helllo , im coaching two team of girls , in two high schools. However, what i have noticed is that the girls consider themselves "not powerful" enough, and some of them are quite difficult to control i.e "girly, whiny , you name it =P". However.. i was wondering if there is anyway to motivate the girls to pratice more, ways of coaching a girl to do the proper footworks, gripping etc. They all vary in different levels, and are all fairly new to the sport. One more thing.. :-D I am ALSO coaching some girls individually , privately, at our local drop in gyms. two girls are low C rank players, 2 are low D rank players, 4 are novice level players. note: all are girls. need help big time!, any suggestions is fine, on how to coach these different level players , how to get groups more involved , how to motivate players etc etc.
I did this before, on an ad hoc basis to prepare the girls for our U-18 and U-15 interschool team and selection-wise I can only tell you that for the girls, attitude matters. From the five that we had, three flopped because they cannot understand the importance of the simplest things such as grip and ready stance. One, improved more than the three (unfortunately old habits die hard - panhandle) but her doubles partner, improved tremendously, all because of their attitude. This two followed orders and did as told and listened as reasons are explained to them on why things are done this way and that. They diligently followed the adhoc program from start to end and it was no surprise they performed the best during the tournament.
i defintely agree , with the attitude part, but when i think that way, it seems like i have no control over their improvement, ie. " if they want to improve they will" , i was wondering what i as a coach can do? and also... coaching beginners that gives up because they cant do what i tell them to do right, just because they have only tried it .... 20-30 times.
As a male coach, I also found that boys were much easier to motivate - use their ego, competitiveness, etc., I agree that some if not most young girl badminton prospects can be a bit flighty and unfocused. In my experience, if you have good, patient young boy players, mix them together into groups of fours in drills. Opposite *** peer pressure and competitiveness can be very effective in drawing out the best efforts during drills. Also, unless it's a skill-related drill, mix good players with less experienced ones. One of the major reasons why young beginner level girls quit is that they are over-sensitive to their peers (the skilled and steadily improving beginners). The ones that quit eventually feel left behind and isolated. I found that having one of the skilled players to spend time teaching these girls (since the girls already know me, the coach I would have someone else show them) gives them chance to get to know and bond to other practicemates and feel a part of the group. And last advice, and you probably know this as you are an active coach: praise, suggest an alternate method instead of correcting a wrong method, praise, positive re-enforcement, and praise some more. Girls tend to be more sensitive to critism. gluck
hahaha praising praising and more praising, ive been praising so much, its sweet enough to call a bird down from its tree. ( erm.. old chinese sayin? lol) i definitely agree, and will try that, the only problem is... these are all girl teams, except one of the highschool im coaching. I will try that for Berkeley High, but.. as for the two oakland tech and oakland high , its all girls, so hard to have a "mix" game, not to mention all the experiened players graduated, so its all beginners. but none the less i will try your idea, thx chun.
for the female species, one thing i found is that they would pay more attention if you make the teaching friendly and fun. be humorous, add some jokes here and there. if it is repetitive and boring, they have short attention span and willl soon get bored and give up. don't ask me why, but that works for some girls.
Couldn't agree more Kwun, that's what I do, it gets them on your side and makes them feel at ease, they usually then try harder to please you. aznphi1osopher "coaching beginners that gives up because they cant do what i tell them to do right, just because they have only tried it .... 20-30 times." Try and take the task back one step to make it easier for them, it's very important they that finish the session feeling that they have achieved something...however small.
Coaching them should be as fun as they're learning them. It's the only way that they learn things. I coached (well... taught them a few things n played along wif them mostly ) a group of HS kids last season, and I found that with the girls they're willing to do more than the boys (all the boys wanted to do was to play games >.>) so it made working with girls easier. However, when it comes to whining and things like that, IMPROVISE! They dont want to do clearing because it's tiring, have them play modified games using that skill. You'd be surprised at how willing they would be to do that "drill" And if that dont work, have them do something something they want to do for a while then go back to wut they need to do. Compromise a little bit i guess. However if you're good looking then I guess it's a bonus to get the girls listening tentatively XD Kwun... I dont think they're their own species yet lol
Yup you definially HAVE to use the "Sandwich" Compliment/Positive comments Constructive advices Compliment again It tends to work aLOT better then jus Corrective, or jus useless compliments.....
Hello everyone. Well, you can say I'm a newbie coach. I'm only 18 and started playing badminton at 10. i consider myself an intermediate player. badminton - till death do us part. lol! I'm just surfing and trying to suss out information about coaching and came across this very interesting post. I guess I can understand where you are coming from as I am coaching an all-girls team as well. I realise that there is one group of girls in the team who are pretty lazy. However, quite gd at their strokes and footwork. (low motivation) They are quite new to the sport and they consider themselves reserves or the team. I was just wondering what I should do with them. I tried praising them, but some of them seem to consider my praises as sacarsm. I thought i sounded pretty sincere. Any suggestions anyone?
WOOT~ well that depends. Maybe u might need some assistance?? i don mind helping out u know. since... ehhehe
Coaching Girls I coach 22 girls for a high school team. This is the first team the school has had in three years. I have not one returning player. The only experience these girls have is playing P.E. Class badminton. We started from the beginning. First of all they hate to run so I mix it up. One day we jog and do lines. The next we will run corners. That is starting them in the ready position. On the whistle they go to the corner of the court I call out. They go to all four corners, back alley, net, sides, etc. It also helps them get a feel for the size of the court. From time to time I will run with them. It helps me stay in shape and they like it. As we go through the drills and footwork I have found I have to mix it up to keep them interested. From time to time I have to get their attention and focus. Making them run usually does the trick. They hate that. I mix up the games also. We play 5 to 8 point modified games. Sometimes it is just straigt-up play. Other times I will limit what shots they can hit. Short serves only, clears and smashes only, drives and drops only, etc. I make sure to get in there against them also. I will play singles and double teams. They all want to beat coach. Instead of wanting to beat them up I focus on what they need to work on and coach them between rallys. I point out what just happened and how they did good or what they could have done better. Sometimes I let them win the game to get them excited. Try to keep mixing things up and challange them. I try very hard to keep the practices fun, but also productive. That is the key.
As a highschool girl badminton player i'd say that we do have very short attention spans during practice so the key really is to keep us wondering what is going to happen at practice that day. I also think having the coach get in and play with us is a good idea because it gets old playing with the same people everyday (most of the time with the same outcome) and playing the coach is a good alternative. We mostly want challenges constantly so that is how to keep us focused.
