Shadowing Practice: The Real Reason You're Not Getting Better at Badminton - Learn English Speaking with Video

Do you feel like you play a lot of badminton, but  you're not actually getting any better? Well, the reason might be that you're stuck at  the bottom of the badminton improvement pyramid.

Most players will start at the bottom, and  the more serious you are about improving, the higher up the pyramid you need to climb.  So, we're going to take you through each level and how you can use it to improve your game  without adding loads of extra hours on court!

And one of these is what helped  us go from world number 100 to 28.

So starting at the bottom of the pyramid, which  is level four, if you're only playing matches right now, you need to actually practice. Yeah,  because you will improve a bit by playing matches, especially when you're newer to badminton. But  eventually just playing games isn't enough. So, if you're a beginner or intermediate player,  this is where you'll probably be starting on the pyramid. It can be as simple as doing 5  minutes as part of your warm-up. But the key is to actually do some practice. Yeah, this means  you can not only focus on something without the worry of losing the point, but most importantly,  you'll get way more reps in. For example, in one 10-minute game we watched earlier, I played six  drop shots, whereas in 10 minutes of practice, I could hit 100 drop shots. Now, if you've not done  loads of practice before, you might be thinking, how do I practice? So, we've made a free PDF of  some simple practices that you can do along with demonstrations of each. Just click the top link  in the description below and we'll send it to you.

We know the biggest challenge with this level  of the pyramid is actually getting the time and court space to practice. So for those practices,  all you need is a half court. And you can even do them for just 5 minutes before your match. But of  course, the more you do, the more you'll benefit as long as it has a purpose. This is where  a lot of players go wrong. They do drills, but they don't really know why they're doing  them. And this leads to them not improving. So, if you're practicing but not improving, then you  need to move up to the next level of the pyramid, and that is to have a purpose. As  soon as you cross those white lines, you want to have a purpose or goal in mind.  Whether that's improving your lift length, recovering faster after your smash, or being  mega consistent! Up to a certain point, it's good for most people to get more reps in. But then,  you also need to make sure you have a purpose.

If we compare Jenny without a purpose. Uh, I  think I'm just going to work on my drops today.

To Jenny with a purpose. Well, in my last  match, I hit three drops in the net. So, I'm going to work on that today. Jenny  with a purpose is going to improve so much faster because she knows why she's doing the practice  and she's also doing it with intensity. Yeah, and you also need to have a purpose in some  of your matches, too. This is a great way to improve without doing additional training. Whether  that's trying a different shot, faster movement, or using new tactics. We would recommend  that you choose a slightly less important match to try these in, though. Here, there's less  pressure if it goes wrong, and you can therefore develop some consistency before the challenge of  doing it in a high pressure match. Yeah, this is how I developed my favourite shot, which is now  called the Scrambled Greg, thanks to a subscriber.

But I didn't just suddenly try it for the first  time in a big competition and hope it worked.

I practiced it loads first and it went wrong a  lot. But each time I got a better feel for when it worked and when it didn't and how long I could  hold it for. Then when I eventually used it in a bigger match, I had confidence in it. And when you  start using a new shot, a new movement pattern, or a new tactic, it probably won't work perfectly  straight away. You will make mistakes and lose a few rallies that you'd normally win.  But don't get frustrated by this. So, we want to remind you to enjoy this process and  treat it like a game trying to level up. Often, you will get worse before you get better. The  old hockey stick graph. So, you might have been practicing and playing with a purpose, but still  feel like you've reached a plateau. This is where you need to move to the next level up in the  pyramid to reduce your expectations. This level is high up the pyramid because it's for the people  playing more competitively. It's more mental and it's harder to master. And this is something that  we struggled with for a while. Yeah. In 2022, we were ranked around 60 in the world and we  put a lot of pressure on ourselves to reach the top 32. This was so that we could get into the  highest tier of tournaments. During this period, we were always going on to court thinking about  the result and what it would do for our ranking points. But this meant we were tense, overanalyzed  every point we lost, and because of this had a string of pretty bad performances. But everything  changed after we lost in the semi-finals of the Dutch Open. We decided that we were going to stop  chasing ranking points and that the most important thing was that we enjoyed it. And by February  2023, we'd won three tournaments in 3 months.

We've spoken to so many players who say their  best performances came when they lowered their expectations. Maybe they were playing a stronger  pair and they didn't expect to win. Or maybe they were slightly injured. So stop hyperfixating on  the end result and you might just overcome that plateau you're having. Now before we get onto  the top level of the pyramid and the one that changed our trajectory and we're sure will for  you too. We have a bonus tip to make sure that you keep improving. And this is to do something  different. So to name a few things you can play with different people, ideally better people. You  can get a coach, learn new tactics, try different training routines, assuming you're doing some  already. You can start doing badminton specific gym programmes, badminton-insight.com. Or focus on your  footwork. Check out the Footwork Accelerator, badminton-insight.com. Or you can learn a new shot or  refine your technique of another shot. The list goes on. And don't be scared to do something  different! Comfort is great for confidence, but it's not always great for improvement. As we  like to say, comfort is the enemy of progress.

Yeah. We've always tried doing something different  if we felt like we weren't improving. Because if you keep doing the same things, you'll eventually  get the same results. It's like if you only ever lift the same weights for the same amount of reps  with the same technique, you're not going to get any stronger. Everything we mentioned there either  requires practice, having a purpose, or utilizing the last stage of the badminton improvement pyramid,  reflection. This is the step in the pyramid that helped us go from 108 to 28 in the world in 7  months. Better players don't just play, train, and move on. They reflect on what happened, learn  from it, and feed that back into the bottom of the pyramid. However, a lot of players finish a match  and say that was rubbish. But if you ask them why they lost, they won't really know. Yeah, this is  why reflection is key. And there's a few different ways to reflect. The first is to watch your match  back. This is often pretty uncomfortable to do and will reveal some things you didn't realize  in the match, whether that's technically, tactically, physically, or mentally. It could be  that your footwork was slow into your round the head corner or that you lifted too much or maybe  there was a point in the match where you got tired or lost focus. Often how you felt after a match  is very different when you watch it back. And if you can't video yourself, you can reflect with  your partner or anyone that was watching. Yeah, as we mentioned, reflecting was one of the biggest  things that improved our game. When we were around 100 in the world, we started watching every match  back and analysed it in detail. And we didn't just watch our own games either. We analysed loads of  pairs that were better than us, seeing what they were doing and trying to learn from them and copy  them. And this is why reflection sits at the top of the pyramid because once you reflect properly,  you know what to practice next. And this turns the pyramid into a cycle, not just something you  climb once. And that is how you keep constantly improving instead of staying stuck. Now, whilst  we've kind of suggested that the better you are, the higher up the pyramid you go, this isn't  a strict system. Some beginners might want to video themselves, for example, and that's  great. So, which level of the pyramid do you think you're currently missing? Are you not  doing enough practice? Are your matches and training lacking a purpose? Are you putting  too much pressure on yourself? or do you need to reflect more after your matches? Let us know  in the comments below. And hopefully this pyramid gives you a system to follow so you can stop  feeling stuck and finally take your badminton to that next level! For the practice PDF, weights  programmes or Footwork Accelerator, then check out the description below. And of course, SMASH  the subscribe button if you haven't already, and we'll see you on another video very soon :-)