Thanks must go to Hugh Nguyen for taking a great coach development session last night. Participants included three South Australian state team head coaches, coaches from the major volleyball school programs, club coaches, and even a school coach from Queensland who was in Adelaide for the holidays.

Huy in his clear meticulous manner discussed the new video delay programs available for coaches, and the strengths and weakness of each. This is clearly the way to make great gains in both individual and team learning.

It is a matter of concern to me that this development seems to be passing most coaches by without so much as a cursory glance. I think this “head in the sand” approach could well be a telling factor into the future. I can clearly remember the clear, quick, precise changes kids have made when seeing the type of feedback Huy was demonstrating. The cost to set up a club or individual coach is about the same as a used bag of old volleyballs.

The second part of the session was based on high definition stats and integrated video packages. The benefits were obvious. The view was that these should not be done by coaches while coaching but should be done by assistant coaches, parents or support staff. The high quality discussion revolved around the best cameras to use. The key fact to look at was the format the camera used with MPEG4 being the preferred option. Huy uses cameras costing way less than $200 (which is good seeing as he has six of them).

All in all, a great well prepared session Huy. Thank you on behalf of all the coaches present.