Everyone (Including YOU) Needs Coaching

I'm going to be blunt upfront. You need coaching, regardless of your level or aspiration.

If you live in New Zealand and play badminton twice a week, that's about 100NZD a month, not including shoes, wears, rackets, and stringing. If you spend another 100NZD on coaching, it will be a very good investment considering the return.

You may think you are too good, or too bad for that matter, for coaching. You'd be wrong. Even the best players in the world need coaching.

Of course, players need coaching for different purposes.

You may be a good player compared to your peers who are playing with you casually in clubs. But those play time provides zero help if you plan to compete in actual tournaments. Some people believe they can improve by playing against better players. I don't know where that belief came from, but it is dead wrong. Without coaching, playing games will not improve your technique at all.

Great coaches can teach you fundamentals, point out your imperfection, and use systematic training to improve your game. None of those is present in social games. Everyone can watch videos of top players in the world. But no one can really learn from watching LIN Dan, LEE Chongwei, Viktor Axelsen, alike, simply because nuances of the game are not visible on video.

In order to make certain shots, you need appropriate racket gripping, body position, feet position, movements, wrist and finger movements, center of gravity movement, and follow-up. One mess-up could ruin your shots and without a coach, you won't detect your own mistake. On top of that, you need to adjust these things in response to the position, velocity, and spinning pattern of the incoming shuttle. I'm telling you, badminton is complicated and technical.

So if you think you are good and want to compete and get better, you need coaching.

Some good players are proud of themselves for jumping high, smashing hard, moving fast on the court, having a seemingly beautiful backhand, and such. Those are great traits to have, but they are not what wins you games. To win games in competition, you need to be able to do all the shots. You don't have to do all of them well, but you need to be able to do them when needed. If you have obvious shortcomings, experienced opponents will exploit them. Did you notice when the score reaches 15 and suddenly things get harder and you are targeted? That's because you are the weak link and your opponents know that.

Great coaches can make you a complete player with all the technical tools to be adaptive in games and exploit your opponents instead of the opposite.

So good players need coaching. What if you are just a beginner? Well, dare I say that you have more dire needs for coaching!

Great coaches can show you the door and help you play the game the right way. Great coaching can improve your game quickly. You may start raw, but you could be great when fully realizing your potential.

Sadly, I have seen many player injuries. Sure, we all get injuries from playing sports. That’s part of life. What makes it sad to me is that many of these injuries are avoidable. Twisted ankles, pulled muscles, clashed rackets. A lot of them are not necessary.

The bottom line is, as a fellow shuttler and coach, I urge you to find yourself a coach. A little investment of wealth and time in coaching is rewarding and totally worth it. I hope you can find a good coach.

If you live in my region, you are more than welcome to email me at twolegsbetter@icloud.com.