Rogerh – the concept of teaching beginners with a L1 qualification is an interesting one. However, my experience is that you do not actually need to know what it takes to play reasonable badminton to pass the qualification. The point of L1 is “how to coach” and not “what to coach”, and thus I wouldn't want L1 coaches near a group on their own, as they could be teaching the wrong material. Thus the focus of L1 would have to change.

I remember when I took my L2, there were some “coaches” who could not demonstrate or shadow correct technique. In my opinion, this is just not good enough for a L1 coach. I am not expecting them to be amazing players, but I do expect a reasonable slowed down shadow to be correct, at the very least.

There were also L1 coaches who flat out said things I thought were, frankly, wrong. As an example: “i don't believe in or teach the split step, just see where the shuttle is and move to it”. Now, would I ever let this L1 coach (one of the better ones in the group) near beginners who wanted to learn to play the best possible badminton? No. Don't believe in the split step?! Just move?! What are you talking about man?! Do you even know what the split step is? Madness.

When it came to the L2 course, there was little to no checking that I had done any assistant coaching with a L2 coach. The “what to coach” was brief, and not very comprehensive. The  most interesting part of the course was “unofficial” from an NLP expert that was leading the course. I will also add there were plenty of people attending the L2 course so they could put it on their CV, as they were personal fitness trainers or similar, and could charge extra money because of the additional qualification. Having said that, there were a few excellent coaches as well, and many looking to bring children to the sport.

One main thing I would like to see is most good league players being qualified and capable coaches – at least L1. If you went to Denmark, every top player is also a qualified coach. Most of them have to coach in their spare time to fund their badminton careers. This means that, for every top player that makes it at an international level, you will have hosts of regular, high quality coaches, all actively coaching in their clubs, who were all players of a very high standard. I would hazard a guess this does not happen in this country. Every single club would have access to at least one coach. How many clubs in this country can boast the same? How many clubs even feel they SHOULD be linked to a coach?

Matthew I enjoyed your last post. Especially the part about every top Danish player was a coach. Would love to see a coach in every club & time allocated on a club night for coaching.

Hi Rogerh,

I took my L2 several years ago (3/4 – can't remember). I found the course quite simple because almost all the badminton “knowledge” of the course was information I knew from other online sources and forums (regarding grips, tactics, stroke production, movement patterns etc) and had known a long time prior to the course. The main challenge was that I had to demonstrate the footwork patterns to the group for about 1 hour 30 minutes whilst they counted the number of steps I took, the number of “movements” and the technical things like correct lunge form and whatever. Exhausting.

The information regarding LTAD was new, as was the information about joints and muscles etc. However, as I said, the most interesting part was the NLP stuff, which was just a bonus because we happened to have an expert in the group.

It sounds like new courses are putting participants through their paces, which is great to hear 🙂

Regarding Denmark – do they really have more of a demand for coaching than we do? How so? It is my opinion the culture regarding the sport is different, and so people want coaching and expect to see coaches at their clubs. I am surprised to hear that they are paid better in Denmark than in this country. I was not aware of this, I just assumed it was, again, part of the culture, that people need coaching to improve, and want to improve, so pay for coaching. I can't help but feel that, in this country, paying for and receiving coaching makes you a badminton enthusiast, and really serious in your game, as opposed to Denmark, where everyone does it!

It is a sad story you tell about club coaching. I did coaching at my old club, outside club sessions, for a regular group of 4-6 male players of varying standards (aspiring to play in higher teams for the club). After three or four weeks (one 2 hour session a week), they were all regularly beating players in the teams above them, and a couple of the men went from being in no team to beating the clubs best pairs. It was a stunning transformation! They really worked hard! However, these sessions eventually fizzled out because players were not proactive with booking courts and arranging sessions. Their standard of play quickly dipped back to where it had been. In my opinion, it takes months to improve technique and install new good habits. It is not a matter of weeks.

This is a good topic for discussion 🙂