National Level

[bassam]

Hey,

I am 14 and living in edinburgh but came to this city just a month ago.
i would like to know the way I would go in Junior National Team and which is the best Club for me- A club which plays inton different tournements and gives chance to go into nationals.
I would be very thankful.
-Bassam-

[Dill]

check out the S.B.U. website, they have regional contacts.

www.scotbadminton.demon.co.uk

also you could give them a call or e-mail. I wish you luck with your quest.

[Pak Hou]

Hey just a quick question like the first one say if I wanted to play for England/ China how would that process be taken and could anyone tell me how good you would have to be to participate ???

:D

[Dill]

For China you would have to be very good indeed, for England, not so good :D

[Dill]

Joking aside you would have to choose one country or the other, you would stand a better chance if you were top in your junior age group and were winning competitions internally (China/England), the next stage is to win (in the case of England) the junion European circuits and then continue into whichever programme takes the juniors from that level into full senior participation and then perform consistently good all the way through to get a good ranking in your country.

For China I would think the regime would have you in a training camp once you have been identified as a potential champion from an early age so you may be too late already and I would think there is strength in depth to just play Chinese competitions because of the level and sheer abundance of players.

Maybe someone could comment on the Chinese training regime?

Other than that you will have to do a search, I think some parts of this topic have been covered already.

[Cheung]

Hey just a quick question like the first one say if I wanted to play for England/ China how would that process be taken and could anyone tell me how good you would have to be to participate ???

:D

If you start from the beginning, you'll need 10 years of intensive training.

If you can hit the shuttle at school, you'll need 10 years.

If you can get into your high school team, you'll still need ten years!!

[Pak Hou]

If you start from the beginning, you'll need 10 years of intensive training.

If you can hit the shuttle at school, you'll need 10 years.

If you can get into your high school team, you'll still need ten years!!

Hey when you mean intensive training do you mean by going to a badminton course like the Le Jae Bok courses then go from there? Or just training in general because currently my school aint fanatics about badminton but i do currently play for the school matches if thats a conselation?

[wood_22_chuck]

Think of army drills, living & breathing badminton, badminton in the morning, badminton in the afternoon, badminton in the evening, at least 4 to 5 times a week.

-dave

[kwun]

what wood_22_chuck says. it will be intensive. it is not going to be a badminton holiday with party and beer. instead you will be breathing badminton every day of your life. you will do drills till your legs fall off, till your lungs are empty.

any less effort, you will be kicked out of the system, not by the authorities, but by the fact that you won't have results and you will be kicked out naturally.

not to mention you have to sacrifice your studies as you will have little time for that. many professionals are now going back to school when they are in the late 20's.

in China, students join state run sport schools at a young age, i think most join at around 6-9 yrs old. then they are either hand chosen by coaches to train in their respective sports. only the ones with talent and results can advance to the next level (we've never heard of where the failed ones goes), then you may get to play for the city, if you do well, you get to play for the province, if you can't do well, you go no where. if you play well for the province, you may get pick for the national team, if you don't do well, you go no where.

tens of thousands of kids get to go to sports schools every year. and as far as we can see, only a handful gets to join the national team. may be less than 10 a year on average.

[skates]

Pak Hou

Your about 16 now right. You need to get a move on with your training.

Hopefully Matt Ross will pick up on this tread. For the last few years Matt has been working away to make the grade as a professional player. Have a read of some of his past posts and some of the feedback he has had from other members of this forum. Later this year Matt is going to Denmark to train with the likes of Peter Gade for three months. Last year he did a LIBA Academy course with Lee Jae Bok and I believe he found it helpfull.

So by all means book a course. Something else LIBA are doing this year is running coaching Cells. This is weekly training on a month by month basis.
The training is Korean style which is pretty tough.

Full details of the coaching cells will be posted on the LIBA UK website within the next few days.

www.libauk.com (http://www.libauk.com)


Good luck


Skates

[Pak Hou]

Yeah I emailed them on Sunday but they havnt seemed to reply back on me which is a pain, and I also signed up for their newsletter :)

[skates]

Yeah the LIBA UK email was down over the weekend. It should be up and running tomorrow. :)

The websites working OK though.


Skates

[Matt Ross]

Pak Hou,

What you see behind a professional player is alot of hard work and many years of intensive training. For you to make the grade, not only do you have to make the sacrafices like Kwun rightfully said, but you need to be very self disciplined.
Unfortunately, training is at a fair minimum right now as i am getting my studies out the way..i had a choice to train hard last year but i wanted some qualifications before i tried my luck at pro. However, within the next few weeks i finish college and have alot of time on my hand...like Skates said, i'm off to the IBA very soon and have been given a new training regime...if i say to you 30 min footwork is involved, i hope you appeciate the sort of training you have to go through....and this is a small section!

However, please do not feel you should drop everything and go for it without some grades, at least finish college...bare in mind that Anthony Clark is 27 and starting to peak now....and Haughton didnt pick up a racket till 16! So there is plenty of time!

I went to a LIBA course to see first hand the Korean way of training....it was hard but you do adapt to it. However, you cannot go for one week and expect to be the next Lin Dan. You have to be very self disciplined and carry on what was said to you...if not you lose what you learnt quicker than what you learnt it.

I suggest you do the following...find a coach who can get a couple of sessions in and try regional tournament, perhaps even national such as satellites. If you find you are progressing, it'll only be time until you shoot up the rankings and get spotted. You get invited to training and thn you start the international tournaments. However, please do not be lead into thinking it will happen over night....but best of luck mate im sure i am right in saying we are all rooting for you.

Regards,
Matt

[Pak Hou]

Cheers Matt for the encouragement ;)

Yeah as I said earlier I really want to or hopefully get into that LIBA short course hopefully this year in June. But the troubles currently is that I got GCSE exams coming in the next two months :(

I also play Golf at my local golf club and on top of that I play the flute and the guitar. Which is pain but I've got to say the one game I most enjoy must be badminton and even though I've only played a year and a half of it I feel that I do have potential even if that does sound really sad or big headed :)

But anyway yeah I wanna enter more competitions but I just dont know of any in Essex currently which is annoying to say the least I tried the essex badminton website but just couldnt seem to get any feed back from my emails and the competition lists for juniors suck ( Sorry for the slang)

But hey thanks for the encouragement :)

[Dill]

Matt is the best person to ask, it should only be a couple of years since he was that age and is still in the area (until he goes to europe)

[Matt Ross]

Pak,

Did i read your not in a club? Well, the best thing to do then is find a strong club that play in the Chelmsford league...i have heard of a fair few and stay with them for a few seasons. Once you progress, get to Chelmsford Casuals if you can and get to watch Essex league games...the big boys like Danny Plant, Ian Pearson, David Gotts, Barry Francis play in there, and try to get in the team...that is the best way to get some match play.

Matt

[Pak Hou]

Yeah, but the trouble is Chelmsford still miles away because I live near Colchester which is just loads of hassle, I would love to go but I'm trying to look for a local club near me but Im just not getting anywhere. I heard theres a couple though but I dont really know how to get into them though. Because theres a monkwick one I think but the peolpe there are meant to be quite good and Im just not sure if Im that standard. If I make any sense lol

[Pak Hou]

Yeah sorry I just re- read the message you gave me earlier yeah, woops sounded a stupid there. Im currently looking for a club but I just dont know enough information about clubs in my area because I dont really know of any clubs around here except Monkwick but I heard you had to be REALLY GOOD there or were the peolpe there exagerrating things?

Anyway cheers once again

;)

[Dill]

Pak

The only thing to do is to go along yourself and try the club out. Everyones opinions on people are different so what one person doesn't like about a club you might like, one persons view of a good level might not be anothers!

Can you not get in touch with the BA of E to find local clubs? Do they not all need to be registered in some way to play in the leagues?

[Pak Hou]

Yeah I sent a request to the essex badminton site requesting information about the clubs in essex but they just seemed to either have too many emails (Yeah Right (SARCASM) or they dont check emails reguarly but I just sent another request so fingers crossed hopefully I will be able to find a club and play for :D

[skates]

Pak Hou

Telephone this sports center and ask if any badminton clubs play at the center.

Tiptree Sports Centre
Maypole Rd
Tiptree
Colchester
Essex

Tel: 01621 817499

Also, try


Stanway Badminton Club
Stanway School
Winstree Rd
Stanway
Colchester
Essex
Tel: 01206 330917

I found a club called Colchester Nomads Badminton Club. Sorry Don't have a telephone number.

You could check out.

St. Mary Magdalen Badminton Club (http://www.virtualcities.co.uk/cgi-bin/ppc_jump.cgi?ID=49170&d=1&t=virtualcities)
the oldest recorded club in the Colchester Federation (which was founded in 1948), although the club had been running for some twenty years prior.

I just got in from two hours of playing so I'm a bit tired. I'll have another look for you tomorrow.

Best regards


Skates

[other]

best thing to do is to go to the club, even if u don't play and just watch....i'm sure they will let you:)

its true, unless they have rankings, and sometimes even then, it's impossible to tell how "good" they are:) therefore comparing notes with friends is often pointless, since there is no set standard for us to talk against...(strange use of language:))

anyways....just turn up and watch....they won't charge you.

[Pak Hou]

Hello, cheers skates yeah I ll definitely phone them after school tomorow, hey by the way the site is under construction the link you gave me ;) dont matter.

[other]

oh yeah, most counties do a U18 restricted (i think that means non-county players...not sure) tournament once a year....see if you can get in for your county's one. it gives you an idea of your competition-of course, the training things do as well:)

[Dill]

Just out of interest how did Bassam our original poster get on?

[dlp]

Many people go onto the forums and ask how they get into England /national squads.

For many people their dream is to play for England. Thats fine as a dream but you have to break that down to medium and short term goals and decide if your commitment is in line with your goals. If you have the necessary commitment and the talent, support, access to training ,luck you may have a shot.

For all those who apsire to be top players I would suggest they first:

Enter the relevant age group tournaments:
If you are u15 that would be the u15 events and nationals and probably the u17 nationals

if you are u17 then the top u17 events/nationals and u19 events/nationals plus lower senior tournaments

if you are u19 the u19 events, nationals and the senior challengers/opens/nationals!

Until you are playing these events you will have no idea of your level or the level of the competition.

As an example of the sort of training you can be doing even outside of a squad: Train physically for 2 hours a day six days a week, i.e. (running before school, weights if old enough, circuits, intervals)

Train on court for ten hours a week: footwork, routines , matches

If you can do this for a few months then you can start to ask about accessing national training, there are no shortcuts. You need to the number 1 player for singles or doubles in your age group in the country to have a shot at making it as senior national and even then probably only 1 out of 3 no.1 juniors progresses.

[Dill]

Spot on - here here!

[FlamingJam]

Restricted Age Tournaments such as (U-18 U-16) for example are often restricted on the area and not the abilites u should enter many of these tournaments and open tournament and hopefully win.

Even the best numbers of youngsters of England don't make it into senior international levels fpr example even being a national or european junior champion dosen't say that the player will be able to translate this into senior levels. There are only a few would make it, and even when you have the life isn't easy at all i know some juniors who could make it and some senior england internationals who have made it you need total enjoyment in the sport otherwise you won't make it.

i know the position your in (im marginally younger than you) get into a club and train hard and play often in tournaments and at least top county standard playing at a seeded 1 or 2 position :o :rolleyes: