At one of the junior clubs I run we have traditionally played a weekly ladder competition that flows from week to week.  Over the past few months we have become really busy and with that have experienced an increase in the range of ages and standards of players present.  The ladder was becoming a competition that (I thought was) discouraging some players as they found themselves low down with a seemingly unassailable climb. I had […]

I was a part of a group of tutors debating the pre-requisites for a UKcc L1 Assistant Badminton Coach.  There were some strong and mixed views.  There were arguments that a good level of playing ability should be required; and arguments that it is not necessary.  There were arguments that they need to be able to umpire/score doubles matches, and suggestions that this was not important. Where do I sit? I’m not sure it matters!  […]

Having blogged in the past about CPD, and had a bit of a moan, I have to say how valuable I found a discussion group I attended this week.  It was hosted by SASP, was not certified and as such went wherever we wanted it to go – helped by some skillful facilitation. We discussed various thoughts around coaching prompted by a couple of group tasks and short youtube videos on “quality coaching”.  The main […]

I had the pleasure of compiling and delivering a day of leadership training to BTEC students in early May.  They will be planning and running a badminton festival for year 3 and 4 pupils later in the year, so my brief was to help prepare them for this experience.  Luckily, we were able to use a year 7 PE group as guinea pigs in the afternoon, and so prepared a mock festival for them to experience. […]

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 […]

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, […]