Coaches are the ones constantly providing advice, life lessons and imparting priceless experience acquired through their own journey. They shy away from the limelight, allowing their athletes to bask in the glory and achievements and truly are the unsung heroes.

In the spirit of Coach Appreciation month, Singapore Gymnastics (SG) would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the coaches who have worked tirelessly with their athletes in their pursuit of sporting excellence. In particular, we wish to feature and honour four coaches who not only do their best working with athletes, they have also stepped up to take lead in the development of coaching excellence in their own sporting disciplines. We caught up with these coach developers to share a couple words which would hopefully inspire more coaches to becoming community leaders.

Let us join in the effort to salute these amazing people for their tireless contribution, passion and commitment in shaping our athletes as well as coaches for the future, and ultimately, shaping a sporting Singapore! #cheer4coaches 

Aizat Jufrie

Up to 2018, Aizat was a member of the TeamSG National Gymnastics Team. He has represented Singapore in numerous international competitions, including the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games, 2015 SEA Games, 2014 Asian Games, 2014 and 2018 World Cups in Doha and Australia etc and is a SEA Games medalist in the Horizontal Bar. In addition to his busy training and competition schedule as a student athlete, he started actively coaching since 2013.

Since then, Aizat has gone on to achieve his FIG Level 1 Coaching accreditation in Men's Artistic Gymnastics and currently coaches full-time with Prime Gymnastics where he is eager to bring his expertise and experience to all his gymnasts. Besides acting as a Coach Mentor to mentee coaches, Aizat is part of the Learning Facilitator team delivering the Intermediate Coaching Course, ensuring that the curriculum and delivery methods are current, relevant and paced at the right level that matches the target coaching course audience. From athlete to coach and now coach developer, Aizat is undoubtedly growing and going from strength to strength to strength. 

Q: How has your experience in coaching and coach development been so far?
AJ: It has been a fulfilling journey. Coming in as a fresh coach, it's been an slow but steady accumulation of learning on the job from other veteran coaches and gaining knowledge from many different avenues. Furthermore working with the kids have helped me relive my own childhood memories as an athlete and continues to spark my passion for the sport every day. I’m grateful to be given the opportunity to take up the role as a coach developer as that means I get to explore yet another facet of the sport I love. 

Q: Where do you get your coaching inspo from?
AJ: Definitely my own coach mentors and colleagues in my gym as well as coaches that I look up to on social media! Not to mention all the NTC coaches in SG, the webinars and seminars SG organise for us coaches. Different coaches have their own perspectives and it is important to learn from a different point of view. Embracing this diversity may challenge our own pre-existing opinions and ideas but at the same time it opens up our world!

Q: What motivated you to take on the role of a coach developer?
AJ: As a new coach then and sometimes even now, there are many things I was uncertain about starting out. Being a national athlete & having gymnastics background no doubt made transitioning to coaching easier however, I still felt a little lost, somewhat unprepared and was nervous as I was still inexperienced in teaching and spotting certain skills, judging knowledge etc. Along the way, my colleagues and other coaches helped and guided me and I knew I want to be able to do the same for others in future, particularly for newer coaches.

I hope to provide budding coaches a friendly avenue that they can ask questions freely and learn the necessary knowledge and spotting techniques required in order to give them the confidence to teach the skills to their kids safely. 

Being able to guide them as a mentor also helps me as a coach because I learn new things in this journey too!  

Q: Lastly, any shoutout to all our fellow coaches out there to celebrate Coach appreciation month?
AJ: Continue doing what you do!! Your effort will be paid off as you see your kids grow. Coaching is more than the skills and the flips, it’s the values and morals you impart to the kids. Be patient and take the time to plant your knowledge, nurture and care for them as they grow their passion in gymnastics. ❤️

Everyone is also welcomed to join us in expressing appreciation to your coaches with the #SGThankYouCoach and #cheer4Coaches campaign, by nominating an inspiring coach for us to feature them, with a 100-word write-up and a picture of the coach in action. Email it to sgoffice@singaporegymnastics.org.sg. The deadline for submission is on 10 September 2021.