My top 5 coaching mistakes

Advice I wish I'd known sooner, Coach Questions

Have you made the same mistakes as I have

Most of them could have been avoided

if only someone had told me about them

I’m not sure if any of them ever came up in my Coach Education courses

I wish they had! 🙂

Talking to players and coaches in the same way

I’d never thought about this or the consequences

I believed that the more technical information players knew, the better they would perform. I wished that I’d realised that having a player ‘knowing information’ wasn’t the key to their success.

The skill I needed was to determine (as best I could) what information would help.

Information that was specific to their current needs, and that assists future development. Only then could I work on how to deliver that information.

I thought detail was vital

I found myself explaining every technical point, every ‘Why’ and ‘When’, all with the aim of imparting information. Often I’d then ‘test’ the players’ memories by asking them questions that required them to list back to me the things I’d ‘taught’ them (or so I thought!)

Often, I sounded like a ‘coaching manual rather than a ‘playing manual’.

I neded to know the difference in this context.

A Coaching Manual is information that unpins how and what helps players develop/learn

A Playing Manual is information that helps players to perform in competition

Watching practice but not competition

This was another lesson I wished I’d learned much earlier

It would have saved me from much heartache and soul-searching.

I thought that I knew how my players performed as I watched them in training every week.

However, when I watched them in competition at times I was shocked!

Why in the competition did they either not perform to the same level in practice, why did that ‘skill’ just disappear?

Watching players in a competition is very different to watching practice

Thinking that technical practice translates into tactical play

I probably knew this wasn’t true but didn’t want to believe it 🙁

Maybe it was because I didn’t understand how to coach tactics and certainly not how to introduce tactical thoughts to young players.

I coached in the ‘hope’ that all the technical elements would somehow combine together into tactical thoughts. Or maybe I just didn’t think that players could understand tactics until they were technical competent – I wish someone had told me how wrong I was.

What are the fundamental elements for tactical thoughts?

I assumed that if a player would ‘master’ all the elements of a technique (movement, hitting, accuracy, power, speed) then all they had to do was join them together in a rally.

Of course, they did perform technically well in a game (because they had practised the strokes), however, the choices they made with these techniques were the crucial variables.

I could see that at times they made some strange decisions, or was that no decision at all, ‘they just hit shuttles!’

Just being able to perform a technique did not mean that they could put them together in a way that tested or outwitted their opponents.

They also struggle at crucial times (pressure points) to ensure their technique worked. I didn’t realise that part of tactical skills was the ability to control themselves and to recognise how the game/score could challenge them in different ways from the technical practices they had been practising.

When will someone create a set of underpinning Badminton Tactical basics

The thoughts that help players create tactical plans/ideas

Viewing practices from my perspective (as a player)

You may not see this as a coaching mistake

Maybe it’s okay to have a viewpoint on all your practice as if you were a player taking part in them. At least you’d be able to explore and reflect on the outcomes you’d experience if you were on the court.

I failed to realise that not everyone thought the way I did and that it was wrong to judge all practices from my viewpoint.

Be careful judging all practices using these questions …

“Did the practice work for me when I was a player?”

“Would I have enjoyed this practice?”

“Would I have been motivated to think that way?”

Don’t just practice one style and presume that it will be applicable to all court movements.

For example : Some people believe that you should always chasse in the forecourt going to the net.

Running is faster than a chasse technique, especially over a longer distance.

Can you separate your feelings (as a player) about practice now that you are a coach?

That Practice Performance translates into Competition Performace

They look great in practice, so why not in competition?

Be careful judging the performance level of your players based on what you see in practice.

Maybe without knowing it, you are manipulating practices so that ‘Performance Improvements’ appear!

Your group will probably become good at the things you practice, and many even start to ‘play’ in similar ways, using similar tactics and strokes. It’s not surprising that they favour the strokes you often practice.

You will see improvements in practice; however, is it certain to translate into a competition?

This depends on how you structure your practice and how your players react to competition stress.

I didn’t realise that competition was the best test of development and that what I observed in practice may only be a product of that practice. The challenge presented to me was how to introduce elements of competition (stress, environments, decisions) into practice.

When I did try to do this, I was often tempted to stop as the practice performance dipped or I felt that I’d lost control over the practice. Development and progress seemed to decrease sometimes, players got frustrated at the perceived lack of progress.

Some players even suggested that we should just practice

rather than play competitive games in practice !!

What were your thoughts?

Do you recognise any of my mistakes in your own journey as a coach?

I hope they created some thought in your mind, and solutions or viewpoints that apply at certain times.

Not all coaching decisions are easy and straightforward. Some are a compromise or a choice depending on the specific needs of the players you are working with.

However, some are tough lessons to learn, and the ones above were certainly that. I try nowadays not to believe or do any of them.

Send me a question

I’m always grateful if you have read this far.

If there is anything that you have read that has helped or that you disagree with, then please send me an email.

I promise to read all your comments

It would be great to hear from you contact@badmintonandy.com

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