Almighty Coach

"What is the pre-match consultation for?" asked Dai Li.

"This is a tradition for our national table tennis team, where the collective wisdom of our team can be given full display. Before the games, the core coaches and players will be gathered together, to discuss the problems of athletes." After a short pause, Gu continued, "The existing problems are not just about technology, but are more about other things, such as athletes’ physical fitness, attitudes, and their psychological problems."

After saying these words, Gu turned his head to look at Li and said, "Although we are not psychologists, we have many experienced coaches, who once were players. The players’ psychological problems are basically what these coaches have experienced before. So, they know how to deal with these problems."

While talking, Gu walked to the door of the meeting room. Instead of immediately pushing the door open to go in, he said to Dai Li, "After entering into the conference room, don’t talk, but rather listen first, so you can see how this pre-game consultation is conducted."

Following Gu, Li entered into the meeting room. All the other people there, except Bin Wang, were surprised by the appearance of Li. Obviously, they did not expect that Li would attend the meeting.

Li sat down in a not-so-visible position, and took out his notebook to prepare for the records. After spending the whole morning listening, Li finally understood what the pre-match consultation was all about.

The pre-match consultation was mainly aimed at analyzing the recent problems of the athletes, so as to find solutions for these problems. It involved the full participation of all the people present, which included not only the head coaches of the athletes, but also the other coaches, who would likewise express their opinions. And so did those athletes present. As for the athletes themselves, they would analyze themselves in order to find out exactly what their problems were.

For example, if an athlete had been under a lot of pressure recently, all of the people attending the consultation would help him analyze the causes of the pressure, and then, they’d help to find a solution for him or her.

It is always more difficult for one to find his or her own shortcomings. But it is easier to find others’ faults. Similarly, no matter how perfect a player, there are still some problems or shortcomings of that player that can be pointed out by others during the pre-match consultation.

However, for those front-line athletes of the national table tennis team, their shortcomings were not limited to their techniques, but also covered other aspects, such as a lack of calmness during a game, an overcautious playing manner, or even the handling of a clutch shot in a certain game.

It was the first time for Li to participate in such a pre-match consultation, so he remained as a silent listener. During the meeting, he had no chance to speak, and he didn’t try to get the chance to speak, either.

What he did do was listen quietly. Even so, he still benefited a lot from it.

When the pre-game consultation was finished, the athletes and their coaches returned to the training ground. However, Li was summoned by Gu to stay.

"Well, how do you feel about your first pre-game consultation?" asked Gu.

"I have benefited a lot from it," Li replied frankly.

Gu added, "Just like what I said before, it’s a place where our team can give their collective wisdom full play. Besides, all the information here is shared among all the members. Since it involves analysis of the famous athletes’ technical and character information, our pre-match consultations’ process and contents are only accessible to our internal talents and core staff, and have never been open to the media or the public."

Li nodded. He had been an "insider" in the sports circle, but before today, he had never heard of such special consultations before the games.

Gu went on, "This is actually a successful example of our national system being applied in table tennis. If you are in a foreign country, there is no way that you can gather so many of the world’s best athletes and best coaches to have a consultation for one player, so as to help the player find out his or her problems and their relevant solutions."

"Our players participate in international competitions all the time. When they would get to the semi-finals, it would actually become an inner competition among our players within the team. Therefore, from this perspective, these people in the room just now, are also competitors against each other, as everybody wants to win the championship, but only one can finally win. If you win, others will lose. Therefore, it’s no matter whether they are the coaches or the players, all of them have to make a consideration of their own interests. If you help your competitors by giving them good advice, they will be stronger, and you will then become comparatively weaker," Gu added.

"But this is also what our team is proud of. As we sit here, for the interests of the nation, the honor of our team, and our own ideals and pursuits, we give up our individual interests, in order to collectively apply the wisdom of the whole team, and hence, go all out to help every player in solving their own problems. All this could not have been achieved without the national system."

Gu stood up and said, "Come on, I’ll take you to visit our research group."

"Research group?" Li wanted to ask the reason why he should visit there, but didn’t.

Yet, Gu had already known what Li was thinking about.

"You don’t think that our research group is just drinking tea and reading the newspapers all day, doing nothing else at all, do you?" asked Gu.

Li smiled awkwardly. In his view, the so-called "research group" was indeed a "sinecure" department.

It was not uncommon in some government agencies, where out of every 100 people hired, only twenty did any real work, and of those 20, only 18 are temporary workers, leaving the remaining two as the leaders. Therefore, Li took it for granted that the research group of the national table tennis team was also a place of those who were idle.

Gu shook his head helplessly, as he got up to take Li to the research group. He said, "Our research group is not a place where one can idle along in his job. Instead, there are many experienced table tennis coaches there. Some head coaches, who just participated in the pre-match consultation, had once been working in our research group."

"The table tennis rules have been constantly changing over the years. Yet our players are always No.1 in the world. This is partly due to the work of our research group. Whenever the International Table Tennis Association has issued new rules, our research group would immediately study which techniques would become more effective under the new rules, and which would be less useful, because of these new rules. In this way, our research group would instantly put forward new techniques, new methods, new tactics and new systems, in accordance with the new rules, and then ask the athletes to carry out exercises for their continuous improvements. Therefore, every time there are new rules for table tennis, we can get used to them as soon as possible," Gu said.

Li had heard of what Gu now mentioned. It could not be kept a secret that there were researchers who specialize in studying the new rules in the national table tennis team.

In recent ten years, in order to prevent the growing dominance of the Chinese national table tennis team, the International Table Tennis Association constantly changed the rules of table tennis, in hopes of restraining the national table tennis team. However, the outcome was that our national table tennis was getting ever stronger, while fewer and fewer players were playing table tennis in other countries.

This is most probably because there are teams inside the country that specialize in studying the new rules. As soon as the rules of the International Table Tennis Association were issued, our research group would thoroughly analyze the new tactics and methods under the new rules in no time, so that our players of national table tennis could adapt to the new rules very quickly.

Therefore, when our players began playing in a competition with the new tactics and methods, players from other countries may have just begun to practice under the new rules. It’s like playing a game, where a new hero character has been presented. We have grasped all the information about this character, including the type of the new hero character, his skills, his equipment, how to use this new hero character to cooperate with other heroes, and even the new tactics for the hero character.

However, at the same time, the opponents are just beginning to get familiar with the new hero’s skills. In this case, it’s certain that we would win an overwhelming victory, just like our crushing victory of national table tennis under the new rules.

When the opponents see our players playing, they would suddenly understand that they are supposed to play in this way, while under the new rules! As a result, our national table tennis was always the No.1!

Gu then said, "In fact, in addition to studying the new rules, our research group also does a lot of other work, such as data collection and analysis. This is the reason why we also have many people working on statistics, besides the table tennis coaches, in our research group. There are so many statistical items, based on which we can find a lot of problems for improvement."

"Take picking-up time for example, you certainly won’t notice it when you are watching the table tennis match, right?" said Gu.

"Picking up time? What does that mean?" Li asked, in total confusion.

"It’s the pause between the end of one rally and the start of the next rally. It’s the time for the player to ’pick up’ the Ping pong ball," Gu explained.

"We collect data on this? Is it really useful?" Li asked in surprise. In his view, it would be a waste of time to count the time used for picking up the ball.

However, Gu explained with a serious countenance, "It certainly is useful. When the player is picking up the ball, he is actually thinking about what technique he should adopt for the next rally. So, the longer an athlete takes to pick up the ball, the longer he can think of the tactics.

"Take Anshan Wang as an example. Sometimes, when he is impatient in the match, he spends less time to pick up the ball, which is only about 20 seconds. Under such circumstances, he tends be less likely to win the game. In contrast, when he is more likely to win, he spends more than 30 seconds to pick up the ball, which means that he has been thinking through his tactics for the next rally. Sometimes, when he meets a strong adversary, like Xiangxian Zuo, he even needs 40 seconds to pick up the ball, which shows that he is giving full consideration to the tactics."

Gu paused, and then said, "This is just a small part of the work of our research group. They also do a lot of statistics of other detail information. It is very tedious. Sometimes, it is just a match for one hour, yet it will take three or four people seven or eight hours to complete the statistics on it.

Gu stopped with a long sigh of relief, and then said, "They are truly the heroes of our team, and our country. However, our head coaches can go on television and get to be known to the public, while the research group can only remain unknown in the background, unknown to the public."

"All this should be attributed to our national system, right?" Li asked suddenly.

"You’re right. Only under the national system would it be possible that someone is willing to stick to their own posts for decades, so that the two or three world champions may win their victories. It shows not only a spirit of dedication, but also is an embodiment of unity," Gu nodded with emotion.

"Many Chinese people are not familiar with our national system in sports. However, the application of this system in table tennis is the most successful. We have set up a complete system, covering from the cultivation and selection of young players to the training of the adult athletes, as well as a variety of logistics services, with one closely connected to another, and everyone doing their own job to make the whole system work."

"It is this system that we have set up that makes our table tennis the No.1 in the world. As long as this system exists and works, our team will continue to be No.1!"