If you're 19 and decided on becoming a professional badminton player despite only getting as far as school badminton team where do you really get started? what clubs should you join? who do you talk to ? what steps do you take ? any help is really appreciated
-You should try to make a training schedule. My friend took 3 months off from school to train and that brought him up to A level. -I don't know about clubs, but if you have any training facilities nearby you might want to look into them. -I don't really know anyone so I can't help you there. -You don't want to rush things, so I guess I'm saying that you should take it slowly. You might overtrain yourself which isn't good. And a lot of conditioning and drilling is involved. You should also try to find a group to train/drill with. Condition in the morning, drill at night. If you don't mind me asking, what level are you now? Why do you want to be a professional player all of a sudden or have you been thinking about this for a while now?
First step is find a coach with one of the top coaching qualifications becasue more often than not they have been a player to a high level. Once you find a coach talk to them, start with calling the BA of E for a list of qualified coaches in your area and take a look through the BA of E site.
But also remember qualifications are not everything. As well as having a qualification, you must also get to know your coach,make sure he understands you and you understand him. in this situation the realtionship and support you and your coach give each other is vital. However also in your situation you will HAVE to train FULL TIME, no other distractions (work, money, social). Remember even in this country the top players(who are not top professionals bar 2/3) have played for many years, and trained by our best coaches, and they still struggle to make it. But nothing is ever impossible, if you work ha, and stay focussed on the goal, then you will achieve.
True but in this case you need someone who has been to the top of the mountain and has seen the view rather than a coach who is more recently qualified, reputation will be the best way to get a good coach if they are not already working with others in the same situation. As James points out a good relationship is essential as you will be spending a lot of time with them. But as James suggests, you need to eat, sleep and s**t badminton. No shortcuts I'm afraid.
Well I would consider maybe I am intermediate player or better My interest is that, well frankly badminton is the only thing that i look at that can make me happy, i've played since age of 5 and its the strongest thing so far that i believe i can excel at. This idea has come to me in the past month though.
Can I ask whereabouts (roughly) in London you are?? If you're in NW London I might be able to make a few suggestions/ contacts.
I'm in south east london but anywhere in london is fine if you know any coach that i can speak to, to see realistically how far i can go , that'd be great
go to www.badders.com and ask there for any leads on where to find the appropriate coaches in SE London. And be prepared for the negative comments about your ambitions. Some of the people at badders are experts at such comments If you have strong resolve, you should get through. Barriers are there to be broken. But you do have a number of practical issues to be faced at taking the game seriously at a relatively late age.
