To start with I want to refresh your minds with this previous blog post: http://www.gingercoaching.com/?p=69 You’ll now remember the player who initially complained about her group, and then became chief organiser for them.  I wrote at the time that the experience had made no difference to her as a player.  Now though, the proof that it was worthwhile has emerged. The next time I ran a similar session – a selection of progressive practices to […]

It’s the time of year when my cricket coaching begins to kick into action.  There are always bits and pieces that continue year round, but with the season approaching the hours increase.  Over the past couple of seasons I have started to take on the challenge of coaching the seniors at the club at which I play.  A club with a rich history, but one which had now found a level more akin to the […]

I’ve been raising my expectations based on my Learning Nutrition experiences.  As such, I chose to hand more responsibility for the content of one of my community junior clubs sessions to the learners.  This session is weekly and has the youngest players of my regular work. I had 8 players, and wanted them to split into two groups.  I asked them to do so and ended up with two groups of three and a two. […]

Complex Carbohydrates provide us with sustained energy.  In Learning Nutrition terms we suggest that offering praise for positive behaviours has this effect upon our performers.  By combining this praise with a shift in control (Minerals) I’ve had a breakthrough with a challenging player. The challenge is not aggressive, but in a cheeky trying to catch me out type way.  Has been coming to me for several years, and has recently started playing at other clubs too.  […]

I found myself in a new situation recently when delivering some one-off tasters in a primary school.  The aim of the tasters was to drum up more interest for an eaarly morning badminton club that I run.  I had arranged a half hour slot with each of 6 KS 2 classes.  My plan (which due to the nature of the choices involved thoughout was essentially the same for all classes) was to start in a […]

Whilst the main focus of the Learning Nutrition experiment is upon working with children, I could not resist using this new method with my adult group. The group was initially for beginners, but has been running now for 2 seasons and as such those that have been coming throughout have reached a reasonable club standard of play.  New players have joined along the way meaning there are a range of abilities on show. Having spent […]

On Sunday 19th February I was involved with running the South Somerset Community Badminton Network (CBN) Rally 21 tournament.  This is an event we have put in place to offer a competitive opportunity to league and social adult players – an area in which we feel there is a gap in provision. Throughout the day I took video clips using my mobile phone to make a blog of the day.  I’ve not done this before, […]

My ongoing exploration of the minerals element of Learning Nutrition has begun to show some progress.  I have continued to offer a range of activities but am now moving to the 3* menu.  An increased awareness of the language I use has brought about some more change! Whilst, when I give a range of practices initially, most groups continue to start from the beginning and progress from there, I feel progress has been made as […]

Having had a pretty successful first experience working with minerals I was surprised how things initially went awry second time around.  Essentially, I ran the same session as before, but at my other junior badminton club, with players in the same range of ages and abilities. It was interesting this time though to watch one group who were so far outside of their comfort zone that they were simply unable to perform the tasks set.  The […]

In Learning Nutrition parlance, “Minerals” as a nutrient equates to the idea of shifting control of and responsibility for learning to the learners themselves. I’ve started to do this more in my junior badminton club sessions.  The age range for these sessions is 7-17 years. I’ve begun to provide the whole group with a range of practices for the same skill early in the session.  These are demonstrated, and numbered in order of increasing difficulty.  Players are […]