Dual Role dilemma – Parent or Coach ?

The prize distribution for the World youth Chess Championship was held on 22/11/2009 at Antalya, Turkey. I was having mixed emotions being present there as a Coach for the Indian team. I noticed my mind was alternatively taking the role of a Coach sometimes and also that of a parent for most of the time.

I was happy to be present there in the role of a coach. SP Sethuraman had just won the Gold medal in the Under 16 boys’ category and young Ivana Maria Furtado had won the Silver medal in the Under 10 Girls category. These two train with me often. Indian team as a whole had won 1 Gold, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze in different categories. Though this number is less compared to the medals tally in the 2008 edition at Vietnam, it was still a pretty decent count. I was quite content about this.

Remaining Objective:

When I saw Sethuraman and Ivana getting the prize I couldn’t help getting little emotional myself. Now this opens some important related questions for me. Should the coach become emotionally involved with students performance? If yes then does it not affect the objectivity of the coach – student relationship?

After all a coach should be able to assess the students objectively and teach them things they need to learn without letting emotional issues getting in the way. For example, lets say a student takes some risk and loses a game as a result, then it is easy for the coach to suggest to the student to take less risk in the ensuing games but as a trainer one should teach young children to take calculated risks as it is one of the important qualities of a world class player. Here we see the result of a single game can affect the objectivity of the coach if he is not careful.

Personally I try very hard to not to assess my students based purely on their results in a tournament but also to keep in mind other pertinent things like the general working habit, the level of motivation of the player, commitment to succeed despite occasional setbacks etc…After all it is these qualities that will differentiate a champion from normal mortals…But it is not easy to remain unaffected by the students results at all times.

Tip of the iceberg:

I have worked with many chess players in different age categories and different levels of achievement and I have learnt a lot as a result of these interactions. Still I feel I have just touched the tip of the iceberg. Teaching young children something (anything) is quite a complex task. My main priorities while trying to teach chess to someone is to first get them interested in the game and then to teach them to learn the champion qualities along with Chess related things.

Champion qualities :

A student should have/ develop/ learn/cultivate the following qualities to become a strong player in the long run in my opinion.

Love for the game, commitment to succeed at all costs, an understanding that there are no short cuts available and that appropriate hard work should be put, ability to handle wins and losses more calmly, take logical decisions efficiently with less effort, emotional balance, being independent and great belief in oneself. Of course there are plenty of other qualities as well but the above should give one a rough idea of the qualities required.

Priorities of a coach and player:

As a player we have different priorities and when we are a trainer the priorities change as it should.  Getting good result is the most important factor that keeps us going for more as a player, but as a trainer we should focus on the qualities and the character of a player more than the results itself. This is not to say that result is not important – it is very much. But overall growth is more important.

Role as a parent:

Going back to the prize distribution ceremony in the World youth Championship, I felt the role as a parent more. I very much wished my daughter Varsha (4 year old) to be on stage and receive the World champion title with the National anthem playing in the back ground. This is something I could not achieve myself as a player and probably this made me think this way.

My wife Aarthie who was also present there felt the same way. We have discussed many times whether it is proper to teach our daughter Chess at this tender age. Every time we feel it is the correct decision. Time will tell whether we are correct or not.

Now going to the next topic:

Teaching Chess to my daughter – part 2 :

Varsha with her trainer Ganesh

We (me and my wife Aarthie) have this great desire – to make a champion out of our daughter in Chess. I understand some may feel uncomfortable with this idea. Is it right to impose on a child our own desires? My reasoning goes something like this…

Chess has taught me many valuable lessons in my life which I would not have learnt otherwise. It has made me a better person (I hope J), given me some of the best and worst moments of my life. I want to provide the same opportunity to my daughter too and to teach her the things which I have learnt from my own experience. I feel chess is a good medium to learn about life the proper way.

Today I told my daughter stories about Mahatma Gandhi. I hope she learnt some useful things from this. Gandhi has been my role model since I was young. I am deeply impressed at his courage, honesty, truthfulness and tremendous self belief despite all odds. I have tried to model myself on his way of life but I know I am trying to achieve the impossible. I am not half as good as him. But still it is worth trying to be like someone so good.

For some time now, Varsha is learning chess from her first coach Ganesh (refer part 1 on this topic). I asked Varsha today what she has learnt so far. She said she has learnt about the concept of pin, supporting pieces, movement of pieces, etc…

Varsha is learning the chess basics now but I can see clearly she is not able to focus on the game for more than few minutes. I hope this is a common phenomenon. Though I am a little worried about this sometimes, I am sure things will improve as time passes.

Currently Varsha is having 3 classes a week with each class for 45 minutes duration. She spends this time mainly talking to Ganesh about her school or some other things. Though I don’t want to push her too much I am thinking a lot about how to improve her span of concentration. Probably I should start teaching her few things myself or let her just play more and get her interested. Maybe she likes to play more than to listen.

She already says she wants to be a Grand Master and World Champion not really knowing what it means to get there. I hope to teach her that.

In the beginning I want my daughter to learn about technical things from Ganesh and I would focus just on teaching her good, champion qualities. I want her to be a tough person who can handle things on her own and be a good person above all else. This is my dream.

Popularity: 19% [?]