i have an interesting coach. he used to play for the Chinese team like 10 or so year ago. not very famous. but his skills is amazing. however, he also has an interesting coaching style. when he teaches something, he only briefly describes the stroke or techniques. using the base<->net footwork as an example. he will show going to the net in a couple of steps, but he doesn't say much about how to do each step, nor does he emphasize them. he doesn't talk about body posture and etc etc. pretty much, what he describes is some like: stand here, step 3 steps, move to the net, hit, step 3 steps, stand. and then he will proceed to have us practice the drills. i often get confused what to do exactly, and since the movement is actually quite complex and full of detail, i often find out from him later that there are more intricates to it. but he never taught us those before. i have been taught by other who knows the technique and there are tons and tons of details even for a simple base<->net . like which leg goes first, how to move the center of gravity, how to plant the racket foot, etc. and speed of execution. i originally thought that he wasn't too aware of the detail, but upon asking more questions, i found that he actually knows all of it. and he himself can certainly do all of the movement like second nature and with great speed, power and apparent ease. i wonder if this is a common coaching style. perhaps he doesn't want to overload us with details? but certainly, we aren't the most beginner group and can probably digest more and if we were taught the details, even if we can take them all in in the first place, at least we are aware of it..
You certainly are a lucky guy. Would have loved to have had a coach ...instead have had to rely on some very good experienced friends, books and hard practice and sometimes some analysis. It is aways a treasure to have someone with experience to give different views or insights of a thing....sometimes the little details are the important ones and sometimes two heads looking and discussing are better than one..... I could only guess why your coach teaches in this way. It may be that he would like to see what your body can naturally do with the instructions he has given and then he will correct any major things if correction is needed (after all our body types and expressions can vary and if you are doing something naturally then he does not have to bring attention to it as this detail has been naturally expreseed.....or.....one can only guess. Any chance he would be coming to Montreal
I agree with rlue, i believe your coach is letting you do the movement and then see what needs corrections. From my past experience, I have had a former HK doubles player in Hong Kong coach me for the summer. She lets me do the movements and then sees what kind of correction needs to be done, but it's really hard to remember all the corrections mentioned by her because it's much easier to focus on one mistake and then correct it until it becomes a second nature to me. Now I don't have any opportunity like you (Kwun) to have a coach to correct the techniques I'm doing wrong and now I try really hard to remember what I am doing wrong when I'm not playing as well as I should be. Anyways, badminton is waiting for me to be played and best of luck with the coach you have. Wildstyler
Part of the reason that I don't get a coach was, when I first started 10 yrs ago, my friend told me how the coach (a junior high school gym teacher) just applied everythign in the book instead of the real development. She can just reading books and show tapes for most the sessions, without even show a movement about how really to apply such moves. Therefore, ppl never really get enough practice when they first happen to know some moves. To be worse, she set the standard to be so strict, which no one can be any cm off her target. Let's say, I can never understand how could a short guy (5'0) have the same length in 3 steps as a much taller guy (5'7), same thing for arm coverage, etc. Anyway, that was the time I started to don't trust coach (even though, after grown up, I know acutally there are many many good ones out there), and start to play and practice on my own. Well, too late now, and my prime is past... >'<
I think if your coach tells you all the details about a specific technique it would be a theoretical lesson, not practical. Once you start with details, there is always a little bit more to explore. When you actually do the tehcnique you may find that your questions before the execution gone, but there could be new ones. And also apparently there are also things that seems to be meaningless. In time, if you keep practicing you'll see the reason(s) behind them.
How your coach works depends on a lot of things--the size of the class, the time he has with your group, the skill levels of the students, etc. The coach's own personality and experiences also play a part. A coach is a teacher, and just as not everyone proficient in a particular career can teach others about it well, same with coaches. Also, some work better with individuals, some with groups. If the coach is just starting with your group, he probably doesn't want to get too detailed at first. When you're learning a skill, you work on the gross motor skills first. When you are comfortable with that, then you go on to fine tune it. Too many things to work on all at once, too many things to think about, doesn't work well. The fact that he demonstrated it at least shows that he wants you to do your best to imitate it, which would work for me because that's how I learned. According to learning theories, I think there are something like 7 different ways people can learn, and certain ways work for some but not for others. Imagine trying to teach a large group without knowing the best way each person can learn.
as a coach, i am often asked for answers or solutions to a student's problems. sometimes it is to refine a stroke, sometimes strategy. but the interesting point, and i have also noticed this in some of posts of the students in this forum, is to get a quick answer or solution. finding a simple one line answer to all their problems, like these students don't have the time to put in to achieve the skill level. it is often hard to simply give an answer to a student. there are often different circumstances or interconnnetions that will skew the answer. in other words, sometimes there is no simple solution. i think that in the age of the internet, there is a desire to have the ability to instantly learn something in all areas of life. unfortunately with sports and motor skills this takes time and practice to acheive. certainly reading about it helps, getting advice helps, but not until you get on the court and put in your time to master the specific skill.
Coaching is not about knowing the correct way to execute a shot or play a rally It is just about being able to perform or demonstarte that shot or rally yourself It is about communicating that knowledge to others and finding a way that they an improve their execution and performance. Feedback is crucial, e.g. you are doing this ok but you need to do this like this, in order to learn that start with this...... If people could simply watch a correct technique and perform it they would simply watch a video of an international and coaches would be redundant.
Californian, Where in CA are you? if you are in southern ca, where do you play?? Would be interested in playing sometime, Im in southern ca and play at Mar Vista Rec Center and sometimes at San Gabriel, my partner and I placed 2nd in C's and 3rd in B's doubles at our tournament last year.
It's one small part of being a coach, if you don't know the dynamics of a particular shot how can you possibly impart that knowledge to others. I presume you mean that it's not just only about the above. ]It is just about being able to perform or demonstarte that shot or rally yourself Any decent player can perform or demonstrate most shots, does that make him a good coach.. It is about communicating that knowledge to others and finding a way that they an improve their execution and performance Absolutely correct. If people could simply watch a correct technique and perform it they would simply watch a video of an international and coaches would be redundant. Some players do have this ability but still need coaching to take it further, some players can watch good players and transfer that information to their own body, i.e. being able to "photograth" in their mind a particular shot or movement and copy it into their own game. I think most players can do this to a certain level, haven't you ever seen another player play a certain shot and then experiment with it yourself. 3 of the basic ways of learning anything in life is by seeing (watching and copying), hearing (listening and learning) and experiencing (self explanerity) I've never been coached myself but have played at a good level and I coach at county level today. Sorry if you feel that I'm criticising you but I do take exception to paragrath 2.
There are coaches in all types of sports who would look foolish if they went out and actually tried to demonstrate something themselves. It has been said about some sports that the best players seldom make good coaches because their natural talent made performing too easy for them. The good coaches are those who lacked the natural ability and had to work extra hard and spend a lot of time studying the techinques.
Hi smashharder88, I get over to San Gabriel once in a while. Sounds like you're doing well. I've been in C's forever--well, since about '82--but as the competition keeps getting better, I'm going down the scale. I keep working at it though.
Californian, Lets get together if you have time sometime, i play at Mar vista rec center in west la, on Mondays and Wednesdays 7 - 10 pm, if you want to play sometime, email me or pm me, it only gets better. smash! smash! smash!!!!!!
Gerry I meant to write "It's NOT just about being able to perform or demonstrate that shot or rally yourself " I've obviousley been hit on the head by too many shuttles. I agree with you , some players do have a greater ability to self monitor technique and observe others players and copy, but the majority of players need input on their own performance and need the finer points of the ideal technique explained to them in various ways. Even when they then understand the "model" technique acquiring that skill themselves is a whole different step.
Yes dlp that puts a whole different slant on your post, sorry if I jumped on your mistake !! "I've obviousley been hit on the head by too many shuttles." I know the feeling !!!!!!
Kwun, I think you answered you own question. You originally said you could learn more if the intricacies were taught to you, yet earlier you wrote you get confused when you were taught the steps. Did you ask the coach why he didn't explain the further intricacies of more efficient body positioning and balance?
Cheung, i meant i was confused as he didn't go into detail. what he said was very vague. remember we went through all the details on base<->net footwork? that was the type of detail that i think is very useful. i wasn't getting any of those from my regular training. today i really tried to have my coach tell us the details step by step, yet again he was only showing the concise version. after a lot of questions, he claims that in different situations he uses different footworks. sure, i agree. but yet again he just skimmed through all of them. he said we should pick the one that we are most comfortable with. but he didn't go into too much detail with any of them. so we learned nothing today except that there are a lot of them. i'd rather he pick one of them and teaches us that, at least we will learn something in depth.
I remember that We spent an hour just on three step movement to the net.....and then a little extra time on the backhand side. I wonder if there are some other factors like size of class too big or teaching adults as opposed to children.
Similarly, most coaches I had were also same - do and don't ask. However as you progress they will give more details. For footwork I learned the 2 steps forward and back to base. My 'luck' was my coach never coached players my level. Since he was not clear what information to give, he gave 'everything' relating to the specifics of the footwork. Later, with trial and error, he started to 'control' the level of information so as not to get us confused. I have to say that as I progressed, more details were provided. For example, going to net, there is clear distinction (footwork and strokes) as to how to reach the shuttle in favourable (zhu dong) and under pressure situations (bei dong). In multi shuttle drills is where my coach pushed a lot more, making me aware of different situations and minute details about the footwork. Not sure if your coach have the same methodology. Anyways I am curious as what your coach does in a regular session. How many sessions per week, the duration, number of people, skills levels and the drills. Would like to know, if possible the sequence the drills he does.
To be honest, I gave Kwun a lot of information during our session. To show how much there was to learn. That was partly due to the limited time we had. What would have been more preferable is to show and correct one aspect at a time. The human brain cannot assimilate so much information at one time and be perfect at its execution(otherwise we'd all be world class players)
