K. ARUMUGAM

About two decades ago, I approached Barry John Dancer, then coaching the Australian Men’s national team, with draft of a coaching book written by a famous former Indian hockey great. He wanted foreword from the acclaimed coach. However, Dancer, who took the draft and appeared enthusiastic initially, declined three days later.

Author Dr.Saju Joseph

The Same Dancer with a different work, authored by an Indian professional, willingly came forward to produce a profusely supporting foreword: “I would strongly recommend this book to …..”. This episode alone is proof why and how Dr Saju Joseph’s ‘SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITY,  the artist’s gallery for penalty corner and drag flick’, scores, and how becomes an important addition to the repository field hockey literature.  This is also how the content, not persona, that makes the difference to readers and connoisseurs of sport.

The A4 size volume, which runs about 300 pages, focuses the whole gamut of penalty corners, whose role define the outcome of most international matches.

Dr. Saju Joseph is largely credited with introducing science into the Indian coaching in the early 90s when he was working with the Sports Authority of India. He was part of the various Junior and Development teams for about a decade, besides with the senior men’s team for major FIH events.

He then moved to Malaysia where he worked as sports scientist with National Sports Institute of Malaysia. Had many stints with various national teams of Malaysia including hockey.

Suresh Mohapatra (C), Chief Secretary, Govt. of Odisha, unveiling the book in the presence of Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey (l). Author is on the extreme right. 

having played multiple roles as trainer, assistant coach, biomechanics, and performance analysts of many Indian and Malaysia national teams, Dr Joseph is of the opinion that many players learnt the art of penalty corner conversion and drag flick techniques on their own, mostly after training sessions are over and under fatigue conditions.

Therefore, in this work, he did everything that is needed for coaches to create a pool of specialists in the art of goal scoring. He says so in his introduction to the book:

Book launch in Bengaluru amidst a galaxy of sporting heroes and coaches, present and past

“…I have analyzed and summed up the technical inputs in variations of executing with edited clippings from videos of top-class drag flickers. The effort and time taken are gigantic and to critically sum up each clipping based on anatomical movements and biomechanical principles would certainly help coaches in shaping off good drag-flickers I have tried to put in the things which I have also gained from my coaching experience in training drag flickers both in terms of physical fitness and technical preparations, as well as analyzing the drag-flickers for every flick he executes during training or competition; and giving on the spot feedback. I have also included a few aspects of physical training to bring versatility in drag- flicker by introducing tactical variations in the flick, analyzing opponent’s technique and structure of defence…”   

The 27-chapter elaborative work has enviable endorsements from a bevy of international players, most of them had the benefit of Dr. Saju Joseph’s services when they were players ‘in making’.

Dr. Harendra Singh, successful Indian coach, now with the States’ team, credits it as ‘the most valuable sports and coaching read of the year’. While, Sandeep Singh, penalty corner expert of his times, now a minister with a provincial government, acknowledges that the author is his first trainer from Junior Indian camp to 2004 Athens Olympics. He elaborates how the author’s ‘hybrid qualities of hokey coahing, physical fitness, and biomechanics heled us in our performance…’

Others who underlined the significance of the work include Dharmaraj Abdullah, former Malaysian hockey team coach and now Technical Director with Indonesian Hockey Federation, Dronocharya awardee Clarence Lobo, Olympian Viren Rasquinha, penalty corner machine Lehn Aiyappa, former Singapore national hockey players KS Teng etc.

The book has already seen second edition within two months from publication.

The book is entitled Seizing the Opportunity. I would request and appeal to coaches and the national federations to ‘seize the opportunity’ that the author and his lifetime of work, provides. 

The hardbound volume is priced at Rs.2500/=, available at sajujoseph91@gmail.com.