What to coach a badminton beginner
Everything you say and do will make a difference!
So how you select information is critical
A friend challenged me to create a list titled “What to coach a badminton beginner“.
I initially thought that it wouldn’t be too difficult, but I was soon proved wrong. The list started to grow and grow, especially as new topics emerged.
We decided to work together to gather ideas about what to include. The list of ideas included
- specific technical themes (not strokes)
- important tactical foundational themes,
- some ideas about development,
- and general points that we knew were important but didn’t know where to include them
There are so many choices for a coach to make,
but what to choose, only you can decide 🙂
What’s important?
The way a badminton beginner interacts with our sport in the first 6 – 12 months is critical. This isn’t just for the establishment of technical skills.
In fact, technical competency may not even be one of the highest priorities! It’s not at the top of my list, that’s for sure.
How a player views and experiences their development, the challenges, and the emotional feelings, maybe should be the priorities. The challenge is for the coach to create experiences that link (then or in the future) to more specific discrete badminton skills. Do you agree?
What early experiences do you link could help with future badminton experiences?
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5 topics
After gathering all our ideas we came up with 5 topic headings, each including most of our specific ideas.
Our hope was that these would act as a guide to ensure that we didn’t focus solely of say Technical aspects. I’m assuming that most coaches default to believing that the technical aspects (of hitting & moving) are the most important fundamentals.
What do you imagine would be included under each heading?
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Does this information ensure that all players will become World-class – certainly not!
Be aware that knowing this information is not as effective as experiencing it. Your task is to create environments, practices, experiences and habits that all contribute.
Ensure that your coaching is structured but that the players are unaware of how hard you have worked on this structure of what to include and what to exclude. Your aim is to give your new players the ‘Best Start’ experiences!
The big coaching Issues
- If you agree with these ideas then how will you integrate them into your practice?
- Are you able to ‘Coach’ in different ways so that players create learning (not listening) experiences?
- Can you reduce the telling/talking and find practical ways to instil everything, and have multiple ways to do this?
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Want to read more?
Not a list of strokes, but aspects that are common across multiple strokes & movements
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As always, I’m very grateful if you have read this far 🙂
I’d like to hear what core themes you’d introduce into the first 12 months of a player’s development if someone asked you “what to coach badminton beginner”
Do you think my ideas are too much, too little or just a dream?
Why not send me an email contact@badmintonandy.com
This is part of a series of conversation starters.
Although not in detail, the posts are written to get you thinking and talking with others.
