I'm jus back from pauls weekend. There was 11 players this time and 3 coaches. The venue was once again lilleshall national sporting complex. The shuttles we used were good shuttles which is great. We did rear court on day 1 (sat) which included movement, attacking clears, late drives from rear court and more. We had an hour spent on our own personal challenge. Many folk chose backhand lol (big surprise) and others chose net play, smash, slice smash and by end of it, every1 to my knowledge was well satisfied wit what they had achieved and I learned how to do a good slice smash . We did other stuff that day but my memory has left me lol. Sat nit involved an hour on tactics for a game and looking at ourselves on the projector doing overhead forehand, backhand and smash defence which was really enjoyable Day 2 was very good working around net and mid court working on some deception and killing the shuttle etc and also focusing on feet and hand skills. We also worked on receiving flick serve and the return of serve. We had a few tools to help us. There was 1 for serving which a few of us thought wud b easy but it jus showed us our serve wasn't as consistent as we thought. There was also a tool for doubles positioning which def helped us moving to where we shud be. There was a serving comp which had 3 parts wit 5 of us being 1 point a difference!! And a net doubles comp which was good fun 2!! We al got time wit the coaches 1 on 1 which was great and it was really nice as they cud c everything we were doin and cud sort it out . Angie has her camcorder out so if we were doin something wrong, she cud show us so we knew exactly what we were doin. It's amazing the amount of small things make such a big difference. For lot of people it was their feet which the coaches sorted out and the transformation from sat morn to sunday evening was remarkable. I wud recommend this course to any1 who wants to improve for u will do here.
I will add to that review! As Phil mentioned, the afternoon on saturday focussed mainly on building up a solid defense, sometimes involving 3 attackers and one defender, with shuttles coming just over 2 a second! Compared to this, real games are EASY! Also discussed were the most effective defensive shots to play as a lady defending in mixed doubles, with everyone getting a go (the men enjoyed it just as much as the laddies!) Sunday is where the players started putting together what they had used before and started intense training their eyes with fantastic net drills. Using Pauls new doubles positioning tools, EVERY player in the room was moving and positioning on court like a seasoned partnership who would have played together for many many years. In only 15 minutes, the gaps that may have been exploitable between players on court disappeared, replaced with skilful rotational play. A final word on the serving tool. I take pride in my ability to serve against an aggressive opponent who is toeing the line, consistently serving well. Nothing could have prepared me for the pressure of serving with the aid of this tool, and it was only the "easy" version - it could have been made a lot more difficult says coach Paul A major thanks to Head Coach Paul for putting together such a fantastic weekend, to Angie for making everything work seamlessly, and to the fantastic group of people I had the pleasure to meet. Bring on the next one in March
