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.