Metazone Sports has now reached more than 90 schools across Bhutan, certified young people aged 14 to 18 as L1A peer coaches, opened coaching pathways for deaf and non-speaking participants, and marked the effective launch of DRUKA — Bhutan’s first pickleball paddle brand, co-developed with the Tarayana Foundation.
Something important is happening to pickleball in Bhutan.
It is no longer simply a new sport being introduced to the country.
Bhutanese students are beginning to teach it. Bhutanese schools are beginning to grow it. And Bhutan is beginning to develop a pickleball identity of its own.
The latest phase of the Metazone Sports initiative has taken its overall reach to more than 90 schools across Bhutan, building on an earlier nationwide programme that introduced pickleball to more than 10,000 students and engaged more than 100 physical and sports instructors.
But the newest milestone is perhaps more significant than the numbers.
Young Bhutanese aged between just 14 and 18 have now completed the Metazone L1A coaching certification, becoming peer coaches capable of introducing pickleball within their own schools, friendship groups and communities.
Among those certified were also three deaf and non-speaking coaches — demonstrating an important principle behind Metazone Sports:
Sporting pathways should not simply be open to everyone. People should have the opportunity to contribute and lead within them.
The programme also marks the effective launch of DRUKA, Bhutan’s first pickleball paddle brand, co-developed by Metazone Sports and the Tarayana Foundation.
Together, these developments represent the next stage of Bhutan’s pickleball journey.
From participation to leadership.
From introduction to multiplication.
From receiving a sport to beginning to make it Bhutan’s own.
More Than 90 Schools — And a Different Measure of Success
When Metazone Sports first began introducing pickleball across Bhutan, scale mattered.
Young people needed access to the sport before any meaningful ecosystem could exist.
That first stage eventually reached more than 10,000 students across more than 90 schools, while developing more than 100 physical and sports instructors capable of supporting its continued growth.
Today, that reach stands at more than 90 schools.
But Metazone Sports believes the next phase should be measured differently.
The question is no longer simply:
How many schools can Metazone Sports reach?
Increasingly, it becomes:
How many people can the people we trained reach themselves?
“There comes a point where a programme has to become bigger than the organisation that started it. That’s what we want for Bhutan. We don’t want every new player to need Metazone Sports standing beside them. We want teachers teaching students, students teaching friends and eventually those people creating opportunities for the next generation.”
— Mr Jevan Tan, Founder, Metazone
That transition — from participation to multiplication — sits at the centre of the Metazone Sports philosophy.
Coaches at 14
One of the clearest examples is the certification of Bhutanese young people aged between 14 and 18 through the Metazone L1A coaching programme.
L1A is the entry point into the Metazone Sports coaching pathway.
It is not intended to declare a teenager an elite professional coach.
Instead, it provides a structured foundation through which someone who demonstrates the necessary knowledge, responsibility and communication skills can begin coaching at an appropriate level — particularly by introducing beginners and supporting their peers.
This distinction matters.
Metazone Sports believes young people should not have to wait until adulthood before being trusted with meaningful responsibility.
“A 14-year-old doesn’t need to know everything about coaching before they can help someone take their first step.
L1A is about understanding the fundamentals, understanding your responsibilities and understanding the limits of what you’re qualified to do. The certificate doesn’t mean you’ve finished learning. It means you’re ready to start contributing.”
— Darren Ho, Director, Metazone Sports
And for young people, peer coaching has a particular advantage.
They already have the network.
Their classmates.
Their friends.
Their teammates.
Their school communities.
Sometimes the most powerful invitation into sport is not a poster or an advertisement.
It is simply a friend saying:
“Come and try this.”
Turning Friendship Networks Into Sporting Networks
The peer-coaching model creates a multiplier.
One coach can teach a group of students.
But if several of those students become capable of introducing their friends, growth begins travelling through the community itself.
LEARN → CERTIFY → TEACH → SHARE → MULTIPLY
A student learns pickleball.
They become L1A certified.
They introduce their friends.
Some of those friends continue playing.
Some eventually become coaches themselves.
The network grows.
This transforms young people from beneficiaries of a programme into builders of the ecosystem.
“When young people coach their friends, the dynamic changes. There’s familiarity and trust already there. Our responsibility is to give these peer coaches enough structure and confidence to make that first experience safe, positive and enjoyable. Then the sport can start travelling through networks that already exist.”
— Mr Foong Wai Kit, Head of Programmes, Metazone Sports
Three Coaches Who Challenge Our Assumptions
Among those completing the certification were three deaf and non-speaking coaches.
Their achievement demonstrates another important dimension of the Metazone Sports approach.
Inclusion in sport is frequently measured by participation.
Can someone join?
Can someone play?
Can someone access the programme?
Metazone Sports believes there is another question that matters just as much:
Can they lead?
There is a profound difference between telling someone:
“You are welcome to participate.”
and telling them:
“You have something valuable to teach.”
These three individuals were not simply included as participants.
They qualified as coaches.
Their achievement also challenges the assumption that coaching depends primarily upon spoken instruction.
Coaching is demonstration.
Observation.
Movement.
Visual communication.
Feedback.
Patience.
Adaptation.
Connection.
“This experience reminds us that communication is much bigger than speech. You demonstrate. You observe. You use movement and visual cues. You adapt. The question isn’t whether somebody coaches exactly the way I coach. The question is whether they can help another person understand, participate and improve.”
— Mr Foong Wai Kit, Head of Programmes, Metazone Sports
Inclusion Means the Opportunity to Contribute
For Metazone Sports, this represents a deeper definition of inclusion.
It is not enough to create programmes in which different people are allowed to participate.
A genuinely inclusive ecosystem should create pathways through which people can contribute.
A deaf student can become a player.
A player can become a coach.
A coach can introduce another student.
And that student can eventually teach somebody else.
At that point, inclusion has become something much more powerful.
It has become agency.
“We shouldn’t congratulate ourselves simply because somebody was allowed into the programme. That’s a very low bar for inclusion. The more meaningful question is whether that person was given the opportunity to contribute. These three coaches can now create opportunities for other people. That’s what makes their certification important.”
— Mr Jevan Tan, Founder, Metazone
DRUKA: Bhutan’s First Pickleball Paddle Brand
This latest stage also marks another milestone in Bhutan’s emerging pickleball story:
The effective launch of DRUKA.
Co-developed by Metazone Sports and the Tarayana Foundation, DRUKA is Bhutan’s first pickleball paddle brand.
Its significance goes beyond another piece of sporting equipment.
For much of Bhutan’s early pickleball journey, knowledge, equipment and expertise naturally had to be introduced from outside the country.
DRUKA represents the beginning of another direction.
Something connected to pickleball is now being created from Bhutan.
It gives the country’s emerging pickleball community an identity of its own.
“DRUKA isn’t important to us simply because it is another paddle. It represents ownership. We want a young person in Bhutan to be able to pick up a paddle and feel that this sport isn’t something that only belongs somewhere else. Bhutan can have its own players, its own coaches, its own community and its own identity within the sport.”
— Mr Jevan Tan, Founder, Metazone
More Than a Paddle
The emergence of DRUKA also demonstrates another aspect of the Metazone philosophy.
Sport creates opportunities far beyond playing.
Every sporting ecosystem requires coaches.
Officials.
Event organisers.
Designers.
Content creators.
Photographers.
Technology.
Operations.
Facilities.
Equipment.
Brands.
Entrepreneurs.
A young person may enter the ecosystem because they enjoy playing pickleball and eventually discover that their contribution to sport has nothing to do with becoming a professional athlete.
“When we say sport creates pathways, we mean the entire ecosystem. Somebody has to play, but somebody also has to coach, organise, design, build technology, create products and tell the stories. DRUKA is another example of the possibilities that can grow around a sport once an ecosystem starts forming.”
— Darren Ho, Director, Metazone Sports
The timing of DRUKA’s emergence is therefore particularly appropriate.
Young Bhutanese are not simply holding these paddles as participants.
Some are now holding them as coaches.
Metazone Sports Creates the Pathways. Waypoint Connects the Journey.
As the physical network grows beyond 90 schools, connecting those people becomes increasingly important.
This is the role of Waypoint.
Metazone Sports develops the sporting ecosystem — its programmes, methodology, certifications, partnerships, coaches and pathways.
Waypoint is the digital platform that connects those journeys.
A young person might encounter pickleball at school.
They might continue learning.
Become L1A certified.
Introduce friends.
Enter a competition.
Develop further.
Become an official.
Progress through additional coaching qualifications.
Eventually mentor someone beginning the same journey they once started.
Waypoint provides a digital destination through which those experiences can increasingly remain connected.
Metazone Sports creates the pathways.
Waypoint connects the journeys.
People and communities ultimately make them their own.
And the Pathway Is Open to Everyone
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the Bhutan initiative is that the Metazone coaching pathway itself is not intended to remain confined to Bhutan.
The same entry-level Metazone L1A coaching pathway is available free through Waypoint Academy.
This means someone reading this story does not simply have to observe what these young Bhutanese coaches have achieved.
They can begin their own journey.
That is deliberate.
If Metazone Sports genuinely believes that sport can create pathways, then the first step into those pathways should be accessible.
The young people certified in Bhutan demonstrate what that first step can become.
A participant becomes a learner.
A learner becomes a peer coach.
A peer coach helps another person begin.
And the cycle continues.
Access. Capability. Inclusion. Connection. Identity. Ownership.
The Bhutan initiative is beginning to demonstrate the Metazone Sports development model in practice.
ACCESS
Bring sport to people and create opportunities for discovery.
CAPABILITY
Develop local instructors and coaches capable of sustaining the ecosystem.
YOUTH LEADERSHIP
Trust young people with meaningful responsibility appropriate to their abilities.
INCLUSION
Create pathways through which people of different abilities can participate, contribute and lead.
CONNECTION
Use Waypoint to connect people, programmes, learning and opportunities.
IDENTITY
Develop initiatives such as DRUKA that allow communities to see themselves reflected in their sporting ecosystem.
MULTIPLICATION
Enable participants to create opportunities for other participants.
OWNERSHIP
Build towards an ecosystem increasingly led and sustained by the people within it.
Growing Beyond 90 Schools
Reaching more than 90 schools is an important milestone.
But the next stage of growth should not necessarily happen in the same way as the first.
More can potentially be reached by Bhutanese teachers.
By physical instructors.
By young peer coaches.
By friends introducing friends.
By schools connecting with other schools.
That is the transition Metazone Sports has been working towards.
“I don’t want the long-term success story to be that Metazone Sports personally visited every school. I would much rather discover that one of our 15-year-old peer coaches introduced pickleball somewhere we had never been. That’s the moment you know you’ve created something capable of growing without you.”
— Darren Ho, Director, Metazone Sports
And perhaps that is the clearest way to understand what is now happening in Bhutan.
The first stage was about putting paddles into people’s hands.
The next was about developing the people who could teach.
Now young people are becoming those teachers.
Coaches with different abilities are demonstrating that leadership does not have a single form.
Waypoint is connecting those journeys.
And DRUKA is giving the emerging community something distinctly Bhutanese to carry onto the court.
The programme is moving from:
Participation to contribution.
Students to coaches.
Access to ownership.
A sport introduced to Bhutan, towards a sport increasingly shaped by Bhutan.
“Our role is to open the first door. What excites me is seeing people walk through it and then hold that door open for somebody else.”
— Mr Jevan Tan, Founder, Metazone
The young coaches of Bhutan are already beginning to do exactly that.
And now, the invitation extends beyond them.
Start Your Own Journey
Own a Piece of Bhutan’s Pickleball Story
DRUKA, Bhutan’s first pickleball paddle brand, co-developed by Metazone Sports and the Tarayana Foundation, will be available through Waypoint.
Explore DRUKA at waypoint.fan/shop
Become a Metazone L1A Coach — Free
The same first step into coaching demonstrated by Bhutan’s young peer coaches is open to others.
Learn the foundations of coaching, understand how to introduce the sport responsibly and begin creating opportunities for people within your own community.
Start the free Metazone L1A Coaching Certification at waypoint.fan/academy
Learn. Coach. Include. Create a pathway for someone else.