In troubled times, it is all about working hard, thinking outside of the box and coming together. That is exactly what the Manitoba Table Tennis Association and Table Tennis Saskatchewan did this last weekend. 

There was a total of 10 coaches (7 different nationalities) participating in the first step of being certified in the “Introduction to Competition” stream. This weekend was the base course, a 2 days workshop focused on teaching the techniques, learning about different playing styles and planning a practice. Now that the coaches are trained, they can finish their portfolio (creating a practice plan, emergency plan and more …), working on some e-learning Multi Sport courses and submit a video of a practice or ask an evaluator to participate in a practice. When successful, the coach will be “Introduction to Competition” base certified. 

The next step is to take the advance course, also a 2 days workshops. Very similar to what has happened this last weekend, with the main focus on getting athletes ready for competition. The same procedure will happen as above to get their certification level. 

To go over and beyond, and think outside the box, this workshop also included a co-delivery for Manitoba’s Arvin Tronco together with Saskatchewan’s Paul Noel, who had already co-delivered in December with the Québec Table Tennis Federation. 

In the Coach Development stream, facilitators need to go over a few hurdles before being able to facilitate or being certificate. First they have to finish an online module on Make Ethical Decisions, then take a core training with Coach Canada a content specific training with Table Tennis Canada, do a co-delivery and then get certified by a Coach Evaluator. A lengthy process. For Arvin this means he can now facilitate the “Introduction to Competition” base training by himself and ask a Coach Evaluator in the future to evaluate him. 

Thorsten Gohl, Board of Director for Table Tennis Canada and Chair for the Coaching Certification Committee was excited about this event and said “It is all about working together, helping and supporting each other. So great to see the emails going for and back about this workshop, sharing information, figuring out who will deliver what and making it happen.”