Caffrey
Regular Member
So I am currently in Canada, particularly in Ontario, and let me just say this... badminton sucks here.
Coming back from China to here, there is absolutely no government support for it's athletes and all the clubs are in it for themselves.
Here are a few things I will list so that other Canadians/Ontarians can become aware
1) The way they teach you to swing is wrong
So in Ontario, I have been to KC, E Badminton, Mandarin Badminton and Lee's Badminton and most of their players all swing wrong. It's painful to watch - some of them use no pronation at all and only use their wrist, even when they smash. The majority of them don't use their whole body, only their arm or in some cases, literally only their wrist. Especially E's players. For some reason, coaches don't teach their kids properly in this area. It could be because most of them aren't coaches, but players fresh from different countries who know how to play pretty well but don't completely understand how to teach. In China, kids don't touch a shuttle until they swing correctly. Here, a lot of them swing incorrectly and it generates a lot of injuries for them. However, some of them do swing correctly, and these are the kids that you see come out on top. After all, if a kid is using his whole body in a swing against a kid who is using just his wrist with no pronation, unless the wrist kid's arm is a tree, the other one will win, naturally.
2) The way they train is wrong
In China and many other highly skilled countries, we train extensively and push our bodies very hard. However, we do this progressively. People here train 2-3 times a week and put their bodies through hell off and on. They don't let their bodies build up to it at all. It's because of this that there are quite a few U14 and U16 kids with knee and elbow braces. It's ridiculous! A 14 year old should NOT be having knee problems! In China we train hard but it is a process. We train a little bit every day and it gets harder and harder but we train in a way that allows our body to grow and get stronger before we take on harder tasks. I remember at E Badminton seeing this one kid who didn't seem to know the proper footwork steps go through a 6-corner drill (moving each bird through all 6 corners on court) with 25 birds each. It absolutely blew my mind. I talked to someone who trains at E Badminton and he went on to tell me that they train like how they do in Indonesia and China. That is not how we train! There are kids who are 14 year olds over there that can beat top junior players here easily and they don't train that hard. They train a little every day and build up gradually. Hell, I took up boxing for a number of years and even BOXERS don't train that hard. I believe it may be because when players from over there come over here they start to put the kids through what they used to do back home without giving much thought to the fact that they started small when they were young and didn't just go ham from the start. It makes me upset to see little ones with knee and elbow problems.
3) Their mentality is wrong
Clubs only train their kids to become successful so that their club looks good. They never train with the player in mind. They don't like it when kids from their club go to different coaches to learn different styles/experiences and clubs will not let students train with them if they are from another club at the same time. In China, we go to different coaches for different things. Each coach trains differently and you gain a wide array of skills/techniques/strategy from each one. In addition, with the ability to take what works for you and leave back what doesn't, you get to formulate your own style of badminton. That's why we have many players and they don't all play the same way. Looking back here, its very easy to tell which players come from which club because they all generally play in the same fashion, regardless if that particular form is optimal for them or not. In boxing, we have sparring nights where we go to other clubs to spar against different players and they come to us as well. That way we can gain different experiences and have more exposure. Nothing like that happens here in badminton.
4) There is no government support
Provincial tournaments here are anywhere from $80-$100 once a month, and since it is really the only way to play against other people other than your training mates, you must go to them to improve. However, this isn't as bad as compared to the national circuit, where you also have to pay for a flight and a hotel. This makes it so that only the skilled and the rich make it anywhere. There are many fairly skilled players that have equal chance as others to go somewhere but are denied the chance because they don't have the money. Essentially they spend 8ish years training only to give up the sport later on.
Yup, in case you were wondering, (I'm fairly certain) Michelle Li pays for all her international tournaments herself.
I am speaking from an Ontarian perspective. I have seen other people (ex. BC) from Canada play as well and although they are good, they still have a lot of fundamental problems. Many of them resort to strength training to get better, which is good, but they don't all have the fundamentals (ie. full body swing) completely down.
Disclaimer: this thread isn't meant to bash anyone, but simply open eyes. I profusely apologise if I have offended anyone
Coming back from China to here, there is absolutely no government support for it's athletes and all the clubs are in it for themselves.
Here are a few things I will list so that other Canadians/Ontarians can become aware
1) The way they teach you to swing is wrong
So in Ontario, I have been to KC, E Badminton, Mandarin Badminton and Lee's Badminton and most of their players all swing wrong. It's painful to watch - some of them use no pronation at all and only use their wrist, even when they smash. The majority of them don't use their whole body, only their arm or in some cases, literally only their wrist. Especially E's players. For some reason, coaches don't teach their kids properly in this area. It could be because most of them aren't coaches, but players fresh from different countries who know how to play pretty well but don't completely understand how to teach. In China, kids don't touch a shuttle until they swing correctly. Here, a lot of them swing incorrectly and it generates a lot of injuries for them. However, some of them do swing correctly, and these are the kids that you see come out on top. After all, if a kid is using his whole body in a swing against a kid who is using just his wrist with no pronation, unless the wrist kid's arm is a tree, the other one will win, naturally.
2) The way they train is wrong
In China and many other highly skilled countries, we train extensively and push our bodies very hard. However, we do this progressively. People here train 2-3 times a week and put their bodies through hell off and on. They don't let their bodies build up to it at all. It's because of this that there are quite a few U14 and U16 kids with knee and elbow braces. It's ridiculous! A 14 year old should NOT be having knee problems! In China we train hard but it is a process. We train a little bit every day and it gets harder and harder but we train in a way that allows our body to grow and get stronger before we take on harder tasks. I remember at E Badminton seeing this one kid who didn't seem to know the proper footwork steps go through a 6-corner drill (moving each bird through all 6 corners on court) with 25 birds each. It absolutely blew my mind. I talked to someone who trains at E Badminton and he went on to tell me that they train like how they do in Indonesia and China. That is not how we train! There are kids who are 14 year olds over there that can beat top junior players here easily and they don't train that hard. They train a little every day and build up gradually. Hell, I took up boxing for a number of years and even BOXERS don't train that hard. I believe it may be because when players from over there come over here they start to put the kids through what they used to do back home without giving much thought to the fact that they started small when they were young and didn't just go ham from the start. It makes me upset to see little ones with knee and elbow problems.
3) Their mentality is wrong
Clubs only train their kids to become successful so that their club looks good. They never train with the player in mind. They don't like it when kids from their club go to different coaches to learn different styles/experiences and clubs will not let students train with them if they are from another club at the same time. In China, we go to different coaches for different things. Each coach trains differently and you gain a wide array of skills/techniques/strategy from each one. In addition, with the ability to take what works for you and leave back what doesn't, you get to formulate your own style of badminton. That's why we have many players and they don't all play the same way. Looking back here, its very easy to tell which players come from which club because they all generally play in the same fashion, regardless if that particular form is optimal for them or not. In boxing, we have sparring nights where we go to other clubs to spar against different players and they come to us as well. That way we can gain different experiences and have more exposure. Nothing like that happens here in badminton.
4) There is no government support
Provincial tournaments here are anywhere from $80-$100 once a month, and since it is really the only way to play against other people other than your training mates, you must go to them to improve. However, this isn't as bad as compared to the national circuit, where you also have to pay for a flight and a hotel. This makes it so that only the skilled and the rich make it anywhere. There are many fairly skilled players that have equal chance as others to go somewhere but are denied the chance because they don't have the money. Essentially they spend 8ish years training only to give up the sport later on.
Yup, in case you were wondering, (I'm fairly certain) Michelle Li pays for all her international tournaments herself.
I am speaking from an Ontarian perspective. I have seen other people (ex. BC) from Canada play as well and although they are good, they still have a lot of fundamental problems. Many of them resort to strength training to get better, which is good, but they don't all have the fundamentals (ie. full body swing) completely down.
Disclaimer: this thread isn't meant to bash anyone, but simply open eyes. I profusely apologise if I have offended anyone
