When talking about the strategy of a trainer it is certainly understood that a long term behavior or course of action should lead to the achievement of someone’s goals. In my opinion this should be seen in a more specific way because it always depends who and how the goals were set, how realistic they are and in which stage of realization someone is in.
Jasmin Ouschan and Trainer Michael Neumann
With Jasmin Ouschan it was, at the beginning, pretty simple. Beginning at the age of 6 years and lasting till 12 or 14 years the main focus was always to encourage the natural play instinct and spur her youthful enthusiasm. We minimized her competitive situations and tournament involvement. Not to leave that out entirely, but our goal at that point was to fulfill and encourage her love of the colorful balls. Of course one of the main focal points at the beginning, the first strategy, was to develop a solid and accurate overall technique. This was made more difficult because as she was growing rapidly our technique had to change with her stature. Furthermore (but this was pretty easy as Jasmin was always enthusiastic about every kind of sport with a ball in it) it was important to train on the one hand a ‘feel’ for mastering control of the balls and her coordination to do so as well as to involve a physical training regimen that allowed for support of the muscle structure to prevent the possibility of later back or other physical problems.
In the second stage of our strategy, all of our planning became more specific and our training sessions and involvement in tournaments took place more and more often. It was most important for us to discover together what should be the outline of the future and to develop goals that would make each step more understandable to the athlete.
In Jasmin’s case these steps included attending a special high school with a focus on all kinds of sports and to attach great importance on foreign languages. We knew that it was very important to take care that the sport did not become the most important thing in her life and that there had to be enough free time to develop her personality away from the table. Because of this the trainer allowed the adolescent the freedom to formulate within herself the desire to become a professional sport athlete after finishing school.
In this stage, you may call it the third phase, the methods of our strategy changed again. Now we developed a clear statement about the goals and targets that must be reached to assure the success of the athlete. Now it is even more a concerted team effort to agree on a vision and it is also a job of the trainer to help the athlete to make the goals a mission. Both the trainer and the athlete share responsibility for the realization of all goals and targets.
To become a professional is not the most difficult task we faced but to be a professional over a longer period is a challenge on which we now spend all of our efforts. Our concentration extends from following our principles to be successful at the table to establishing a secure and stabile existence and to give enough room for personal development away from the table and the balls.
It is and was always important for us to demonstrate that even in a small sport like pool in our country you can be successful and accept a risk by striking a new path.
