Our latest Blog is from Craig Bryant. Craig is a coach, tutor and player in the UK and has been involved at the highest level of the sport since his junior playing days. Having joined forces with Stephen Gertsen, also a top-level player and coach they have developed and grown the Bryant & Gertsen Training Camps. In this Blog we asked Craig how their latest ‘sold out’ camp went…
It’s been 6 years since Stephen Gertsen, and I started running training camps and they’ve been far more successful and well received than we could have imagined.
We pride ourselves on being able to bring our camp to the people, we try to move our locations around as much as we can and this year, for the very first time, we had an opportunity to run our first training camp in the North of England.
A friend of ours, Chris Parker who is a top coach and works for Ackworth School (Yorkshire) offered us an opportunity to run our camp there, so despite our apprehensions of it being a new location and we’d be trying to attract new players, we jumped at the opportunity.
We were delighted by the response, with over 50 different players signing up over the course of 3 days. We were very much looking forward to delivering our camp (in the October half-term 2022).
The Table Tennis community is such a unique community, we see people from all walks of life, as well as many different ages. Regardless of demographics, backgrounds or age, everyone seems to find common ground with this amazing sport.
People help each other, they chat and laugh and equally they get stuck into the various exercises, tasks, and challenges that we set them. It’s very pleasing to sit back and watch all of this unfold and our northern training camp was as equally satisfying to watch.
We’re extremely proud of how our training camps have developed over the years and we’ll continue to run them, as often as the Table Tennis community enjoys them.
Here’s a few things some of our participants had to say: ‘Thank you for all of your hard work and for making the camp such a positive experience for us.’ ‘I liked the relaxed atmosphere and the banter between you both was funny’ ‘I think this was my sixth camp with you both and you have continued to develop & refine the format so that I have felt both comfortable and challenged throughout the weekend.’
A big thank you to everyone that made the camp happen and a huge thank you to everyone that attended. We hope to come back again soon.
Craig and Stephen’s next training camps are as follow:
St. Neots, Cambridgeshire: 17th-19th Feb 2023 and Plymouth, Devon: 25th-27th Aug 2023
Save those dates! Watch out for more details on the St. Neots training camp soon.
Posted on 23rd November 2022
