Are coaching lessons a good idea irrespective of your level?

I played for 15 years and then decided to go for coaching and almost totally changed my game.

There are some things about coaches I discovered.

A certain coach may not be the right one for you. They may have a great reputation but their teaching style would have to fit you and vice versa for your learning style.

It's important for a coach to understand you. That means you have to express your learning objective to them.

I think those earlier coaches I had come across before just saw me as a "typical" adult learner.

What is a typical adult learner? I noticed that they usually say "I want to play better" but have no objective in mind. It's very difficult for the coach to push these people because for this group, a lot of them are actually only wanting to improve consistency (they aren't able to express it in such terms though). However, there is no easy way to improve except for hard work.

Changes in technique are far harder to effect and in fact many adult learners will give up having the coach.

After having a few coaches, here and there in group classes, I tried a different coach on a friend's introduction for one-to-one, one-to-two students sessions (lasting 1 to 2 hours).

I got introduced to him and we knocked the shuttle around a bit. I told him my objectives were 1) good footwork because I wanted to play singles again, 2) do the best I could and see if I could get to A grade in HK, AND then asked did he really think I had the potential to do it?

He reckoned it was possible. I decided to do it intensively for 3 months to break old habits (lessons twice a week) and then do weekly. Yes, it was expensive but I think frequency is important otherwise you forget the previous lesson. Or rather your muscles "forget" the movements.

I used to write what I learnt in early postings on BC and it was fun as well as physically tiring. I think my learning style was quite intense for the coach as I felt it was expensive and I should squeeze my money's worth out of it. The coach got surprised when I would take out a notebook to write down what he said, scribble drawings of foot placement, body movement, tactics and brought a videocam to record some of the lessons. I was the first student he had who would take notes so that possibly put some pressure on him!!

The result was I did become a much better player raising my game up a couple of levels with strong basic foundation. That means even if I have an extended break from badminton I still have the insight on how to play a better stroke, get the footwork right, body positioning, etc. I definitely did improve because a lot of people here said I had become harder to play and was a good player (they never said that before I got the caoching!). Although I play more socially now, people still comment that my footwork is good as I can reach many shuttles across an open court. (All that singles training - LOL)

I wouldn't say I was talented by any stretch of the imagination. My strength is being a hard grafter and trying to dissect a technique down to very small details. I can train a shot for 30 mins trying to get it right. Sometimes I will spend 1 hour on court just to practice a low serve. I am quite happy to practice spinning netshots for an hour.

As a caveat, I find that western adult learners have a few disadvantages. Firstly, they can be really stubborn and this restricts progress. You can't learn if you are not open minded. Secondly, they can talk too much during the lesson so you end up talking more than "doing". Don't waste too much court time on talking. Talking is only effective up to a point - anymore, and you are wasting precious time when instead you can be hitting the shuttle and grooving the technique. I used to save a lot of the questions for afterwards during warming down.


In my earlier days, I thought you could only become a good player if you started from a young age and so I thought I missed the boat. That made me miss a lot of years of potentially better games. Well, better late than never. I'm always thinking of the "what if...."

 

One important point to bear in mind is that at the start, your gameplay may go down as you try to bring on new techniques into your game. i.e. you lose games more. This can be demoralising and weaken the confidence in the coach by the student. Keep in mind whether you want short term gain or long term gain.