So let's say you're an adult player, who has decided to improve his/her skills. You know that improving requires a bit of coaching, a lot of practice and repetition, and focus on the fundamentals. So far, so good. But how do you people exactly go about doing all that? From my experience, most adult players are either already competitive and way beyond your skill level or they only play recreationally. You cannot mix in with juniors either. If you want to get any on-court practice, you basically have to find another adult player who is also eager to improve. Of course, there might an active club around your area, which encourages practice, but it seems to me that this is not the case in my area. So my question adult players who are focused on improving, how do you arrange on-court practice and was it easy to find other similar-minded people to practice with? Do you have a club or some other kind of regular practice arrangement? Of course, one can practice core strength, muscle speed and general stamina alone, but even footwork training seems awkward to arrange just by your own. You can buy some coaching too, but that's expensive and cannot be sustained frequently.
from my experience, most adult players are only interested in playing games and will scoff off any suggestion to doing any practice/drills. drills are boring for most. the key is to find and talk to people, and join teams who would have an interests in improving. if one fails at that, perhaps joining a badminton group class, where there will be similarly minded people who want to improve (afterall, they did go to the class so that must be their intention!)
I can sympathise with this a lot, but don't have any easy answers. To improve as an adult beginner, you need to be incredibly stubborn! The main thing is to get on court with stronger players as often as possible and get beaten up by those "competitive" people. It's less efficient than getting proper coaching--it might take you a year to achieve what you could manage with a few weeks of coaching and practice drills--but you'll gradually improve if you keep a positive attitude and don't give up. Take the pre-game warmups seriously. Often you'll see people spend a few minutes before a game just hitting high clears to each other. This is something you can do casually, without thinking, or it can be a chance to really concentrate on your grip and hitting technique. Anyone watching you won't see the difference, but it might be the closest you get to doing a practice drill, so make the most of it. Why not mix in with the juniors? People will think you're eccentric, and you might get some odd reactions the first few times, but it's a good way to learn. For footwork training, buy yourself a skipping rope. It's not the same as being on court, but will still do a lot to improve your stamina and agility. Also, watch as much high-level badminton as you can. Get on YouTube, or the video sharing forums on this site, and learn badminton tactics from the best in the world! You won't be able to put into practice everything you see, but at least you'll be thinking along the right lines. Good luck with this. I know it's frustrating (a lot of people seem to think adult beginners can't improve), but it's worth persisting.
Thanks for the comments. I guess it boils down to being active on one's own. I just have to keep trying to find people that have a similar mindset. Rope skipping and "plyometric" training are already on my schedule, so it's basically on-court practice that I'm missing right now. I do get to play games couple of times a week, but that's not real practice. But I'm confident that I can eventually find a way to engage in real practice too.
