If you were to ask any professional badminton player from the top 10 or even top 100 players, they would tell you they have coached at some point in their career.
Often they are made to do it by their federation, or their club. Sometimes they have to do it because they need to earn some extra money. Several players do it because they want to give back to the sport that has given them so much. Perhaps the most overlooked benefit of coaching is that it helps you to improve as a player yourself.
How Does Coaching Help You To Improve?
You can try to think about your schoolwork. Is there a subject that you are particularly strong in? Perhaps your friends often come to you for help with math, or science. Maybe you even do some tutoring on the subject that you are strong in.
When you spend time helping others with something that you are already good at, you are going to get even better at it. This applies to everything in life, and badminton is not excluded.
If you are good at playing badminton, and you spend your time helping others to play badminton, you start to really analyze what it is that you already do.
You are going to notice some of your own bad habits and you will have a chance to correct them. You break down the fundamentals of your technique in order to explain it clearly to your student. By doing all of this you further cement your understanding of the game.
When you watch your players playing games you have to break down strategy, and tactics. You start noticing how to move players around the badminton court, what their strengths and weaknesses are. You take yourself out of the game and from the outside looking in you gain a new perspective on the sport.
I myself am currently starting my own training again. My goals are much more humble than most, but still daunting for me. I want to win the national games, something I have never done before.
Frankly speaking, it is going to be an uphill battle. Life often gets in the way of training. You need to work, or perhaps for you, it’s your homework that you are compulsory to do.
Well, that is the reason I have make up my mind to start doing some coaching again. Make a little bit of spending money, while improving your badminton. There is nothing better than that. It’s an excuse to keep you on the court and keep you thinking about badminton.
Give Back To The Sport You Love
As I mentioned in the introduction, another major motivation for a lot of players who are doing the coaching is carrying the purpose of giving back to the sport.
I think that is very important. Many of us love to play badminton, and many of us do love the sport very much. Most of my life’s fondest memories have happened either at tournaments or near a badminton court. The sport doesn’t get as much respect as we all know it should.
I know that for me growing up in my country, my friends and I would often be embarrassed to tell people that we played badminton, soccer was the big game in our city.
It shouldn’t be that way. Kids should feel proud to say they play badminton because their friends should like it to. We need to get more kids playing badminton, but there are not enough coaches. This is why it’s so important for people to coach if they have the knowledge. Be willing to pass that knowledge on, share with others what has been so dear to you.
I started as a junior and found it to be an excellent asset in improving as a player. You often find that you pick up on players’ weaknesses earlier and also give you the opportunity to work with more experienced coaches that can give you routines that will be an asset to your game as well as the people that you coach.
When we play on the court, sometimes we just play without much thinking of the techniques. But having to explain to someone ‘how’ to actually perform the mechanics of a shot, or explain the positional play, can really make you think about the whole process.
Through coaching other players, you will start watching your players and understand why a particular shot isn’t working, or why they are getting caught, and that in turn makes you think about your own game.
Often the hardest part is to THINK whilst you are in the middle of a hard match. I find when I play with or against the players I work with, I am always watching them and I am always analyzing their game. This in turn carries over into normal games, and I start to be more tactically aware on the court, even in the heat of a really tough game.
But for me, the real plus in coaching is watching a player you have worked with start to grow to become a better player. Some of my best moments in badminton have come from watching a player I have coached win points with shots or tactics we have worked on in training.
When things are not going well for me, the pride I feel in watching my players play well can kick start my own game and re-kindle my enthusiasm.