So, a week has passed since attending Pauls most recent Residential Coaching weekend, and the time has come to collect together my thoughts and finally get them down on this forum!

The Venue: Lilleshall National Sports Centre – what a fantastic venue! The badminton courts (8 in total) are fantastic, good lighting, beautiful sprung wooden floor, just the way all badminton players like it 🙂 Various people wandering around the grounds, including various Great Britain Gymnastics Squad Members, some footballers, hockey players and more! It is surrounded by beautiful grounds, trees, gardens, and cheerful accommodation. The accommodation, although basic in its layout, was all you could possibly need for a weekend trip playing badminton – you only see it when changing and when sleeping, the rest of the time is spent on court, in the food hall, or socialising in the bar! Plenty of food to go around, and plenty of variety at all times! I wasn't a fan of the asparagus soup, I must admit, so I won't go for that again! Haha!

So some of us arrived on the friday night, chatting in the bar and getting to know each other a little better. One thing was clear, everybody there was very excited about a day of badminton to follow.

Saturday arrived. A hearty breakfast, followed by an early start in the sports hall – an earlier start than last time, to get make sure we got an extra 40 minutes of coaching time! A group warm up, followed by a quick knock up (and thinking about what is important to include in your warm up) and we were on our way. A quick note on the shuttles – Yonex AS40 – these things are virtually indestructible and a fantastic quality. One rule was made – nobody practises with a bad shuttle! Even for the knock up, Paul produced some “knockers” that resembled my clubs regular game standard feather shuttles! Hooray.

The first topic was movement to the rearcourt – how does the movement change based on what shot you play, whether you are taking the shuttle high or low, with a real focus on recovery – something too often missed when most people practise 🙂 Whilst focussing on movement, a variety of strokes were played, but with a particular emphasis on the attacking clear – a shot not many people understand or know about! In no time at all, everyone was hitting their target areas with more regularity – a small box placed in the corner of the singles court. A large portion of time was devoted to moving round the head. During this time, Paul worked one on one with EVERY participant, and Angie, who was instrumental throughout the weekend, was moving around the hall, videoing the players when they moved around the head.

The next phase started after lunch – another hearty meal 🙂 The sole purpose of this next stage was to tackle a players greatest challenges – one thing you can be sure about was that every player signed up to the course with the intention of fixing ONE thing in their game. This basically boiled down groups being split into three main categories – those who wanted to work on their overhead backhands – be it clears drops or smashes (which was just over half of the participants), those who wanted to work on their smashes – both regular and sliced, and a final group with some “other”, more specific main goals – including someone who wanted to know how to come forwards to the net after smashing, and a man who wanted to know how to cover a weakness on his side of the court when serving in mixed doubles! This is where having three coaches really made its mark – three groups, three coaches, and everyone making significant improvements during that time, helping each other, as well as receiving some one on one tuition!

The next stage was defence practice – everyone learning how to lift effortlessly to the rear court after a smash. Some of the drills used were extremely tough, including at one stage three feeders and one defender, some practising of turning defense into attack, and more video footage going on throughout. Paul also got everyone to practice defending as a lady in mixed doubles, helping everyone understand the tough job that a lady has, and exactly how she can cope using simple positioning and extremely simple defensive strokes.

The final part of the day was a start to the serving competition – this comprised of three parts, each one more challenging than the last. The first round was “simple” serve into the box – six practices, six “real” goes, keeping scores. Sounds easy? Think again 😛

On the saturday evening, everyone met in the bar for a tactical discussion – given this was optional, it was fantastic to see so many people there! This included some clips of professional players and a discussion on what we as players in league games can do to get our tactics right! Also shown were some of the footage from earlier in the day, everyone's skills being shown and analysed, pointing out some common areas that needed improving, and an excellent progression shown from before. Some of the videos of the defensive work were extremely impressive, demonstrating fantastic reactions!

An early start again on sunday, and the focus was on the midcourt and forwards. This is where, in my opinion, everyone made huge leaps and bounds in their games. Covered were simple net shots moving onto tight spinning net shots, deceptive cross court net shots, and the main focus of the session – net kills and training your eyes! Once again, high intensity of feeding here and everyone benefited, becoming very intimidating net players!

Also during this session, Paul brought out the first of his learning tools for teaching doubles positioning –  miraculously transforming complete strangers into seasoned pairings in 15 minutes!

Onto round two of the serving competition – same as before, six practises and six real attempts, this time the pressure was on, serving against an opponent, toeing the line, and ready to kill. An extra incentive for all participants – an authoritative kill would ALSO score a point…

This led nicely into the afternoon session – receiving serves. Once again in three groups, each group covered the important aspects of receiving serve – stance, position and rack position.

The final part of the afternoon included the final round of the serving competition – serving with the aid of Pauls newly created service tool – what a difference it makes. I pride myself on having a good low serve against an opponent who is toeing the line, but I have never felt the pressure exerted from this new tool. Amazing how perfect serves immediately became nervous serves, and every one realising what was important when serving.

After the serving was completed, the net doubles started – a genius game where the only thing that would keep you in contention is an agile mind and a full array of shots.

All in all a fantastic weekend.

A lot of thanks to Head Coach Paul, whose thoughtful planning made the whole weekend a success.

A huge thanks to Angie, for making the whole weekend run so smoothly and utilising her fantastic photography skills.

Finally, thanks to all the participants for having such great attitudes! They were a real pleasure to meet, work with, and I hope to meet many of them again on the next weekend scheduled early next year!

Thanks for reading – please give one of these weekends a go, they are fantastic!

Matt