It's a great question.

I think we all understand the term “beginner.” Intermediate and advanced are little more difficult and pretty subjective.

I consider all division 1 players are advanced, along with county and international players.

So where does this leave intermediate? I consider an intermediate player is one who has developed beyond the basics of grip, has a basic understanding on the rules and has a fair command of some shots such as clear, drop, smash, serve, although may not play them to a high level.

In some respect intermediate standard has many levels but because there are so many technical aspects of the game to learn, it would be too hard to seperate the levels into a consistent format. I think we'd all be bordering on nerdy if we went to such depths to describe a player.

Any player with a good command of the skills of badminton should be considered advanced. It could be argued that there are many levels of advanced standard too.

And then there's international standard. There are different levels here too. Let's look at top 50. The difference between a top 50 ranked player and a top 5 ranked player is huge.

In summary, there are upper and lower levels for each standard. Where the line is between levels and standards is the subjective part. It's always a matter of personal interpretation.

One of the key issues for me when I decided to run residential courses was where to draw the line on standard. I didn't want beginners because I really enjoy working with intermediate and advanced players. With so many players to take care of, I really couldn't afford to tie one coach with a player who was completely out of their depth. So a player at the lower end of intermediate can actually be as demanding on a coach's time as a highly advanced player who needs to be worked harder and moved faster through the lesson plan.

Good topic to choose.

Paul