“Part of the Pickleball revolution” – Dinkaroo Sports
About Our Coach – John Liew
As a former Nationally accredited badminton coach, John brings his skills, technical processes and experiences as both a competition player and coach to the world of Pickleball!
Overcoming seemingly unsurmountable obstacles has been a life’s challenging feature for John over his many years in the various sporting pursuits that included martial arts (karate, tae-kwon-do, tai-chi and aikido), soccer, badminton and most recently pickleball. In 2023, John’s ability to overcome a severe neck injury caused him to focus on an alternate sport away from badminton and took him into the world of Pickleball. And he has not looked back since taking up the game in early 2024, having competed at the Australian Pickleball Championships (Oct 2024) in the Gold Coast, the Pan-Pacific Masters Games (Nov 2024) also in the Gold Coast and ended the year at the Melbourne Smash tournament (Nov 2024).
John has 4 medals, viz., 2 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze to show for his focused efforts and commitments to Pickleball in 2024.
“Pickleball is a fun, social-oriented game that is highly addictive! The rules are simple and the game is easy to pick up; played at your own pace or to a fast, competitive game, and I prefer to play at a more frenetic pace whenever the ocassion calls for it!” – John.
Whilst training for competition, John also took to the coach pathway to satisfy his passion and desire to pass on the knowledge he had gained through his many years of sports competition and the specific and unique requirements of Pickleball. John attained his first steps towards his coaching credentials as community coach and look forward to 2025 and beyond to continue his advancements in his coaching endeavours. John strongly believes that by passing on the knowledge, skills and techniques to others, can they, then begin to heighten their enjoyment of the game and to derive increased benefits that Pickleball offers.
Seniors’ Focus
John has a special interest in tailoring programs specifically for senior or the more mature-aged players and would like to see all of them get moving and be active through Pickleball or any variety of activities while also building their social skills. For such players, Pickleball is ideal as it does not make such stressful demands on the body as badminton, tennis or padel, is easy to learn and pick up quickly as a sport and has a very social almost non-competitive aspect that is missing in most other sporting codes.
Under John’s tutelage, senior players can enjoy a range of opportunities for physical fitness that cater to all skill levels regardless of their previous experience in sports. It is John’s fervent wish and hope that through these initiatives the overall well-being, mental health, and self-esteem of players will improve.
“In 2024, I turned 66 and am in pretty good nick at the moment. I’d like to think that I can maintain this state of health of body and mind until the inevitable comes along” – John.
