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Coach's strong platform
for change
Diving has been good to Hui Tong. Since first being noticed for his diving potential as a nine-year old at school in China, the sport has taken Tong to top flight international competition and then to international coaching across three continents. Moving around has been a big part of Tong's quest to give back to the sport that has given him so much. This year the 38-year-old joined the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) diving unit in Brisbane in January after a decade coaching in Canada and a further two years before that coaching in his native China. Along the way he has collected a wealth of knowledge about differences in eastern and western coaching philosophies and has variously been surprised, disappointed, thrilled, frustrated and challenged. Yet his passion for the sport has not diminished. Tong started diving in the rigid and disciplined, yet highly successful Chinese diving system where, he says, the Government ‘provided everything’ and coaches and athletes were focused, respected and revered. He flourished under the system, winning gold in the platform event at the 1985 and 1987 World Cup competitions and finishing fourth in platform at the 1984 Olympics. It was in 1987 that he had his first taste of coaching when his then-Chinese national team head coach Xu Yi Ming, suggested that Tong become his assistant. Tong continued to combine both his diving and coaching responsibilities for another two years before officially retiring from competition in 1989 to concentrate on coaching. Around the time of his retirement from competition Canadian national coach Don Webb invited Tong to Montreal for six months as a specialist lecturer and coach. In Canada Tong discovered a different approach to coaching that was both fun and challenging. He began to entertain thoughts of staying in the country permanently. Once he mentioned his ideas, it didn't take Webb long to find Tong a job working as assistant coach to Glen Music at the Dive Calgary diving club. It was in Calgary that Tong's ‘western’ education began in earnest. ‘In China, diving and competing is taken totally seriously, like a job,’ Tong says. ‘You have so much accessibility to what you need to help you from the technical to the physical. In Canada, things were not as strict and there was not the same support. The biggest frustration was the inconsistency in effort put in by the athletes. They did not have to train certain hours like divers did in China.’ Tong says he had to cut down his expectations of the squad. He took a tough stance, but found that many could not take the pressure to try new dives. ‘You can’t push them, they weren’t willing to take the pressure.’ Instead, Tong turned his attention to working on maximising their mental focus. It paid dividends. Athletes like World Cup 3m gold medallist and Commonwealth Games 3m gold medallist Eryn Bulmer benefited from Tong’s tutelage. It seemed Tong had found his niche in Canada, rising to become the Club’s head coach. But he was still looking for new challenges and when the position of head coach became available in Australia, he packed up his wife and young daughter and arrived in Brisbane this year. And at the AIS’s Chandler Aquatic Centre, he found a familiar face in head diving coach Wang Tong Xiang. ‘In China, athletes often shift from one diving group to another and Mr Wang coached me on the national team for a year. He knows me and I know him, and together we know what we want to do here.’ From the outset, Tong found the Australian lifestyle to be similar to that in Canada, but the sports system to be closer to that of his native China. ‘There is more Government support here. A lot of things are provided for us as coaches. It is a very professional way.’ He says that the eight divers in his squad are ‘hard workers who strive for their best’ and that the system has some ‘tremendous’ young divers coming up. But his time here has not all been smooth sailing. Language has been a problem. ‘Sometimes I don’t always feel that [the athletes] understand things clearly.’ The boundaries of his relationship with athletes has been another. ‘In China, athletes come to the pool, they train, they go home. Here a coach must understand so many things about the athletes, personal issues, their jobs, their home lives, to understand so many different things about them. I admire coaches who can do that. That is one of the big differences between the east and west.’ For Tong a typical day starts very early. He needs to be at the Chandler centre for the start of the morning session by 5.55am. When that finishes at 8.20am, he heads to the office to do paper work and read correspondence. He has a break from 11am until 2pm with the afternoon training session running from 2.30 until 6.15pm. He is usually in bed by 9.30pm. This happens every day except Wednesdays when there is no morning session and he stays at home with his wife and two-year-old daughter. Occasionally, there might be a Saturday morning session from 8am until 11am. Depending on the season, training might consist of weights, mental or technique training or dry land training where athletes practice somersaults using a safety harness, trampoline, foam pit, foam mats and an indoor diving board. High repetition diving drills usually take place in the afternoon. It all contributes to Tong’s clear personal and team goals for his time at the AIS. ‘I want to produce and drive the program as high as I can,’ he says. ‘And I also want to help develop the Australian diving system so that we continue to have athletes coming up.’ If he wasn’t coaching Tong says he would probably be a teacher. ‘I like to use my experience to tell other people how best to do things. I love children, I love helping them with new ideas and their different thoughts. They help keep you young.’ ********************************** Tong's tips for making good divers great divers
(Tips first printed in the Dive Calgary magazine Diversion, volume 1, issue 1, November 1998 - article appears in Sports Coach, Vol 24 No. 3, 2001) |
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