Not sure where to begin. It has been a whirlwind of teaching , learning, meeting people and catching up with old friends. Tuesday was along day at NSWIS. Started at 6:00 Am in the gym with the divers for an athletic development session. Got to catch up then with Chava Sobrino, the diving coach who had been delayed in LA for thee days because of the Quatas airline mechanical problems. He is a great coach and great person, willing to share and eager to learn. Looking forward to spending a day or two with him and his squad when they come to Florida in for competition in May. Taught the rest of the day and then had dinner with Dennis Knowles (Dani Samuels coach), Klaus Bartonietz, and Kenneth Graham who is the senior sport scientist at NSWIS. He is brilliant, an unbelievable resource. A little sleep, totally over stimulated, then next morning flew to Brisbane and then to Gold Coast, the site of the ASCA Conference. Had a wonderful visit with my good friend and colleague Dean Benton and his young family and beautiful wife who cooked a great meal of lamb roast. We went a couple of blocks from his house to the surf club to take a dip in the surf, great to be in surf again after many years ( The Gulf of Mexico at home is not the same!). Yesterday spend all day preparing for my talks at the conference. I do a three-hour pre-conference workshop on Building & Rebuilding the Athlete from the Ground Up – It is More Than an Exercise, today. Looking forward to it. Then a keynote presnetation midday tomorrow. Right now it is 5:00 AM here going to go for a short walk on the beach and a quick dip in the surf to get ready for my presentation.
To paraphrase a line from one of my favorite movies, Field of Dreams, this isn’t heaven it is Australia! If there is a place where coaching is appreciated it is here. So far very little personal trainer pollution, they have their problems, but by and large they do things right. They do the most with what they have and produce results.