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10:21 am
VIP Coaching Program Members
August 12, 2010
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As any of you who know me will no doubt agree – I like badminton 🙂 For me having a good club night AND good matches is extremely important. I want tough games and tough matches, and I want to play with a very good partner.
My club is 50 mins away from home, and I play there 3 nights a week. The club nights are always tough, because the players that usually go are excellent. So I often play against the same people a lot in a night, but its always a very tough game. Matches are very challenging, and I have played most often with an extremely good partner (the best player in the league by my reckoning).
But for me, its my badminton goals that are probably most important. When I first joined this club, I wanted, at the end of 1 season, to try to reach a standard such that I would be picked for first team matches. To achieve this, I simply played every match I was offered, at any level (mixed, composite, mens, ANYTHING!). This season, I wanted to play for the first team in every match, and start playing mixed. So I not only played every first team mens match (being first pair in most of them – because of my awesome partner) I also played mixed 2 in the weakest mixed league. Both sets of matches were tough – in the mixed league, my partner was very inexperienced and I had to do “most” of the “work” to win matches. In the mens, it was a struggle just to keep up with my opponents and not let my partner down.
I was also asked to stand in for a couple of mixed 1 matches towards the end of the season. I was extremely pleased – in every match I played (with random partners) I won at least 2 matches! Definite success!
Next season, I don't want to lose to more than 1 pair per match, no matter who I partner (partnered lots of different people towards end of the season), or at least I want to feel like I am the player that my opponents do not want to hit the shuttle to.
On top of these general goals, I also have technical goals. At the start of last season, it was all about my defence – I wanted to learn to defend better than anyone else. This meant that when I played league last year, I was not afraid of any opponent. There was only 2 players who troubled my defence, and they had exceptional smashes. The regular county players etc were all fairly easy to defend against. Then my focus moved on to footwork. This is still a huge focus for me, as I continue to improve and get back into a reasonable physical condition.l However, the next thing is to add a greater degree of consistency to my game when I am not at my best. Particularly when under pressure and going for winners.
All of this combined is what keeps me going. Each part is important! The challenge of matches (tactical and technical and psychological), the challenges of diet and training, the fun at club nights, and the constant technical improvement.
10:41 pm
February 15, 2011
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Great piece Matt.
I'm delighted that you highighted both performance goals and season goals – two very different areas of goal setting and sadly lost on most people.
For me I cannot set any personal goals in terms of playing except to have a game once in a while because I simply do not have the time to commit to a club. Because of this, my overall goal is to remain in reasonable shape so I can still hit the shuttle reasonably well. And that's it I'm afraid. I wish it could be more but with work, the many hours in keeping this blog in good shape plus my work for Victor it's enough.
My goals tend to lean more towards the players I coach. I've always had this almost nurturing approach to coaching. Anything that happens on court is always about the student and not about me. I know I care a lot for players I coach which can sometimes become a downfall as I provide too much to my own detriment. It's something I have to work on but I'd rather it was this way than ego driven. That's why I'm so mentally tired at the end of my residential coaching weekends. Because I want more for the players than some want for themselves.
My biggest challenge will be next weekend. However, I'm ready for the task and consider the players are going to get a very special weekend indeed. This delights me more for them than for me as I get so much satisfaction from seeing the extraordinary changes and transformations that happen over the two days.
I would like to have some time off but there is simply too much to do.
There is one goal I haven't achieved yet and hopefully we will soon have the technology to make this happen. I am hoping to host a webinar with me live on camera to take questions from players and coaches from around the world. We have some more testing to see if we can make this happen this year. If not, I aim to complete this by All Englands 2014. From what I know, this will be a world first in badminton so I am pretty excited about it.
Paul
12:12 pm
December 10, 2011
Offline Matthew it's great that you have enthusiasm and goals! Reading your posts set me thinking how much I used to enjoy badminton compared to now, and that may be quite a lot to do with particular clubs and partnerships I've been unhappy with. I've been at clubs where I've been certainly one of the strongest players and also at clubs where I've only been somewhere in the top eight out of 45 members.
I created this thread to canvass opinion and ideas, and I'm thinking that being part of a good club set up is more important to me than I realised. The thing is, most clubs I've experienced don't seem to focus much on creating effective match partnerships but more from random guesswork or convenience. Years ago I played for three different clubs in different leagues and enjoyed all club nights and matches. Maybe I'm just in a badminton rut and that's why my motivation and enthusiasm has declined. It looks like to resolve this I may have to travel some distance to a good club and challenging matches.
Overall though, what I've found consistent is a lack of team spirit in clubs. When I was a team captain I used to cultivate this and we had great times. It made everything so much more enjoyable. What I see these days is individualism and ego, one-upmanship and all the related peer pressure. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned!
12:39 pm
VIP Coaching Program Members
August 12, 2010
Offline Dee – the “team” spirit is very important. In my opinion, the only thing that really “creates” this team spirit, is ensuring, wherever possible, that you have the same 6 players selected for your team for the entire season. So, in our mixed team (very low division), we always had the same 6 players, and the same 3 pairs. I always played as second pair, my friend always played as first pair, and we would both always win all our matches. Our third pair usually won 1 or 2 matches, but rarely all 3. The process of spending the time together and playing matches with the same person is, to me, what made it feel like a team. BECAUSE of this, we also went for team meals every now and then. We didn't feel like a team BECAUSE we went for meals, but because we already felt like a team, it was nice to socialise sometimes too.
This is a contrast to the mens team we field, where there was less team spirit in general, because we always had completely different teams playing. However, the 3/4 team players that played every match, felt like “the team” (always with a couple of “extras” who were always “filling in”). Whilst this is fine, and sometimes only practical as people can't always commit to every match, it didn't feel quite as “good”.
This raises another question: should people commit to a team if they can't play all the matches? This is always a tricky one to answer 😉 It seems to me that in some clubs, the culture is that you play every match, whilst in others, the culture is that you collect 6 people and go and play, and then organise each one as it comes.
4:08 pm
May 25, 2010
Offline Interesting post Matt, and I have to agree with what you have said. There can be many reasons why clubs pick their teams the way that they do. Having too many members could be a reason for rotating a lot. If I was a captain of a team, I would look to keep the same 6 players for the season and keep them in the said pairs. There is also a case for the type of personalities that get picked as some people can bring the team “chirppyness” down. Nothing major, no strops. Just little things, like body language, little comments or just general well-being.
As a side note to Dee, perhaps before joining any club or team, it might be worth actually asking the captain on what their team selection policy is. Just in case they like to play as many people in one team or whether they are keen to build a team spirit.
I'm glad that the forum has helped in making you realise what you look for in a team and possible even identify the cause of your loss in motivation.
Hopefully, come November, you will be well into a season and enjoying every minute! 
Badminton Gives Me A Purpose In Life – To Serve Others
I'd Rather Be Playing Badminton…………..
7:03 pm
February 15, 2011
Offline Dee
If its any help I am looking for a club. I visted one recently but I really don't feel at “home.” Overall, the standard of games are good but there just isn't that warm welcoming atmosphere and that disappoints me and puts me off joining.
I get so little time to play. But when I do I want to really enjoy my badminton and get to know the people.
Anyone know of any great clubs in Cheshire, especially close to Warrington that are really friendly, play a good standard of badminton, have nice facilities and nice people? If so, apply here.
The issue today is that people are changing. I can remember so clearly (and not with rose tinted glasses) how things used to be. Yes there was the bickering over team selection occasionally, but overall clubs have been good places for an excellent social night out and great games of badminton of course. I'm sure clubs like this are still in existence, I just need to find one.
Paul
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