As part of the ADVANCE coaching education, Badminton Malta hosted an informational and activity-based workshop on Saturday 25th March with two overarching aims. Firstly, the focus was to provide all members of Badminton Malta with an updated overview of the current situation and structure within the organisation due to many changes and developments over the last 12-18months. This allowed Badminton Malta to provide an insight into the new vision and development plan covering areas such as participation, clubs, competitions and coaching sharing what plans and projects are scheduled to happen over the next few years.
Secondly, for the players and coaches a more practical group working approach. Here, one of the ADVANCE coaches participants and Head Coach & Technical Director, Matthew Haynes, took them through a basic team activity around the importance of planning & tactics before moving into some small group work focusing in on gaining an understanding of what it takes to be a world class badminton player considering Technical, Tactical, Physical, Mental & Lifestyle factors. This was followed by discussions around the different badminton playing zones while working together to identifying what shots are played in each zone in relation to the Forecourt, Midcourt & Rearcourt.
Following the workshop, Nigel Degaetano, Academy Players Representative, shared – “I felt that the players really enjoyed the on-court exercises and being able to share thoughts between the younger and more experience players”.
Badminton Malta see this first workshop as a successful start in this form of education opportunities, they acknowledge that there are still areas that can be improved but the feedback by participants will help shape the future of these workshops going forwards with plans to cover more in demand topics such as nutrition, match analysis and on-court technical & tactical sessions.
Matthew Haynes, Technical Director & Head Coach, stated – “this was a needed workshop to keep the members updated with the many changes within the organisation that have happened over the last 12 months, while the on-court activities allowed an opportunity to reinforce the team culture and environment with the players having the opportunity to work in small groups, sharing their knowledge and ideas on a few necessary topics”.
