MEETING THAILAND'S SUPREME PATRIARCH

After living in Thailand for about 8 years I became very serious about entering the monkhood.  Several people knew this and one day a parent of one of the players asked me if I was interested in meeting the Supreme Patriarch, Thailand’s senior monk.  I had seen the Supreme Patriarch in newspapers and magazines, always at the most important Buddhist ceremonies and mostly presiding over traditional ceremonies with the King of Thailand. This was an opportunity available to very few!

Finally the day came when I was to travel to the temple and meet the Supreme Patriarch.  I had dressed in collared shirt and blazer and was eagerly anticipating the meeting.  Prior to meeting the Supreme Patriarch you are taken into a separate room and taught protocol, to wai 3 times to Buddha statues in his study and general rules associated with meeting him.  The excitement began to mount.

When I was finally escorted into his study I got down on my knees and shuffled towards the first Buddha image, waied three times and then shuffled across to the 2^nd image.  I remember not being that graceful with my movement, rather tough for a foreigner wearing business slacks and a blazer!

At last I was in front of him and sat uncomfortably as he sat looking at me.  It took him several minutes to speak, all the time he was eyeing me up and down with a very benign look on his face, what sort of man was this I wondered?  Finally he spoke to asking “what is the difference between a coach and a teacher?”  He spoke softly, kindly, but I thought “this was going to be harder than I thought”

The talk actually turned out to be great, we got on really well.  He encouraged me to stay in tennis, saying “Buddhism is not a religion but a science of life, a way of living”, meaning that getting more involved in Buddhism and spirituality in general could take place during my normal daily activities.  The older and more experienced I get I have found this to be the truth.  It’s how you live and act day to day and not what or where you worship.

But of course this story has a twist in the tail as all my stories seem to have…  After about 40 minutes of talking, one of his assistants came to whisper something in his ear and he immediately thanked me for coming and apologized to me saying he needed to break our meeting off.

After reversing out of his study on my knees, again performing 3 wai’s to each Buddha image, I made my way outside and climbed into the special van for the journey home.  Unfortunately the exit out of the temple was blocked and the road outside was blocked for a VIP.  We were directed over to the side of the temple lane and eventually the next visitor came along.  It was the King of Thailand and he was the Supreme Patriarch’s next guest!

TRAINING THE S***T OUT OF THEM: THE BAT TRIALS

Marina Beach, Chennai, India

Every year at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT) we conducted trials to find new trainees for the coming year.  The tennis program had the lofty goal of producing India’s next crop of Davis Cup players and some boys from the previous year either couldn’t handle the level of training we put them through or their tournament results were not good enough.  This meant that each year we looked at other prospects. Vijay Amritraj usually came in from the US to help with selections and it became a big occasion for boys from throughout India who would turn up with their parents for the 2 day trials.

We had often picked boys who later could not handle the high level of physical training we put them through. Leander Paes, still one of the best doubles specialists in the world today was a BAT boy who thrived on the work load.  Many however could not.  Indian boys tend to be more spoilt and allowed to get their own way.  This leads to laziness and many Indian boys are overweight.

It was for this reason that I decided that the trials should be tougher physically so that we could see the level of commitment of each boy and hopefully avoid some of our previous mistakes with our selections. I decided that we would include our traditional run on Marina Beach in Chennai, something the BAT boys did 2-3 times every week.  Marina Beach is the worlds 2^nd longest beach and the sand is quite soft, making it hard to gain traction.  It’s a killer on the legs!

This particular year we had around 50 boys show up for trials.  We put them through the usual hitting sessions to gauge their on-court ability.

Finally the time came for the notorious beach run and we loaded as many players, parents, sisters and grandmothers in our small van as possible and traveled to Marina Beach to begin the run.  We had to make 3 trips that morning just to get everyone there.  I organized the first running group of about 15 boys and started to explain the run.  We would run the entire length of the beach, touch a fence at the far end, turn around and run back.  I pointed to a distant lighthouse just barely visible on the horizon and asked “everyone see that lighthouse”?  They all nodded in unison.  “Well that’s half way to the fence” I said, looking at the group and sensing that none of the runners understood the enormity of the task ahead of them. 

When everyone was ready I called “Go” and off they sprinted.  Sprinting this early in the run was ill-advised but I guess they were trying to impress!  I remember watching a few boys sprinting off down the beach at the start of what would be a 45 minute run and thinking these boys have probably never run like this before, they were that green.

I ran with the boys that day so no one got lost and remember waiting at the fence at the half way point of the run and directing each boy to turn around and run the exact same distance back.  Several thought I was joking and looked forlornly towards the roadside for the van.  There was no van.  Most of the boys were now walking while the best of them would jog some distance and then walk to recover.  They were spread out the entire distance of Marina Beach.  I ran ahead again and waited at the finish point. Eventually the boys began to come in totally exhausted. 

The last few stragglers were arriving now but the last boy caught my eye.  He was running a few steps then stopping to hold his leg.  It seemed to me he had injured himself somehow so I went toward him to see what his problem was.  As I got closer I realized that he was not injured but had unfortunately had a bowel accident during the run.  His bowels had released and it was now running freely down his legs and into his socks!  As he finished the run his mother whisked him away down to the waterfront to wash him up.

The training at BAT was known to be extremely tough but I guess on this occasion it had proven too much for one of our prospective trainees.

THE BAT BOYS SURPRISE PHONE CALL

The boys who entered the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT) were sometimes quite young.  They all came from good homes and as such were often a little naïve.  This was the case in most things but particularly when it came to girls.  When it came to girls our team of ferocious competitors were painfully shy.  One story helps to illustrate this.

It was quite late at night, I was getting ready for bed when a call came to our apartment.  It was one of the boys, breathless and obviously very excited.  “Sir, you must come, something terrible has happened”.  I asked what it was but kept getting “Sir, just come, just come”.  Robert Smith, my fellow coach at the program, and I couldn’t work out what could have caused such a reaction.  The boys were not allowed to use the phone without permission, and certainly not at this time of night.  Was it related to a boy’s health?  But if that was the case why couldn’t they explain that over the phone?  What could have happened to create such a reaction?

Rob and I walked the 10 minute walk to the BAT House where the boys lived.  We were trying to imagine during the walk what all this could be about and thinking that perhaps a flying saucer had landed on the BAT House roof!

When we rounded the corner on their street, two of the boys starting running towards us.  Faces white from shock and still unable to answer the question we asked “What was going on”?  Again the reply, “Just come Sir, just come”.  We entered the house.  The younger boys stood off from us, mouths open, eyes staring, breaths panting, we had never seen them like this.  One of the older boys said to us “You will never believe this Sir, you will never believe this” and led us to the back of the house to a locked room used by the house maids.  They had a table wedged against the door which they were also using to look through a small glass window high above the door.  “There Sir, look”!  Again, the whole thing was becoming a bigger mystery by the minute but we were getting closer to finding out what had disturbed the boys so much.  I got up onto the table top to peer in.  The boys had locked the door to the room so this was the only way to discover the mystery inside.  There inside the room, sitting on the bed was the BAT driver and a maid, looking thoroughly bored having been locked inside for what must have been the past 1 hour.  I was confused, “so what’s the problem”? I asked.  “See Sir, see, we caught them inside together”!

It was starting to become clearer.  Perhaps there was a romance going on between the Driver and the Maid.  They had been together in the room and one of the boys had discovered this.  To young Indian boys from a sheltered up-bringing this was tantamount to a wild orgy; this was a male in a room with a female, alone!

We assembled the boys upstairs for a talk.  It was difficult to decide whether the talk was to be a “Birds & Bees” talk or a “well done, you’ve caught the rascals” type of talk.  I think Rob and I decided on telling them that these sorts of things happen sometimes, we would handle it in the morning. 

The mystery had been solved and it was time for bed.  Another day in the BAT program was coming to a close!

LEFTY'S BRUSH WITH DEATH

Lefty was Ameya Chandravakar and he came from Mumbai, back then called Bombay.  Lefty was one of the best U14 players in India and was developing well in the team.  He was also well liked at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT) and made everyone laugh with his wit and sleepy laidback nature.

The BAT team often traveled within India to tournaments.  Sometimes we traveled with the entire team of 8 players which meant that both BAT coaches would go with them.  This would mean separate wake up times, separate practice times, quite a logistical exercise.  Usually in the morning one coach would take boys who had early matches to warm-up, while the other coach would take the remaining boys at a later time.

One such trip was to New Delhi.  We always stayed in the cheapest hotels, sometimes 4 players to each room.  On this trip to Delhi we had found a hotel with rooms on the roof, literally on the roof!  There were two such rooms and we squeezed 8 players and two coaches into these two “rooms”.

I stayed in one of the rooms with “Lefty”, Sharad Kohli and Chanderveer Singh.  I gave the boys the beds and I slept on the floor.  Late that night I woke up with a strange feeling.  I wasn’t feeling well and my head was spinning.  I propped myself up on my elbows to better assess my condition, we were eating food prepared in some dodgy kitchens so this was not that uncommon. My head and body were moving like I was onboard a boat, I was in bad shape!  As I sat there in the darkness I suddenly realized I was feeling fine, but why was the room moving?  Then it dawned on me, it was an earthquake, and a big one!  Worst of all we were at the top of a flimsy Indian building involving god knows how many construction short cuts! I needed to wake the boys and get them downstairs quickly.

First I woke Lefty, shook his feet and said “Get up, it’s an earthquake”.  Sharad and Chanderveer were out of bed virtually as I was rushing out the door to wake the 2^nd room.  I knocked at the door of the second room and it opened quickly, some of the other boys had felt the tremor also.  Soon we had everyone outside on the rooftop.  I did a quick head count, one player was missing – lefty!  I rushed back to the first room and there he was, fast asleep.  I shook him again and said “Lefty get up!” to which he mumbled under the blankets “I’ll go with the next group Sir”.  Lefty thought it was simply time for practice but it was 3am in the morning.  “Earthquake Lefty, Earthquake!”.  What happened next was surreal.  Lefty sat up in the bed with an all knowing look on his face and said “I thought I felt an earthquake Sir”.  That was lefty, earthquakes were dangerous things but sleep was more important!

Later we were all assembled down stairs on the roadside, including Lefty.  We waited for about 30 minutes to see if the quake would return.  Sometimes the most destructive earthquakes are preceded by a smaller one, so we had to make sure the danger had past.  If a bigger quake was to follow the last place we wanted to be was on top of this flimsy Delhi building.  Luckily for us there were no more earthquakes and we were able to safely return to bed.

That was lefty’s brush with death.  He would have slept through anything nature could muster and not known anything about it!

THE CONTINENTAL GRIP SAGA

During the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT) days in India it was really difficult sometimes working with the Amritraj family in that they were very old school regarding tennis.  What had worked for them in their rise to the top would work again was their philosophy.  One story that caused quite a headache at the time was the Continental Grip Saga

Every so often one of the Amritraj brothers Anand, Vijay or Ashok would return to India to visit their parents.  This would always mean a visit to the BAT program to see the progress of the boys and most of the time they would want to hit with them.  This hitting session would be more in the realm of a workout for the brothers after their long flight from the US rather than a “coaching session” This was fine with me because there is nothing worse than someone coming in with no knowledge of the program and the topics we were working on, and try to “coach” the team.  However it did happen sometimes.

On one occasion we were drilling players on approaching the net and finishing the point with a volley.  Our coach was feeding a short, low ball so that the player could approach the net and play the volley.

In the middle of the drill the Amritraj Mercedes pulled into the complex and out stepped Anand Amritraj and his mother.  They must have seen the drill as they drove up and were obviously irritated by the time they got out of the car.  I was summoned and immediately asked “what is this Paul”?  I wasn’t completely sure what the question meant but knew they were not happy so I asked how they would like the drill to change.  Mrs. Amritraj said that she would like to see the ball fed deeper and faster, obviously at odds with our desire for the players to experience a realistic situation.  We wouldn’t want them to come to net on a deep, fast ball like that anyway!  But the Amritraj family were not used to being challenged on any topic and it would have been pointless to do so now so I walked to the fence and instructed the coach involved in the drill to feed the ball fast and deep to the baseline.  He gave me a strange glance but knew something was up.

I will always remember the look on the face of the player receiving the first ball at the baseline.  He was still looking for the “short approach shot” to take him to the net. When the first feed almost hit him on the foot he looked up at the coach with a stunned look of disbelief, a look asking “how am I supposed to approach on that ball”?

This was the type of situations that we had to put up with and it happened all the time.  The BAT program achieved great results over the years because of the coaches and their ability to get the job done despite the nonsense around them.

Some months later we had a visit from Vijay Amritraj.  As he was standing at courtside watching the boys hitting he asked me “What grips are they using”, to which I replied that western and semi western grips were mostly being used.  In Vijay’s opinion they would be hitting the ball a lot better if they were using continental grips.  I mentioned that no player in the top ten (at that time) used a continental grip and he asked me to name which players didn’t use continental grips.  I began to name the top ten from number one to number ten but was stopped at about number four.  “You’re naming exceptions” he said, to which I replied as politely as possible “I’m naming the top ten”.   It was no use, Vijay began to insist that the boys all change their grips to continental grips!

I remember walking home from practice that night totally confused with how I would handle this new dilemma.  To change the boys to continental grips would ruin their games, and in some cases it would be doubtful if most of them could ever play at their usual high level again.  What was I to do?  Late that night I even thought of calling Peter Burwash, founder of our company.  Perhaps he had enough authority to get Vijay to see sense.

By the morning I was still unsure how to approach this new crisis.  I knew that changing the grips of players at this level would virtually ruin their games for good.  I also knew that Vijay would turn up for the afternoon session and expect to see some progress with the new grip changes.

The afternoon session arrived and as I stood the boys in front of me to make the Change of Grip Announcement I suddenly had an idea.  I knew that a change of grip would mean a lack of control for the boys.  This lack of control would be made even worse if they tried to hit harder, and would result in horrendous mistakes.  We would give Vijay his continental grips after all!

When Vijay finally arrived at practice the boys were already out hitting groundstrokes with their new grips.  It wasn’t pretty… balls were flying everywhere, particularly skyward which happens because the new grips present the racquetface open on contact with the ball.  The faster you hit, the higher the ball goes, some were even landing on the road outside the courts!

After a few moments Vijay enquired why the boys were hitting so poorly.  I put on my calmest voice to say that it was nothing to worry about, merely the result of changing from their normal grips to the new continental grips.  “How long do you think it will take them to adjust to the new grips”? asked Vijay.  Again, as calm as could be I replied “It shouldn’t take that long, perhaps 3-4 months”.  There was silence, long silence.  Vijay asked “Do they have tournaments coming up”?  I was winning!  “There are some tournaments next week” I said.  Vijay had seen enough, he asked me to make the grip changes in small increments and over time.  I knew this would be the end of the continental grip saga.  Vijay wanted results from the boys and this was going to interfere with results.

Continental Grips were never mentioned again.