Pieces of Jigsaw Coming Together

Have you ever assembled jigsaw puzzle before? Especially the ones with more than 1000 pieces? If you have, I can share with you that training Aaron is just like assembling jigsaw puzzle. Obviously you will start to group together similar grain of colors and then trial fit as many pieces as you can. You may not see the results yet but you know you have to be patient and keep at it.  There will be times when a few pieces will fit together. Then a cluster of them will fit with another cluster. Gradually, a tiny section of the picture will come together nicely. That was how it was with Aaron.

Quiet in his ways, Aaron suddenly came alive after just two and the half months. He now was able to place a net shot and then return a base line in succession. If you give him a half court, he can return a cross court drop or a cross court smash. He can even do a back hand flick across the net. On a good day, he could be stretched for shots that he normally could not take. Heck, he even attempted some deceptive strokes. I started to wonder how did he put all these together?

Could it be the holistic approach that has contributed to this paradigm shift in his game? How come Ryan’s progress in contrast was painstakingly slow? We used to focus on strokes in the first 2 months. When my wife had to undergo a minor surgery in mid September, she could not join us in our training sessions. Therefore, I had to improvise our training method a little by getting the boys to move around the court  more while I fed shuttle on all 4 corners. While one was training, the other would pick the shuttles and they took turns. After just two weeks on this drill, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly came together so beautifully for him.

It could well be his diligence and his attentiveness that brought out the talent in him. He went about obediently with his trainings, took our comments and advice without fuss and went about as instructed.  What a coach’s delight to get to train a player like him. The time is right now for him go into tournament to test his abilities. It would be an injustice for him not to start winning any medals.

September - Taking Stock

Wrist Strengthening

Mum used to do this too

The boys were back at MBA training every Sunday evenings. My wife felt that the boys needed a change - to strut their stuff among their group of peers. After two months of polishing rough diamonds, there was a telling gap with the rest of the basic level group. I sense that the head coach would very likely upgrade them to Intermediate level in a matter of time. This was good progress but it also meant that the boys will be exposed to a new level of competition among the new cohort.

September was another record with 14 training days. We continued to supplement their formal training with our own brand of personal touches in Bukit Jalil. I also made a point to come back from work in the evenings to take them both to Taman Wawasan for a jog, push-ups and rope skipping. They kept score of it and now could get up to 15 push-ups, jog two rounds in the park and skipped up to 50 times. Our approach was more holistic, gradually dabbling into their minds steering them towards self motivation and positive thinking. I also picked up something new in the area of sports psychology from the net and attempted mental visualization exercises.

Our emphasis for the first three months was to improve shuttle placement, correct footwork and building strength. Aaron has acquired all three well and was applying them in his game now. Already Aaron has beaten Ryan regularly and he has also given me some hard time chasing his shots on court. He however lacked match temperament and control especially when he was under pressure. Ryan’s footwork technique remained poor. He makes good stiff shots but at the expense of the flexibility to place the shuttle. I was determined to further polish him up with more court movement drills and shuttle placement.

Incidentally, at Bt Jalil, the boys found a new sparring friend, a 9 year-old girl whom had started badminton since she was 5. She has a personal coach and she plays for her school. She has good footwork and overhead strokes which will be a good for the boys to spar with. We also learnt that she will be participating in the annual BAKTI Badminton Junior Open Championship on 1^st November 2012. My wife insisted that I checked this out. Last year, this tournament attracted 1,566 participants age 16 and below from all over Malaysia. This is going to be a good measuring stick where our boys will stack up against  the rest of the country.

Towards the end of September, as the school final exams approaches, we shifted focus towards their academics. I can’t wait to resume training the boys again after their final exams in October. We have only three short weeks to prepare them for BAKTI Badminton Junior Open Championship on 1^st November. Thereafter, Hooi Yee Junior Badminton Championship on 16th November and Bukit Jalil Golf & Country Resort will organize a Junior Badminton Tournament on 24^th November.

Quantity or Quality?

Ryan threw at me some thoughts about insufficient court hours put in for him in MBA. He must have learnt that some of his peers were already training in MBA more than once a week. I knew one of them had been on a three day per week programme and had promoted to Intermediate level. A few of the advance level boys were training almost everyday like the No.1 and No.2 ranked boys in his school.

I knew immediately it was peer pressure. However, like any school going kids, the reality was that we had to balance their badminton schedules and studies. Little did he know that both he and his brother have also put in much court hours in Bt Jalil. I explained that without changing the way he plays, even if he plays 7 times a week he will not achieve much improvement. I reasoned out to him that he had to change his mental restriction. Instead of giving excuses, he should push himself more in training. I wanted him to realize that his level of expectations were not the same level as ours. He has to put his pride aside and admit that he has been blocking himself mentally from learning badminton.

I have spoken to the boys before. To play competitive badminton was different from enjoying leisure badminton. There will be lots of sacrifices and pain that comes with competitive badminton. We have been spending lots of time, attention and money to improve their badminton skills. If they had chosen leisure badminton, we would devote our time on something else. I ended by throwing the question back to them. “Do you want to play competitive badminton or play badminton for fun.” Their answer was obvious.

Here are the court hours KPI the boys had put in between 2011 and 2012 (as at Sept). Note 2012 has not factored in off-court training hours e.g. jogging, night drills, foot work skips, swimming etc.

2011                 2012

  90 court hours               128 court hours

As at September 2012, they have already put in 40% more court hours compared to last year. By year end they would have exceeded 100%. Will they be twice as good as they were last year? Lets complete the last quarter of training and we shall see.

Nagging Injuries

Others may not know it if we don’t talk about it. However once the subject is opened up, it becomes a hot topic of endless lamenting. My long term ache has been my left waist which has been for years now. I think this was more due to the ergonomics of bad sitting posture in my desk job. I also sustained a left hamstring pull for more than 4 months now due to a futsal game. It’s nagging and did not go away. My weekly badminton sessions probably aggravated it even more. I also sustained a sprain on my right sole saphenous area also resulted from the same futsal match.

My wife also had long term aches on her back spinal cord and abdomen probably due to her severe physical trainings and straining matches when she was younger. Over the past year or so, her left knee pain became acute especially after badminton matches. She feared it could be the thinning of her knee cartilage and could be a long term problem despite various treatments.

My boys may not understand it now because I always insisted them to do sufficient muscle stretching before every training session. I hope by instilling this habit in them will minimize their bodily injuries whether they realize it or not. Inflicting injuries at our age takes a long time to treat and heal. Someday, when they are older, perhaps they will begin to understand why their old man always nags at them on this.

Our Weapon of Choice

Here are our badminton racquets we are currently using…

1)            Pro Kennex CarbonPro 787 Patented strung with Protech 0.7mm 24Ibs – my wife’s long time favorite racquet very even balanced.

2)        Pro Kennex CarbonPro 727 Patented strung with Protech 0.7mm 24Ibs – everybody’s training and bashing racquet.

3)          Yonex Aerotus 65SP Japan strung with Protech 0.7mm 25Ibs – used by Aaron after he broke his racquet supplied by MBA. This is a G4 3U racquet which may not be suitable for him but he is a man now isn’t he.

4)          KX All England 100 strung with Fleet 0.7mm 25Ibs - supplied by MBA currently used by Ryan. Aaron had a similar one but was broken.

5)                  RSL M11 Predator 005 - used by me during training. Earmarked for Ryan later.

6)                 Yonex Arc Saber 009DX Taiwan G5-3U strung with YY BG66U 28Ibs - used by me for my doubles games. Even balanced stiff shaft.

7)             Yonex Voltric 70 Japan G4-3U strung with YY NBG95 25lbs - used by me for my singles games. Head heavy medium shaft.

Did you know good shoes are as important? My wife insisted to invest in good dedicated badminton shoes to preserve sole grip. No compromise here and I could not agree more.

1)                  Protech PYS1106 size 4 worn by Ryan.

2)                  Yonex WorldChamp Pro 86 Red size 3.5 worn by Aaron.

3)                  Yonex WorldChamp Pro 86 Blue size 6.5 worn by me/wife for training. Both my wife and I have similar sized feet.

4)                  Yonex SHB65 FT Shine Orange Power Cushion size 6.5 worn by me for my games.

5)                  Asics Gel Rocket size 7 worn by my wife.

Intensity Increase In August

We made a record 11 badminton bookings in Bt Jalil in August partly due to the long Raya holidays where we took full opportunity to train daily. I had to think about different training methods to keep the boys interested. We introduced video recording during sparring sessions and playback for post game analysis.

Ryan doing rope skipping at Bt Jalil

I also searched in the You Tube for ideas. One of which I found useful was introducing the skipping rope for building stamina and a series of foot exercises. Now before training starts and ends, they had to do pushups, skippings and foot exercises. I used to take them down to the gym to carry weights but the clubs rules prohibited children under 12 from going to the gym. My wife also pressed me to take the kids to jog in Taman Wawasan, a walking distance away from our home.  I still have to find time for this.

In their night drills, I introduced some tricks and deceptive shots just to keep the sessions exciting. They relished the night work outs and I could see that they were more steady in their grip, wrist work and racquet swings.

Ryan’s foot steps and stance were still clumsy. He also could not anticipate his opponent’s shots and therefore was lumbering in retrieving shots. However his back hand flicks and drop shots had improved.

Aaron, on the other hand had an air of elegance in his moves and strokes. However, he was prone to making continual unforced errors when under pressure. He was also prone to injuring himself when going for difficult shots – possibly influenced by diving saves he saw on the TV.  He already sustained a sprain on his left sole and a light pull on his right thigh.

As training wore on, they became sensitive when ever we became critical and this had affected their performances. So much so that they grew temperamental and threw their games away when ever they were losing. There was not a game whereby either one of them ended up not sulking after they had lost their match. We began to realize that they needed variety in sparring partners and perhaps it was a good time now to get them back to MBA to play with their friends again.

                                                                                    

Junior Tournaments

I was searching around for junior tournaments to expose the two boys and chanced upon this website:

http://www.malaysiabadmintontournament.com.my/upcoming_tournaments.php

Samsung/Senheng has done great deed by sponsoring Junior Scholarships to talented and promising youngsters:

http://www.senheng.com.my/2012june/ssj/files/assets/downloads/SS%20Junior%20Badminton%20Talent%20Scholarship%20.pdf

Samsung/Senheng also sponsors SS Junior Badminton Championship annually organized by Looi Badminton Academy :

http://looi.orangesoft.com.my/sites/default/files/2011%20SS%20Junior%20Badminton%20Championship%20Entry%20Form%201_9.pdf

BadmintonCentral website is the home whereby everything you need to know about badminton is in here :

http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/112869-SS-Junior-Program-To-bring-in-new-young-talented-players-in-Malaysia

I am hopeful my home club Bt Jalil will organize a junior tournament very soon in October or November 2012 followed by Inter-MBA in December 2012. We will definitely get the boys to participate.

Crash-Course Training in July

3rd Place 2012 School Tournament

One week after Inter-MBA, their school Ladang Harcroft held a closed tournament in MBA. Aaron advanced up to 4^th round where he lost to Lee Jie Quan (Std 4) who was vastly superior in skill and was trashed. Jie Quan eventually became runners-up. Ryan fared slightly better fought his way up to semi-final and was defeated by Ooi Zhin Yang (Std 5) who had vastly advanced skills and was no match for him. Zhin Yang became the school’s Champion. 

We decided to take the boys off the MBA training schedules temporarily and attempted to train them ourselves. We believed that we could give the boys much better one-to-one focus compared with MBA whereby the coaches had to oversee a group of kids with diluted attention.

So we started training the boys at our usual Bt Jalil badminton weekend games. We drilled them with lots of singles stroke play and motivational talks. We practiced net play, shadow for footwork and pointed out where they should place shuttle during sparring. During the night, I supplemented with soft skill drills at home to familiarize them with correct grip, sweet spot and racquet control.

After just one short month, the results were very positive. We could see Aaron benefitted more due to his attentiveness. He started to use cross net drops and overhead drops which caught me by surprise. 

At the end of July, their school called for a selection to form a school badminton team. They needed to prepare for MSSM inter-school games in early 2013.

Our boys played knock-out games and advanced right up to top four. Ryan again met with Ooi Zhin Yang and just couldn’t cope with his sharpness. Again Aaron met Lee Jie Quan, still could not get the better of his more powerful opponent. We have been told that both the No.1 & No.2 ranked boys trained daily at MBA long before our boys got started.

Although Ryan and Aaron lost to the much better players respectively, we could see that they have more variety in their shots now after overcoming the rest of the field. The school coach paid particular attention to Aaron since he had 2 more good years ahead of him to represent his school. There were glimpses of moves Aaron made that had the potential to go far.

The school coach selected the top 10 students for the school team and urged us to continue with the subsidized training under the MBA school plan. We were so upbeat by the results at the school selection that I decided to extend another month of private training stint with the boys.

SJKC Ladang Harcroft Badminton Team

Inter-MBA Tournament - 30th June 2012

Semi Finalist - Inter MBA June 2012

I can say the turn of event was triggered during this Tournament. Ryan 7^th seed, made it to the semi-finals whereas Aaron 8^th seed, bowed out in the quarter finals. Considering there were more than 160 Basic Level participants, The boys having lived up to their billing was very encouraging indeed.

What was more agonizing was to see both loosing to their opponents who were not very much superior in skill. Aaron had 10 points lead thrown away from silly unforced errors. He could not contain his composure when the Indian boy tidied up his shots slightly. Ryan lost to a tad more skillful player who could place the shuttle better. Furthermore, he was tiring out after 6 continuous knock out games and his lack of fitness was evident when he began to return lots of half court shots. Both the Indian boy and the shuttle placer advanced to final and the latter became champion.

From this contest, I knew they were not very far off from the top four. We could see their glaring lack of net play and placing skills. Ryan 10 years old was stronger in his drives but was less agile than Aaron. After this tournament, my wife and I agreed to put in some of our personal attention to enhance their training programme. We were determined to prepare them better for the next Inter-MBA in December 2012.

                                        

Our Badminton Background

It would be good to introduce our little family of 5.

Ryan, our eldest was born in the year of the horse. He will be in primary 5 in 2013. Being an extrovert, he has this magnetic charisma whereby kids tend to follow him. Pompous and cunning, he has a tendency to “keep face” in the presence of his peers. He inherited a stubborn streak from his father and will find any short cuts he can in all of his endeavors. We noted his slow progress in training as he always has an excuse for everything. However we can see a leadership trait in him which hopefully will bring out the best out of him in tournament environment.

Aaron, on the other hand is the opposite of his brother. One year younger than Ryan, Aaron, a goat, is the quiet type always choose to remain in the background. When he is left alone, he would just idle away. He is mechanically inclined and most of his toys were either damaged or dissembled to pieces. However, he is loveable and is the apple of his granny's eyes. Aaron fortunately has good attitude in following instructions which perhaps explained why he had benefitted more in our personal training.

Kiera - Project 2030

Our little girl, Kiera is only 2-1/2 years old and is as talkative as her mother. Sensitive and curious, she mirrors her mother’s character. Hopefully she could follow her mother’s footstep to become a top shuttler in our country one day.

My wife’s childhood since she was 9 years old has always been centered on competitive badminton. She and her elder brother represented their school, district and Negeri Sembilan state at junior level. At the height of her game, she was among the top four in Malaysian junior level. She was then coached by Ng Chin Chai, currently BAM’s honorary secretary. Among the prominent names from Negeri Sembilan which she mingled with were current women doubles head coach Rosman Razak, former world No. 2 singles Yong Hock Kin and also former world No. 1 Chinese singles, Chen Hong. Internationally, she represented her country for Asian Inter-University Badminton Games. After graduating, she chose a different path for her career but continued playing badminton whenever she could.

Me? Unlike my wife, I am just an average player but she has rubbed off much of her badminton passion on our family. I am also a keen follower of Datuk Lee Chong Wei. Like many others, I have joined ranks in lamenting BAM’s failure to produce more top shuttlers to replace Datuk LCW. Will my boys replace Datuk LCW? Very unlikely but who knows what will happen in future. We will endeavour to prepare our boys to the best of our abilities and if they are good enough, they will make it to state level. Hopefully they can be admitted into Bukit Jalil Sports School. That will be our immediate target and we will see how it goes from there.



  

Inter-MBA Tournament - December 2011

One month into MBA training, the half yearly Inter-MBA Tournament was held. All MBA shuttlers from Taman Megah and Puchong were invited to participate in this tournament for a small fee.

The participants were divided into three categories, Basic, Intermediate and Advance level. Our boys were just getting started, so they were in Basic category. All the games were played in singles. Parents were also invited to play doubles pairing with their kids in a parent-child doubles competition. Since there was no charge for this, my wife and I enrolled ourselves for the doubles competition. Ryan partnered me while Aaron partnered my wife.

Since this was the first time playing in a competition, we did not expect much from our 2 boys. We just prepared them as best as we could in the short time available. True enough, they were beaten in the first round. Ryan lost narrowly but Aaron walked out of the game halfway and was in tears because he could not win his game. We had a good laugh but we consoled him.

In the parent-child doubles, we were also knocked out in the first round by more advanced pairs. Nevertheless, we had a good family time there and an eye opener how our boys measured against he rest of the competition. We realized for the first time if the boys were keen to bring their game up to the next level, they definitely had to do a lot more work in the months ahead of them.

Humble Beginnings

Aaron (L) and Ryan (R)

Back in early 2011, my wife urged me to introduce badminton to both our boys. Ryan was 8 years old then and Aaron 1 year his junior. Being a member in Bt Jalil Golf & Country Club, we can enjoy many of the facilities the club has to offer including the 6 badminton courts garnished with epoxy flooring. All I had to do was to get into the web site and book for a court three days in advance. Our badminton then was leisurely more than anything else.

However, the boys loved the game very much. They would just jump into court and started hitting the shuttle to and fro between themselves. Both my wife and I felt that they should be guided further and started them by playing doubles. I can say they picked the game up quickly and that became our weekend workout for most of 2011. By November 2011, we needed to keep them occupied during their long school holidays. So, we decided to enroll them into Michael’s Badminton Academy in Puchong.

We learnt that MBA had a school plan whereby they subsidize students studying in primary Schools around Puchong area. I only had to pay RM50 per pax per month for a 2 hour per week session. The starters pack of RM100 include a free racquet with strings, MBA T-shirts and a water bottle. Kudus to MBA we could get our kids to take up badminton more seriously.