Paul Green & Gareth Brown Seminar Day 1: January 5, 2018

The first day of the seminar weekend with the former Great Britain coaches gave me great insight of their views and methods of training. Comparing with previous USA coaches, Paul Green and Gareth Brown focus less on techniques to score on the electronic systems and more on preventing from getting scored on. Today they focused primarily on blocks and controlling the space between you and the opponent. They were training the athletes today to be more mentally strong and confident when approaching and being near an opponent. 

But the biggest takeaway from their training today was the theme of the training. Without themes in training sessions, the training will be mostly useless and doesn't help athletes improve their skills. The themes make the drills work and without them, the drills are just more drills that everyone can do. There were 3 notable themes today: Intensity, realism, and speed. Paul Green and Gareth Brown are strong advocates for the phrase: "Fight how you train". They ensured and encouraged all the athletes in attendance to do every movement and every kick as if they were in a competition. This is where the themes come in. Without intensity and speed, one's body will not improve because it will not know how to perform optimally. Without realism, the body will fail to react to situations in the ring if it hasn't been exposed to these situations in training.  

I am looking forward to what the coaches have in store for tomorrow.

-Joseph Ong