Hello all badminton enthusiasts, wanted to create this post here for quite some time, finally now have the chance to do so. I started playing badminton with my father and brother when I was about 10 years old, but still in beginner level, until I joined my coach in his group training session in 2 years ago. I noticed a great improvement in myself since then. I am now able to join high beginner to low intermediate games level in badminton social groups. However, in the recent trainings I cannot see improvement already, although I still go to training at least once a week and play games at least once to twice a week. Recently one of my girl friend invited me to partner her in women doubles competition. (She is also coached by the same coach, she plays better than me). So my coach asked me to train more with the partner to prepare for the competition. During the training game, I always criticised by my partner that I shouldn't do this do that or should do this do that. My coach also said the same thing, most of the comments not really positive comments. At first I felt that I can take this chance to learn and improve. But after a while I feel so annoying of their comments.(theoretically I know what they say and what to do, but in action I can't follow). Sometimes the partner says you should square when I lob to the back. But my coach sometimes will say since I am weaker than my partner, I should just cover front and treat as I am playing mix doubles. At times I also feel so frustrated and confused on their comments until the extent when I want to go training or play with the partner I feel moodless (my confidence level dropped). My question to coaches here: if you are my coach will you do the same as my existing coach to keep pushing me (he said he wants to push me to the next level)? Also, what should I do now if I want to improve myself besides continue playing games? P/s: I have withdrawn myself from the competition and will stop temporarily to attend training session now. Want to hear the comments from this forum. Sorry for the long post.
Good move to give yourself some time to think. It sounds like you improved a lot if you got asked to play in a competition so don’t lose confidence. However, there might still be a fair difference in the standard between you and your partner. When you say you understand what you have to do but can’t do it, this is very very common. Personally, I feel it’s difficult to change and improve a lot with group classes. Group classes are good for practicing, socialising talking and understanding but to actually change and really improve, it needs a private lesson. The action you take from here depends on how you see yourself in the game. Here are some options : 1. stay the same with the group class and social session. It sounds like you enjoy that. The disadvantage is where do you go from there? If you are happy just to play social games, it’s fine to stay like that. However, true improvement comes when you are challenged to improve. And this is where you are at now. 2. After this experience, are you annoyed to realise that there is a difference in training when preparing for competition? The tactical confusion is normal due to inexperience and trying to do what’s best for competition. If you are annoyed enough, one option is to channel that emotion into adjusting your training to also include private training. You sound young from the description so the physical fitness part can be trained up quite easily and learning and improving when you are younger is definitely easier than for someone who starts learning at 30+ years old. One thing to emphasise is that this is not limited to badminton and is the same for any skill. New language or playing a musical instrument is enjoyable for some people but then when you try to use it with other people, you are suddenly out of your comfort zone and realise it’s very different and difficult. 3. The third option is not very nice and it’s to give up badminton. Personally, I think it’s a bit early to consider that because this situation is only about frustration on your own limitation for a competition which is a small part of the game. Yes, you don’t like being told what not to do. You feel you hit a plateau in improvement. The negative person will give up. The positive personality will look for solutions to keep improving which goes back to no.2 My own personal experience is mostly one to one. Small group classes like one coach to two students is ok. It needs to be two hour session though if two people are sharing. One coach to three students I think is not so good at your stage. I have joined group classes such as one coach to six or more. When my skill level was not so good, I found I didn’t gain much. However, I have joined a high level one (after I improved a huge amount) where everyone can smash, drop, backhand , drive consistently even for fast paced games. Because everyone has strong basic technique, the coaches (ex internationals) were specifically targeting on advanced tactical skills.
Telling people what to do during a match is so pathetic. It can't work this way, because when you play a match, you do 90% of your stuff on autopilot, there's only a small margin of actually planing or thinking what to do , most often before the rally begins. A coach should tell you instead what weaknesses or strength your opponent has and write down what you need to work on in the future, because you have only a chance to change your habits by training in a certain direction, and not by changing it during a game. Critic points in the right direction, that is, you need to work on certain skills to improve your game. But it is often the way how people tend to critic you. I hate it, when someone critics me during a match, because this is more or less just blaming you for losing points, it will not change anything to win more rallies, it will most likely poison the situation so much , that you will make more misstakes and get even more frustrated. I try to avoid these kind of peoples, there're enough people around who will handle critic in a much better way, e.g. by sugguesting some topics you should work on after a match or training session. Ahah.. I know all these game situations so well (started 3-4 years ago). Everyone say something different. To be honest, they are all right and wrong at the same time. Doubles/mix is all about a pair of players who need to play as a single unit, so your gameplay needs to adapt a lot to who you will play with. As beginner you don't have the experience and tools to adapt easily to other partners, so it is quite useful to choose one partner and train with him most of the time. I'm not a coach, but I would push you in terms of skill/stamina/technique, so that you would improve your game, on the other hand I would not push you into certain double/mix, because there's a kind of meta-level where two people need to learn to play together as single unit. If you don't like your partner and he/she doesn't like you, it would never work, on the other hand, two people who get along well, could outperform their own limits easily. You need to decide yourself if you like to participate in double/mixes first and you need to find a partner who is tolerant with you making errors and on the other side, where you are tolerant about misstakes your partner makes. This is the right way to give it some more time to ripe. When you play double/mix in competition you need to play it with a partner you both are used to. In competition some people will start to blame you once the game starts to shift in favor of your opponents, this will be reduced a lot if you know each others game strength and weaknesses, and since we all are not top 10 international players here, we all have a lot of weaknesses.
Thanks for spending time to read the long post I was really struggling before making this decision and also having the thought to stop playing for a while. But i guess this is the best option for me now. I tried 1 v 1 training with the same coach as well, i felt not as effective if compared to group training (1 v 3 or 4). Agreed with you, true improvement comes when we are challenged to improve. However, if the "challenged to improve" is too frequent, you have to be very strong to accept all the challenges and analyse the whole situation in order to improve it. Yup, i am in this situation, and i am hoping myself to be in higher level one day yet, i am stucked and don't know what should i proceed now. Yup, huge difference in training when preparing for competition. This is also because of both me and my partner are trained under the same coach and he hope we can win and that is why he wants me to overcome my weaknesses since my partner is quite strong (he does not want me to reduce the overall standard of me and my partner if i have those weaknesses). In fact during some of the games when i partner with my coach, he also quite frequent criticises me. At times when partner with him, i feel i am lousy in the game, but actually when i play in other groups i really enjoy and very very seldom receive negative comments. Btw, I am not that young actually but my heart is young haha. I will not give up badminton, it is my passion . Just that i really need to think how to have a breakthough to move to next level. Looks like continue to train like this does not work on me anymore, must change something for now. Frankly speaking, although i have withdrawn from the tournament and i feel so upset during the training preparation for the tournament, only with this i realise i should not blindly continue to join the training anymore, it doesn't help me, yet make my confidence level drop. I think i need to train more on my weakness now (to have faster footworks and improve backhand) before thinking to join any tournaments or also higher level games. Both should be able to train my own (i train footworks on my own previously with Youtube videos). I am planning to get a shuttle auto launcher to train my backhand.
Exactly, during a game i cannot really digest the comments that i received. I hate it too, but no choice haha. I can only say okok in order not to make anybody unhappy, although what they say sometimes is not 100% correct. It is really poisons the situation. I dare not think for competition anymore. I need to improve myself again before i can decide to join any for now
It's hard to tell from this post whether you're overly sensitive or your coach/partner are too harsh tbh. I personally have no issues with people picking out flaws in my gameplay, as long as it's valid advice. That's how you improve. Don't think your coach is doing anything wrong if their critique is solely based on your gameplay, what else would you be paying him for? Forget everything about confidence/ego/winning and just work on objectively improving your game, recognizing your own mistakes, etc. Losing games and getting criticized is good, that's how you improve. If this mentality is impossible for you to adopt and it's really impacting your mental health, then yeah another hobby might be better.
Haha first of all thanks for spending time to read my post and gave such wonderful comment. Your interpretation could be right that I was overly sensitive. But when I said I have improved a lot from beginner level until now that I am able to join even intermediate level games. You can imagine I have encountered so many challenges within the last 2 years and I have improved so much because of the comments that challenged me. So your comment is not valid here I was so frustrated is because of the difference of the level between me and my partner (mentioned in my post, pls read the details ) and at times the comment from my partner is different from my coach. Also even I understand theoretically how to play but my action cannot follow. So is quite difficult for me to improve so much within a month for the tournament, it is too good to be true. But I am definitely will analyse the comments and improve but of course not for the tournament since I have withdrawn myself. Thanks again for this valuable advice. But you were totally wrong in interpretating my post. It is my passion, that's is why I am seeking for advice here. So you do not need to tell me to switch hobby.
Absolutely true. My advice is to use this experience to problem solve and come back stronger. You must be the type to like to learn to play better otherwise you wouldn’t have shared the problem on the forum. Perhaps you can find another coach specifically for training doubles- work on rhythm, strokes, positioning and set routines. Personally, I find it very enjoyable to use part of the coaching session to explain a problem with my game, then discuss with a coach to problem solve that area and then we work on it in the coaching session.
Well if you think it's a waste of time anybody telling you anything in a game, then tell your partner that too. They might think that it's useful to you or could help.. I've had people I play with where I tell them in game and it's fine. And others where after some time one realises that telling them anything is a waste of time. And the good players that often give advice, know that with this guy it's a waste of time. And they have a laugh at anybody that tries to bother and hasn't yet learnt the lesson not to try with that guy! I know one guy that tells people that telling them advice during a game doesn't help 'cos they have too much on their mind. You are not communicating well with yourself or others. They don't know that you are the type of person that can't (or can't currently), make use of advice given during a game. So tell people that. You can even tell them that not only can you not make use of it, but it puts you off your game even when it's good advice. And if somebody tells you something you already know, then tell them "I know". Which is an indicator to them not to tell you again. You clearly aren't communicating well by not doing things like that. When I was more beginner level I often had clears that not only were short but I didn't always know that i'd done a bad clear. My partner knew, so I asked him to tell me if i'd done a bad one. Then the next time round I hit it harder. Eventually Iearnt to judge it better myself.. His default was to not tell his partner if they'd done a bad shot. But if it helps the partner and the partner asks them then they adjust their default. Some people have a default not to give advice because it's socially safer. Others have a default to give advice because it's helpful and if somebody doesn't like it then tough luck. It's more beneficial to those that do want it. People pick different ways of doing things, depending on various things. And you have to communicate intelligently instead of silently getting frustrated with people because they don't know about your particular quirks or preferences of what you find works for you, 'cos you haven't communicated it.
