Hi guys, I am going to participate in an All Island Inter Schools badminton championship, and I am one of the key players in our team. Our team is well balanced and are one of the favourites to raise the title. But I have a slight problem, the competition is tough and I believe I have to play to my maximum potential to win but I also feel I haven't reached this potential. Can anyone help me in pointing out any methods in which I can reach peak condition both physically and mentally. Thanks -Tharitha -
Hi there tharitha, Other than perfecting your badminton footwork and technique, possessing a strong mentality in your game play as well as being physically fit constantly are the other spectrum of necessity that a player must have to be a complete player. Unfortunately, all of this 4 foundation in badminton cannot be learn overnight, alone mastering it in a short period of time. Even world class player, still and continuously perfecting all of this element today and everyday so that their standard of play will remain at the highest level always. Nevertheless, there are approaches that you can plan in this short period of time to gear up your physicality and mentality to a higher level than before that hopefully can give you that extra benefit in your upcoming tournament. This would be my short term suggestion: Improving your mentality There are no precise and clear similarity to train one's mentality to another and obviously to you since you are unique in your own way if we analyze from the perspective of a badminton player. Since training one's mentality is correspond closely to the player's level of humbleness to accept and adapt to open critics, willingness to change and having a high level of self discipline to make that change......therefore the outcome of mentality transition from weak to strong or vice verse is very unpredictable to one individual to another. Therefore it's vital that in the path to improve one's mentality is to continuously face and confront regularly with numerous opponents, preferably a stronger opponent so that you can find and realize every details of your weakness and strength and openly accept whatever critics from that findings. Plan ahead from now a lot of friendly and importantly,a lot of drills and make that necessary fine tune in how you play. If you're one of the key player in your team then, the expectation that you can deliver a point is likely to be very high and that increases the pressure. If you can visualize clearly in your mind all the strength and weakness that you have and then project that information to adapt it fluently into how you play, obviously it will make you into a stronger character as a player. Improving your physical fitness There are numerous approach that you can do to improve this. I think at this short period of time, its better to apply method that can kill two birds with one stone that is, doing training that at the same time can improve your fitness as well as your badminton skills. I would suggest: - Train hard on your footwork - Do a lot of skipping - Do a lot of drills - Do a lot of 1 vs 2 or 1 vs 3 gameplay Hope you all the best. SS
