Coaching
Croquet is fun but it is also a sport, so the Club encourages members to strive to improve their play. The momentum for this has to come from inside ourselves, but help is at hand!
We have an enthusiastic coaching team led by Bob Whiffen (AC) and David Enticknap (GC) - do discuss your coaching needs with them.
Players drive their own improvement and are encouraged to discuss their play, share ideas and seek advice. This page gives reference to some resources that support this.
For those who've completed our Beginners' course, further coaching will be arranged to lead to the Beginners' Competition which is held towards the end of the season, but everyone is encouraged to develop their game. These are some of the ways we suggest:
- Book a court for an hour's practice regularly
- Discuss your play with other beginners, coaches and members - share ideas and seek advice
- Look out for details of coaching sessions -
- we run some ourselves and we'll pass on details of those being organised locally
- check the Croquet England Fixtures List for details of courses locally and further afield
- Enter one or more of our club competitions
- There is a range of annual competitions with opportunities for players of all abilities
- Play with a more experienced player - a sure-fire way to improve your game
- Our club afternoons offer opportunities for this
- Some of our club competitions are played as doubles - pairing less and more experienced players
- Ask someone you admire to give you a coached game
- Exploit opportunities to watch high-level players in matches and tournaments held at the club and talk to them about the game (when they have finished - don't disturb them whilst in play unless they talk to you first) - there are vanishingly few player who don't want to help someone else to improve their game
- If you are sitting next to an experienced player who is good at whispering, you can learn a lot from the comfort of a chair whilst not disturbing the players
- There is a small library of books on croquet in the Clubhouse. There is no charge for the loan of these, just a signature, please
- Use the links to a plethora of other resources below
As your play develops you should consider becoming a coach yourself. Talk to one of the lead coaches to discuss this.
Resources
Association Croquet
- The Laws of Association Croquet
- Improve your play and keep a personal record of how you are doing with the Association Croquet Skills Test and its associated Record Card.
- Use the Practice Routines for AC Beginners to bring a purpose to your practice time
- Check your knowledge of the Laws with the online AC Laws Quiz
- How to play better strokes: Chris Clarke is one of the best players in the world and a great coach - watch his coaching videos on how to play a: drive, stop-shot, extreme stop-shot, half-roll, varying your half-roll ratios, full and pass rolls, sweep-shot.
- The Oxford Croquet website is a lifetime project for a great coach, Ian Plummer, who is responsible for introducing many highly-ranked players to the game. The coaching material and background articles on the site are excellent and extensive!
- Paddy Chapman (World Champion and great coach) has a coaching website croquetdev.com.
Golf Croquet
- The Rules of Golf Croquet
- GC Tactics Decision Tree
- Hoop 12 triangle of danger
- Check your knowledge of the Rules with the online GC Rules Quiz
- Top Golf Croquet coach Stephen Custance-Baker's weekly online sessions in late 2020 to help ordinary GC players play to the Rules ran under the auspices of the South West Federation. They are recorded and now available on YouTube
General
- Croquet England's Coaching page
- Club Etiquette
- USCA Refereeing Hoop Shots (was it a double tap?)
- Reg Bamford: the mental game - how to think like a serious pro!
- Swing trainer - a device to improve your swing
- Croquet Magic - croquet fun with a camera
- Croquet Jargon - what the words mean!
Useful fact: In coaching notes, "the player of blue and black" is often written as Babs, with Ray (Red and Yellow) as the opponent. Common abbreviations are B (blue), K (black), R (red), Y (yellow).