Coaching : Best Approach for your Son

Discussion in 'Coaching Forum' started by shooting stroke, Aug 6, 2010.

  1. shooting stroke

    shooting stroke Regular Member

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    One passion that most badminton coaches share is the continuous efforts poured in order to see the positive progress of whatever lessons that they've given to their students. Being a coach and a player myself, it always my ambition that one day, besides coaching my current students, i also can train my son, personally, until he can become a better player.

    My two grown daughter, due to their ultimate no interest in badminton causes me to unable to influence them to learn about badminton.........because they love to dance....well, can't blame them:D. Then the breakthrough came when i got a baby boy 7 years ago:):):). So happy i was, every night and day, whenever he goes to sleep, i will put my badminton racket besides him. As he grows up and able to grasp, i ask him to hold the racket and don't mind being whack at the face:D. Every time i go to my coaching session, tournaments or friendly, I'll bring him. Then when he starts to learn to walk, i buy him a nice sport shoes and end up most of the time on the badminton court running with me.
    When he started to learn to speak and understand my conversation, i ask him mostly everyday " do you want daddy to teach you badminton?"...and i smile because the answer is always with a nod:D

    As he grows up, i started to train him personally, at the age of 5+. He learned fast. Now nearly a year at 6+ and if your son starts going for any coaching session, i noticed there are crucial things that need to be understood first for his benefit:

    - Be supportive. By being supportive can boost his moral and interest to learn more. This will accelerate his learning ability.
    - Be patient and slow on him. Badminton is a game of vast knowledge and delicate technical approach that require a lot of patient to absorb.
    - Safety. Make sure he wear his shoes properly with socks, warm up etc..
    - The best sparring partner..............is you. Regularly play with him.
    - Whatever failure he gain in games translated it into motivation...never blamed him.

    :):):):):)
     
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  2. lcleing

    lcleing Regular Member

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    Seem like you are having fun with your child. Good for you. Having daughters who loves to dance is cool too, you can join them sometimes and dance your heart out:D:D:p .

    Anyway, being supportive to kids at a young age is very important. This will simulate their interest to learn further.
    Teaching them proper basics, techniques and the footwork is very crucial at this stage as any wrong taught basics will be very hard to correct in the future especially to a kid who picked up the habit as young as 5.

    I agree with what you said. Being supportive is good since at this stage you focus around letting your kids have the most fun of badminton.

    At a later stage, it will depend very much on what both of you want from this sport:
    1. Do you want him to be a world beater?
    As age grows and when he is getting into his early teenage stage, you gonna be a bit stricter on the discipline side if you plan to mold him to become a world beater. He needs to understand that mental toughness, hard work and discipline are very important to succed in the international stage. At the same time you should also send him to other badminton academy to further improve his techniques(I believe you alone can never teach him everything in this sport) from other advanced coaches and let him expose to players with different playing styles and strategy.

    2. Do you want him to keep the sport as a hobby?
    If this is he case, then just continue to have fun I guess! Just make sure he won't point his finger at you and ask you:'why you didn't train me to be the next Lin Dan?' in the future:p:p.
     
    #2 lcleing, Aug 30, 2010
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2010
  3. lcleing

    lcleing Regular Member

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  4. shooting stroke

    shooting stroke Regular Member

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    Absolutely right icleing;). When they're having fun of what they're doing, ultimately they are interested to learn more.............and then they can become the next Zhao Jian Hua.....but only without the similar height:p:p
     
  5. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Shooting stroke,

    I just came across this interesting article.

    My older daughter plays but not too motivated to play games. Easily disappointed at failures and then becomes a poor listener.

    Initially it was frustrating to see a poor learning attitude. In fact, I am not too concerned about the skills. I think a decent level of skill can come, if the learning attitude was better. With the help of another person, we have got the girl to have a better attitude. It's the attitude that is important. We are not asking to be an expert player but are asking to concentrate in the short period of time. I extrapolate this into a life learning principle for school:

    You can get results you want but:

    A) focus and concentrate in the time you have
    B) hard work always necessary
    C) listen to the teacher
    D) sometimes learning or remembering is not fun - but what is important is that you know you can overcome the obstacles given the right skill set.
     
  6. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Does he still play?
     
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  7. shooting stroke

    shooting stroke Regular Member

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    Hi bro

    Thnks for asking.

    He still plays now. Gearing up for district selection once the SEA games finished here. Had his up and downs along this many years of his training and competition exposure. Fortunately he still has strong passion to train and compete. Hopefully your training goes well as well :):)
     
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  8. R20190

    R20190 Regular Member

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    It would be good to get some tips of you guys on how best to introduce your kids to badminton.

    I've just started to teach my 5yr old son to play and he really enjoys it but he just wants to get on with playing and not so interested in being taught... so far we have only managed to hit the shuttle 5 times between us!

    How did you guys introduce the game to your kids?
     
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  9. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    In HK, group classes start at six years old. The coaches say this is about the age that they can get the kids to listen. It very much depends on the child. A 5 year old who listens well can get accepted (like my kid).

    One to one tuition is a bit tricky until they get older. At six years old, they like to have a friend or two around. Also, I actually gave up teaching my kids and passed private classes on to somebody more experienced at teaching kids. Kids have all sorts of issues, mood swings etc and it takes experience to change the training around to bring the child's focus back on track (or sometimes that day just doesn't work!). The coach asked me to leave the training because my kid was more distracted when I was there. After six months of settling into a regular routine, I could join again and help but sometimes I don't go and let the coach get on with it. To be honest, it takes a little experience to know when you can join and when to step away. I am already lucky because my kids do listen to me. I have been able to see how the coach handles my kids and am very impressed.

    In UK, YMMV. If your kid see other people training doing routines, I think this can set a powerful impression. It is difficult in the UK because you don't see many training programs. If you find a group class, take your kid just to watch a few times. Then he or she will start to understand that to join, they do need to listen as well.

    In order to start off a five year old, I used to throw the shuttle for my kid to catch. Get them to throw to me. I also hung a shuttle from a string and asked her to hit it. I made it high enough that she would have to tiptoe to hit it.
     
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  10. R20190

    R20190 Regular Member

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    I do find that he seems to pay more attention when someone else is teaching him something. Perhaps kids are like that, they prefer to be taught by non-family members.

    I think for now I'll continue to mess around with him in the garden until he is old enough to join a local kids club and go from there.
     
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  11. shooting stroke

    shooting stroke Regular Member

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    Able to intetact and hit the shuttle 5 times between both of you is far better. than what i achieved with my son when he was 5 y. o :):):)

    When he was at that age, i always remind myself to put my mind and thought into his shoes so that i can better visualise and contruct how the mind of a child works as to give me a more influencing touch into my coaching approach.

    I noticed that one important core that can open his mind into badminton is to make him first feel interested about badminton. Watching games, telling stories, playing even at a recreational park, bring him to the shop and whatever there are related to badminton i will just make sure he us there to be with me.

    Sometimes those technical coaching type of intructional words will not work very well to make him understand but Regularly i make many drawings so that he can visualise what are the things that i want him to do. :)
     
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  12. R20190

    R20190 Regular Member

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    He loves going to watch me play badminton ever since he was 3, sitting by the court side for a few hours. They even let him have a go then and to my amazement he actually hit the shuttle a couple of times then! lol

    I've stopped playing recently due to an injury so I have more time to spend with him in the garden but having to play with my left hand instead (due to the injury), which is quite interesting as I am having to re-learn how to play myself so it makes me think about how I should be teaching him too.

    He's constantly bombarded with all things badminton as not only do I watch a lot of badminton, I have a large collection of racquets and I also restring racquets. So he was always going to be exposed to it. But it would be good to get him involved and playing with kids his age at some point - providing his interest in the sport is still there.
     
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  13. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    Watching Dad win matches....;)
     
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  14. Borkya

    Borkya Regular Member

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    My coach owns his own courts and also regularly brings his now 6-year-old son. I've known my coach for almost 2 years now and even at 4 his son was playing. He does like to play with his dad the most, but I think it's because EVERYONE wants to play with my coach, haha. And the kid picks up on it. But his dad makes him play with other people (I play with the kid a lot) and while it's boring it is really amazing how much the kid picks up and knows. He can hit it from back of the court to the back of the court with no problem despite his tiny frame. And he can vary his shot and do kid smashes.

    Sometimes my coach uses him in training. Like, me and my coach were practicing smash and he asked his son to hit high ones to me. I was barely smashing and my coach was on my case, and I just looked across at his kid, and was like"do you REALLY want me to smash your kid?!" (The kid was 5 at the time.) My coach said yes and asked his son, "It's okay if she smashes right?" The son nodded enthusiastically.

    So I smashed maybe 5-6 times and each time his smile dimmed a little bit. The last one sent him off to the side crying, hahahah. Of course his dad went over and hugged him and I said sorry (me and the kid are very close) and soon he was all smiles again, but I felt very guilty about that one.
     
  15. shooting stroke

    shooting stroke Regular Member

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    IMHO, from the father point of view, the good part while seeing and enjoying these little kids running, swinging and smacking their racket with that adorable face trying very hard to hit that birdie will just make your stress dissapear instantly ,:)
     
  16. ainchekar

    ainchekar Regular Member

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    How is it going with your son now? Was curious..
     
  17. shooting stroke

    shooting stroke Regular Member

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    Hi there
    Thanks for asking. He's 12 y.o now and his recent achievement is that he was able to represent his district to the state level badminton tourrnament but unfortunately he did not make it that far. Suprisingly he was selected to represent the federal territory but.. ...... in softball :):):). A hidden talent that i did not noticed at all.
     
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  18. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    You know, I changed my mind somewhat on coaching for kids.

    My youngest kid joined a club and a competitive training group with only a small amount of one to one coaching. The interaction with other kids was very positive and she's done very well so far. Her older sister still didn't get on with badminton even in group classes and so dropped it.

    I now look for other exercises that can help badminton. Our recent favourite is to use training cones which can be thrown like frisbees. I hold about thirty of them in my left hand. My kid stands about 5 metres away from me. I then rapidly throw each cone in quick succession to my kid who has to dodge the flying cones like Keanu Reeves in Matrix. It's really great fun and good training for reflexes and quick body movement.
     

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