarity Programmes and their application processes. The participants were surprised by the significant amount of money available for the development of sports worldwide. Edward KENSINGTON (Project Officer at Olympic Solidarity) also invited the participants to collaborate with their National Archery Federation in order to apply for such programmes through their National Olympic Committee, since archery can still benefit more from them.  Pascal Colmaire (FITA Development & Education Director) presented the activities of the FITA Coaches Committee. For example, this Committee develops tools such as curriculums, manuals, videos and PowerPoint presentations in order to help the different countries build up their own coaching education programmes. FITA is currently assisting the education of coaches in several countries that do not have a coaching education system yet, giving priority to the educations of the Coaching Course Conductors, who will teach the future coaches from their countries (or sometimes from a neighbour country).   The archery training software "MMArc" was then introduced. It was created to record the training content and the performances from the archers. Patrick Lebeau,a French archery coach who contributed to the development of this promising coaching tool, explained in details its various uses and the way that it can make communication between coaches and athletes easier, particularly when they are located far away from each other.  Italy is the European country with the highest number of archery equipment makers. Worldwide, it belongs to the top four (4) along with Korea, the USA and China. Fiberbow Archery representatives Christian DELIGANT, Giuseppe Reverzani and Paolo SABBIONI presented products of a high quality, most of which are made of carbon. Their star product is a nice-looking carbon riser that is surprisingly light. Another product caught the attention of the participants: the stabilizer system. The Fiberbow stabilizers have a very particular shape, having at the same time a cone/triangle shape, from each end and interlacing towards the middle length.   KIM Hyung-Tak from Korea, one of the most famous archery coaches in the world, has recently published a book in which he provided countless useful elements. After a presentation about Korean archery and his own experience in the sport, coach KIM showed participants how to analyze the shooting form of an archer using a software created specifically for physical movement and a high-speed video. Then Mr. KIM presented the "basics archery skills", as he calls them. This last session of the day went over the time limit but nobody complained, since the lecture was so captivating!   It was another very interesting day in Rome. So far, the World Archery Coaching Seminar is a major succes and could be the best archery seminar ever if the level stays the same on Friday, the last day.    FITA Development