It was with some reluctance that I agreed to conduct a FIDE Trainer Seminar in Malaysia... it is almost always never a good idea to have to teach and certify participants from your own country.
The new FIDE Trainers Commission has moved from merely establishing the playing strength of the participants at seminars and then giving them a title assuming that they could then teach to actually looking to understand the level and needs of participants and to teach how to train better and to share methods and successful practices.
We have found too often people are attending a seminar to pick up a title they feel is their right but this is no longer the case!
Given what was given out in the past I would understand that some would have been disappointed with the title recommended by me to be awarded but I was also pleased that so many responded positively to our new approach and many were indeed looking for help to do their jobs as trainers better and I think enough got a significant takeaway.
At the end of the day, Malaysians are passionate about their chess... but more as players and that is probably how it should be.
While there were questions, the group became most alive when there were given activities to perform and in the photo above, they were broken up into six groups to apply what was taught about analysing games by actually trying it out themselves step by step and to report their conclusions and see if they were getting it right.
Here are the 18 participants together with the organisers Steven Cheong and Dinesh Gerijan from the Johor Chess Association.