Thirty-one participants descended on Luxembourg this past weekend for a four-day intensive ParaVolley coaching course that had an emphasis on Sitting Volleyball. An impressive attendance for the coaching qualification, but even more notable was the fact that 16 different countries were represented in what was a big step forward for the sport.

Coaches came from far and wide, the furthest being four who traveled from Korea.  In addition to those attending from Luxembourg, participants hailed from:

BEL, CRO, CYP, ENG, FRA, GEO, GRE, HUN, IRE, ITA, LAT, NED, NOR, ESP

Of the 31 attendees, 29 left with Diplomas while the two attending translators received certificates of attendance.

Organised in cooperation with the Federation Luxembourgeoise de Volleyball, World ParaVolley, VolleySLIDE and LuxSittingVolley, the participants went through some intensive theory and practical sessions in order to cover all the areas of coaching the sport at a national level.

Originally founded in 1980, World ParaVolley has recently been placing significant emphasis on developing a clear pathway for coaches and this Level One course represented an important milestone in that process.

ParaVolley consists of four different forms of Volleyball (Sitting Volleyball, Sitting Beach Volleyball, Standing Volleyball, Standing Beach Volleyball), all of which are adapted versions of the sport of Volleyball aimed at players with a physical impairment.  However at club level anyone and everyone can play.

Jouke de Haan (the Netherlands) and Matt Rogers (Luxembourg) tutored the course, which was run at the ‘d’Coque’, the National Sports and Culture Centre on the Kirchberg Plateau.

For more information about ParaVolley, visit www.worldparavolley.org.

For more information and resources about Sitting Volleyball, please see: www.volleyslide.net

For the courses photos, please click on: http://bit.ly/SVcoachLUX