About Hewley

At 9, Hewley started playing table tennis after seeing some older kids playing the game using school desks. Fascinated by it, he persuaded his father to take him to the YMCA club to learn how to play.
Hewley’s passion for the sport increased, he played his first competition soon after and finished second place. Within the first two years of his competitive career, Hewley won the National under 12 championships and was selected as part of the national team.

‘Table tennis is the foundation of my life, I grew up in a place where opportunities were limited and playing table tennis all those years was difficult. There were times when we would turn up at the club and we did not have a ball to play with and we would pool whatever money we had to buy one just so we could play. We made so much of the little we had, it was so much fun and meant so much to us’. We never had a table tennis table in school, we put together a few of the desks and placed a piece of wood across as the net and that did it for us.

Hewley's training

Practice was always fun for me, serious and rigorous but fun most importantly. In my latter years as a senior player on the National team, my training hours and regime was a question of ‘how much do i want it or how good do I want to be’. I woke up at 5:00 am every day and went for a jog on the sea walls, I would practice 3 or 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. I knew I had to have a high fitness level if I wanted to train at that intensity.

What drives me is the passion I have for the sport, the feeling of being a winner and the joy of participating in competitions. I think there is a mentality amongst athletes that the average person cannot comprehend; and that is the desire to compete and to win at any cost. I trained hard because thatis what it takes to be good at what I do, and I didn’t want to be good, I wanted to be the best.

Hewley's coaching work

Hewley has worked with many clubs, coaches and has developed many table tennis programs both in Guyana and across England. Some of these clubs are:

- GB Para team at the Spanish Open
- London Progress table tennis club
- Brunswick table tennis Club
- National Coach, Guyana National team
- Challengers table tennis club (Guyana)
- Mildread Mansfield table tennis club (Guyana)
- YMCA (Guyana)
- Malteenos table tennis club (Guyana)
- Titans table tennis club (Guyana)

Hewley has worked with many young athletes within these clubs, many of which progressed onto winning many national and Caribbean titles.

INTERNATIONAL COACHING

Coaching teams promotes good friendships and team building. Initially Hewley focused more on large groups and individuals as opposed to team coaching. After that, he assisted in coaching the Guyana National Junior team at the Junior Caribbean Championships, after which he took up coaching roles at local competitions and with National league teams such as British League division 1 and division 4 teams. He worked with Greenhouse sports for three and a half years and took teams to National competitions almost every weekend. He also assisted in coaching the GB para team internationally and coached the Guyana National Team at the 2014 Commonwealth games in Glasgow. Going forward, Hewley intends to coach both locally and internationally and develop more relationships and building many more teams.

My coaching responsibilities cover the following:
- Taking the team to the competition
- Conducting risk assessments
- Ensuring the athletes are checked into the hotel or alternative accommodation
- Waking up early and ensuring the team is up on time
- Monitoring meal times for the team
- Monitoring rest times
- Organising fixtures and playing orders
- Warming up the athletes
- Coaching the athletes when competing