Edwin Cotter is a coach at HWATT in Australia that is the brainchild of Simon Gerada who has represented Malta at many editions of the Small Nations Games of Europe winning medals for Malta on many counts.
Edwin was very eager to return to Malta for the third time in his table tennis career and he was guest player and coach at HiTT Academy for the period 17th to 24th July 2013.
This is what Edwin had to say about his experience at HiTT:
During my brief stay in Malta, I was able to observe the Elite group of HiTT players in action as well as a few of the promising junior development players. The orthodox style of the vast majority of players is impressive given such a large player base! It is clear that discipline and mental focus has been upheld in the instruction of both basic and advanced shot making as well as footwork development. Most impressive is the physical regime at HiTT with regular physical training sessions, and the inclusion of plyometric exercises as well as various static strength building techniques that has contributed to raising the physical standard of HiTT players to a new level. The elite players are reaching a point in their careers where training must be self tailored at the judgement of not only the coach but the players themselves in order to improve further. For example basic exercises are made more difficult to better practice match scenario footwork rather then perfect form in order to increase flexibility and options when out of position. I am grateful of this opportunity to exchange ideas with the HiTT coaches and hopefully some of HWATT’s training techniques will now be incorporated into the HiTT training regime. The players are a pleasure to coach and I look forward to a future training session with HiTT Academy. Edwin Cotter HiTT thanks Edwin for his contribution to the summer camp 2013 and already looks forward to the next time when Edwin will be visiting the island again 🙂