It is hard to believe that after today we are more than half way though the Symposium. Today we travelled outside of Shanghai to a Sports School in one of their Districts. Many of the coaches we are working with, come from these types of Schools (pics below). Only the Olympic sports are offered and most of the student athletes live in Residence while school is session. This week, the school was delivering a soccer camp and we were to use their players for demos.
Coach Erwan delivered a session on Defending Principles then Coach Jen, a session on Attaching Principles. I followed with a Goalkeeping for all practice. The highlight of the day was the Girl's squad in my session. Later we would find out that this School is known for it's Girls Soccer. The technique of these 9, 10, 11 old Girl's was the cleanest I have seen for this age (will post some video). By the way, they live here and train a couple of hours a day, 5-6 days per week.
One of the local Chinese Sports TV stations spent the morning with us, we spoke with them about the cultural "football" exchange, how thankful we are for the opportunity, and the work of the US State Departments's Program, Mr. Chen and Shanghai FA. After a typical Chinese lunch, we went back to the facility to watch the players from this School train.
We mentioned in an earlier post that the Chinese Swim/Diving team is staying at our hotel. We see a ton of divers, who are pretzel like as they are always going their routines, swimmer and water polo athletes. This evening consisted of a diner hosted by some of the key people of the District we attended today including the Head Master. Two days left and the conversations are growing, we are enjoying our time and looking forward to tomorrow.
Remember, we will post sessions upon our return.
Cheers,
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment