Today we are together with Field Hockey Star Belgian ambassadors – Brothers Achille & Elie. To get to know better them we talked about their passion to field hockey, about their training session, their favorite FHS products and some good motivation words for other players.
Achille is 11 years old, and he started playing field hockey when he was 5, following his school friends to the local club in Belgium. So, he is now playing field hockey for six years. Since he was 7, every season during the winter he also played indoor field hockey. The most he loves about the sport is the intensity of the competition. Achille is more of a defensive player. He likes to win the games with his team by giving everything defensively and being creative in the midfield. The youngest brother Elie is 7, who has always watched his elder brother playing field hockey. He mentions that he was kicking field hockey balls with his elder brother in the garage already from the age of 3. Elie Turning 4 and a half his parents asked him would he like to play like his brother in a club. He thought about it and later told them something with a big enthusiasm: Yes, but unlike Achille, I don’t, I don’t want to score goals, I want to stop them all. I want to be a goalkeeper! And since this season Elie is the official goalie for a great team Underage of 9 team. Elie love’s the most about field hockey is spending time with his mates. Elie says that he feels like a superhero in his goalie gear with all the helmet and protection gear.
Achille and Elie are in the top of field hockey program of the Belgian club Waterloo “Ducks”. Achille has three field hockey training sessions in a week and a physical training session once a week. Every week Achille has one game per weekend with his team. But sometimes from time to time he plays also a second game in the weekend when one of the club’s teams needs reinforcements. Achille has three and a half hours of field hockey training a week plus one hour of physical training at the club, so you can say he has a quite big program in a week. Besides field hockey he also does his taekwondo and athletics training. Whenever there is a chance Achille with his family go climbing and skateboarding at the weekend. On vacation time he spends his time by the ocean, where he is passionate about surfing. The youngest brother Elie has trainings on Wednesdays, when he has a specific one-hour training as a goalkeeper and then he joins his teams traditional training for one more hour. Elie also trains with his team on Fridays to prepare for games on Saturdays where is a one-hour match. Like his brother Achille he is a big fan of skateboarding climbing, but instead of surfing he like’s bodyboarding.
Achille loves training at home, he has been doing it since he was a kid. He finds that in a club level player don’t have time to work on technical gestures. He often watches field hockey tutorial videos on the internet and work on these aspects back home in his garage. Achille had a chance to train with an England international player who once said to him: If you spend 15 minutes every day intensely on one activity, you'll quickly be better than 98% of the population at it. He loves this mantra. So, every day when he is not training in his club, he spends at least 30 minutes working on technical moves in his garage. But he doesn’t see it as training. Achille really love this sport, so much that it's not an obligation, it's pure pleasure. If he could, he would spend 3 to 4 hours a day on a field hockey pitch. The youngest brother Elie don't really train in the garage. He often goes and play just with his brother. He's a very good and powerful player, so it's great for me to put on my goalie gear and defend my goal against him. Sometimes he just grumbles a bit because he's brother is too strong... But he really like it. It's great to be able to play together like this!
Achille one of favorite’s field hockey star product is the rebounder. He has other rebounders in the garage from other brands, but the field hockey star rebounder bounces better. It's a great tool for working on his pass reception. But his favorite product by far is the plastic tiles. It lets him turn his garage into a real indoor hockey pitch. The tiles are very similar to those used on the pitches that are temporarily installed in Belgium for the indoor season. Indoor field hockey is a very technical sport, very different from and complementary to field hockey. The field hockey star tiles enable him to prepare his indoor season much better than most players who don't have this type of equipment. And during the season, it allows him to work on correcting and improving certain technical gestures. The skill zone combined with the app is also a great tool for working on hand-brain coordination.
Ellie also love’s the plastic tiles. Like Achille, he plays indoors every season with his team. For a goalkeeper, it's also very different from field hockey, so for several months, he can play with his brother in the garage on a real indoor pitch and he can do sliding goalkeeper outs. It's super-efficient and super fun to do.
In conclusion both brothers can say that they love the plastic tiles. They're great. They're fun to assemble, like a puzzle. And above all, it's super solid and super professional. It means they can have a professional indoor field hockey pitch set up in their garage in just a few minutes.
As a former England international and super-coach Giles Calum once told Achille: Train every day for 20 minutes and you'll be better than 98% of the people in your field. He applies this to field hockey, but also to music, to his other passion. Whatever happens, whatever my schedule, he plays guitar every day, just as he works on his field hockey technique every day. After that, if it's a chore, maybe he shouldn't insist. But he is passionate about it. He like to have longer days or weeks to develop his multiple passions. In fact, he is planning to take up piano as well as guitar. And he is going to apply the same method, a bit of work every day and keeping the fun factor as a driving force. Getting back to field hockey, 2 to 3 square meters of work surface are enough to work like a pro on basic dribbling and ball control, enough to quickly make a difference on the pitch. The youngest brother Ellie mentions in the end of the interview some magical words: if you love your sport when you're a kid, it's not training. It's just fun. And having fun every day is the basis of happiness, isn't it?
