Sharing badminton knowledge

Challenges, Coach Education, Coach Questions, Courtside Conversations

This is a thought challenge for coaches

What subjects would you be confident to talk about

What subjects would you like to hear about from others

‘Teaching’ others often gives you a different perspective

(teaching/talking is different from listening)

Send to your friends

This is a group challenge with the aim of starting conversations with you and your friends.

How far you take the challenge is your choice. It may end with a chat at the side of the court, in a coffee shop, or after a travel journey.

It can also be used within different forms of coach education: more about that later in this post.

The challenge

Imagine that you are to talk about a subject you feel passionate about.

You will select a topic from a prepared list. I created one below that I used with my friends, but I recommend you create your own.

In my challenge, I asked my friends to imagine that they would be talking to a group of 4 – 6 coaches, some of whom they already know, some they don’t.

They would have 15 mins to talk uninterrupted in detail about the topic, using prepared handouts or notes if they wish.

Then there will be a 10 min discussion prompted by questions from the other coaches.

This can be on or off court.

The invitation to speak then moves to the next person, and if there is time, this continues until everyone has spoken and taken questions.

Why take part in the challenge

The aim is for you to reflect on your current passions and knowledge so that others can benefit from your perspective. Maybe they will be stimulated by your thoughts to explore and reflect some more for themselves.

Within your 15 mins, you can ask questions to stimulate the thoughts of those listening.

However, the session isn’t interactive. That happens in the next section of 10 mins Q&A.

If you want, you can prepare notes for the coaches of no more than one side or less of A4 page

The preparation tasks

Task 1

Select 3 subjects from the list.

Rank them in order of preference for your motivation to talk about each.

Depending on what you intend to do next, either send the list to each other or begin to create thoughts for your 15 min teach-back to your friends.

In my challenge, we decided just to create a list of all the subjects that inspired us. Our list is at the end of this post for your interest.

Task 2

As previously, select 3 subjects from the list.

However, this time your motivation is to select subjects that you want to hear others talk about.

When selecting the subjects, hopefully you will be preparing questions based on thoughts and opinions you already have or some questions on aspects you want to learn more about

Now is your opportunity to explore new topics.

What strategies would you use when selecting subjects for each of these tasks?

The subjects

Choose 3 to talk about and 3 to hear and learn more about

1. The differences between Technical & Tactical practices

2. The advantages and disadvantages of multi-shuttle practice

3. The different uses of Multi-shuttle training

4. The various ways to make a practice harder

5. What are the various ways a coach can establish that development and learning are happening

6. Giving feedback to a player in an individual practice

7. What early singles tactics would you present to a beginner player and how would you do this

8. Advice to players on how to cope with a weak backhand

9. The advantages and disadvantages of shadow training

10. The different ways a coach can acquire and gain knowledge

11. The advantages and disadvantages of repetition in practice

12. Introducing and coaching the split step

13. If you £100,00 to allocate to improving your coaching knowledge, what 3 or 4 things would you do

14. What are the benefits and challenges of working with another coach

15. The things I want to know more about and why

16. My top 3 coaching methodologies: the strategies and methods I use in my coaching

17. Conditioned Games – design, implementation, benefits, etc.

18. How to analyse a Badminton match: various systems and methods

19. Should coaches vary their coaching styles with different players

20. What does good (effective) practice look like

Task 1

I would like to talk about these

Task 2

I would like to hear more about these

What will you decide to do

If you decide to take this challenge either by yourself or with your friends, I would love to know which of the 20 subjects you’d choose.

Which 3 would be on your list to talk about? I wonder how confident you’d feel explaining your thoughts to 3 or 4 other coaches. What questions would you expect back?

Which 3 would you like to hear more about? Would it be to learn something new, or to check your viewpoints and understanding?