When the warning signals began to emerge from China about a few weeks ago, Sushrutha Reddy felt he should be prepared. It didn’t matter he was living in Bengaluru, far away from the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.
A chess coach, he knew that he would have to explore more ways of reaching out to his trainees online.
More than anticipated
But the demand to learn the game through the internet was more than he anticipated once the lockdown in India began. That has been the case around the globe. However, there has been no compromise in the quality of training.
Unlike popular sports like football or cricket, chess can be taught flawlessly within the confines of your room, provided you have internet access.
Conducting chess classes online is nothing new. India’s best-known trainer R.B. Ramesh has been doing it for the last 15 years. But what is new is that more coaches and wards have opted for it because of the lockdown in several countries.
“Normally I get new students during the school vacation, but more than 50 – including a few from overseas – have joined over the last couple of weeks,” said Sushrutha. “I now conduct lessons online to some 85 students right through the day.”
Parents’ belief
Chennai-based T.J. Suresh Kumar said the spurt in numbers is largely due to parents’ belief that chess will keep their children occupied when schools are closed. “Coaches like me don’t have any other option but to go online,” he said.
Pravin Thipsay pointed out that online coaching had its own advantages. “In a city like Mumbai, where I am living, travelling can be such a huge problem,” said the veteran Grandmaster. “Now you can train someone even till 10 p.m. Of late, I have been having more students online than offline.”
But for Ramesh, much of his time used to be spent at his academy, Chess Gurukul, before the lockdown. He trains some of India’s brightest prospects like R. Praggnanandhaa and Aravindh Chithambaram. “Now I teach all of them online,” he said.
Multiple platforms
There are multiple platforms to reach out to the students. Skype appears to be preferred the choice since it is free. But Sushrutha has found out that Zoom works better when you have to teach a group. “I had also tried Cisco Webex, which too was useful,” he said.
“Zoom may not be free, but when you have a reasonable number of students, you can easily cover the cost.”
