I am from Thunder Bay, Canada. I am a provincial high school mixed doubles player. My female partner graduated from highschool and now I am in a dilemna. Our regional championships are in mid April and I do not have a partner nor is there any partner good enough to compete with. Lat year I had the same dilemna and I took a girl from my school and taught her how to play, turned her from a girl who had never played badminton into a decent player. However I was lucky that this girl was athletic and my girlfriend. We practiced three times a week sometimes for five hours a day, and still by regionals we just squeeked into provincials. This year I have the same problem. Need a new partner and need to start from scratch. In my area there are no coaches available so I have to teach her myself. I understand that learning about mid court pushes and learning the wedge to return opposing smashes are essential. I also understand the importance of my partners serve and serve recieve. However I dont really have any drills I can use to work on these skills. Also if you have any tips or drills I can do to work on my mixed doubles game that would be greatyl appreicated
the one I've done for serving is: put a hoola-hoop/draw a circle in each corner of recieving court/ or where ever u want the bird to land (smaller is better, but not too extreme). do about 40 serves (10 to each corner/alternate). u will need a lot of birds to ease the practice (~dozen should do). try to make all birds land in the circles. how to do it: u stand in the recieving court and pretend that u'r gonna take the serve and let your partner serves it, but do not return it. let it lands where ever the birds would land, and tell if waht would you do on that kind of serve. I do it mainly for backhand serve, since for double that woule be the dominant style. for long serve it should be high and quick/or really high for forehand serves, and for short it just over the net but not short/too long ( u know better than me, u r in provincial. I didn't pass the regional championship when I was in HS for eastern ontario). oh btw, when u r doing this drill, do not hold more than one bird, just pick it up from the floor. take the proper time and position to serve as if u r playing seriously. the point is to simulate game situation. u don't hold more than one bird during a game . if u go to video.google.com and type badminton footwork, they have excellent video to learn from. this drill mainly teach consistency and accuracy, and yeah do a lot of talking to make sure your partner know what to do when u'r doing something and vice-versa I'm sure other expert here got more to say
