Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Working with Tom John

AS some of you may know, I’ve hired a personal coach, Tom John, for six months leading up to the Olympics. I’ve been working with him for a little over two months now. The official list of qualifiers for the Olympics is out and I’m on it, so we’re training and looking to peak at the Olympics.

I’d been thinking about hiring a personal coach for a while now. I felt that since the World Championships last August, I hadn’t really continued on the same path and was beginning to stagnate. There were, of course, some things that were out of my control, like the injury to my foot, which started to get really bad around September/October last year. But I still felt like I needed to shake things up a bit and try something different. I had a couple of people in mind who I wanted to work with. Of course, ideally I would have either Prakash Padukone or Vimal Kumar travel with me, but since they have to take care of the academy, that wasn’t a possibility. I’d talked to Jim Laugesen, a former player from Denmark, about the possibility of training with him and he was quite keen on it. I’d also worked with Tom John over brief periods some years ago and I thought he could also help me. In the end, I went with Tom John because I needed to be based in India in this period leading up to the Olympics and he was better suited to Indian conditions, having been in India many times in the past.

We had a mixed sort of start as a team. I had an ordinary German and All England Open but was beginning to play better and better towards the end of my stay at the All England. As it turned out, I beat Shoji Sato of Japan in the first round in the Swiss Open. I did’nt start out very well and was down 14-19 in the first. I was able to really raise my level from then on and equalised at 19-19. He got a net cord at that stage and went up to 20-19 but I was feeling quite good having won a few points in a row and I went on to win the game at 22-20. I dropped the second game but recovered in time to take the third.

I felt good about my next round against Taufik as I’d beaten him the last time we played. But I got injured in the first game itself. It felt quite strange, I’d never been injured before and one moment I was playing and the next I felt and heard a loud snap in my left foot. I couldn’t put my foot down at all after that and had to concede. I had a strange plane ride back to Bangalore on a wheelchair, and crutches where there was no ramp for the wheelchair.

Since recovering from the injury, I’ve mostly been doing weight training for the upper body and a lot of cycling since I didn’t want to risk injuring the foot further. I’ve been amazed at how without running or playing Tom has managed to keep me fit through the last few weeks. I’ve just started to play again and I feel a bit stronger and fitter. It’ll take a couple more weeks before the physical work that I’ve done is translated to the court but when it does, I’ll be better than before.

So, as of now, the plan is to work more on physical conditioning for the next two weeks or so and then get on to more on court work. I’ll write another update in a few weeks’ time :)

-Anup

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Real pleasure meeting you today. I wish you all the best on Wednesday. I really wish I was in town. I have to travel on Tuesday. But, I hope to persuade the rest of my family to come and root for you. Disappointed to find that there are not too many people interacting with you. We will do our best to keep it interactive :-) All the best. - Anantha Nageswaran

Shyam said...

All the best for the first round at singapore open. Looks like the draw has changed, i was thinking you were meeting Taufik Hidayat.All the very best. Thanks for the autograph at the airport by the way. It was nice meeting you in person.

Shyam said...

Hi, Read in papers that you are training in bangalore, our city, for the beijing olympics instead of Malaysia. Hope your training is going well and you are coping well after singapore open and indonesian open. Keep you chin up as hard work always pays. All the best and train hard.Do write in when you get time.

Shyam

Unknown said...

Hi Anup,
Its a real pleasure seeing you train at the KBA everyday. People and the media do not often realize the hard work and dedication that goes behind the making of a champion athlete and jump the gun finding reasons for failure. Its heartening that badminton and especially you are getting noticed in some sections of the media and you deserve every bit of encouragement. All the best and give your best shot at Beijing.Make us proud.

Unknown said...

Hey Anup,
All the best for Beijing! We as your classmates, Josephites and indians are very proud of you, keep it going dude

-Abhishek Bhandari