With three eagerly talking young teenagers aka zoomers in the back seat – Eva’s twins and boyfriend’s youngest, we had two semi-boomers / generation x in the front seats our own safespace conversation on the 260 km drive from east to the Danish Championships in Esbjerg on Saturday 12 February 2022.
She asked, as she always does, curiously and without the great prior knowledge, how I actually learned to play badminton, now that my coach was my father and he himself was fairly new to the game?
▪️Good question!
In general, I do not remember that then in my childhood and youth we had real coaches, in the understanding trained coaches with courses and diplomas in the bag, and the right payment that the young people have today.
We did not have coaches who could show us punches, tell us about the technical, the execution, or for that matter knew so much about the tactical.
So how did it happen that we learned it anyway – the game, the punches, the backhand, the tactics (- and repairing our own rackets), I thought in the car when she asked.
Well …… ..we spent a lot of hours in the hall.
On their own. Without a coach.
Waiting for a vacancy. Or was there in the free hours – and PLAYED! Played all sorts of games.
Tried, without really thinking about it. Looked at the elderly, adults, and tried to eavesdrop and copy… ..more or less consciously. Most often quite completely unconscious and unreflective.
Played net matches, half-time matches, cross-country matches, two against one at half-time, pulled the net down and played with foam rubber ball …… everything possible. For hours. Without supervision. Only us. Several times a week. In the afternoon and early evening.
Was there between the exercisers’ lane change. In the small 1-3 minute breaks. When the exercisers did not show up and we were given a lane for an hour, after waiting for two or more. Asked the exercisers if they would play doubles with us. Then they also got a little variety.
It succeeded occasionally. Not often. But often enough that we wanted to stay in the hall, believed in a chance for a little game… ..and again… ..most of all… ..waited, and waited, and watched, read, talked, joked, were together outside the lanes in the cafeteria of Oda and Otto, who lived in the minimal dwelling (estimated at about 40 m2 divided into 2 rooms on each floor) attached to the old hall, and all the subsequent managers.
Input. Otto knew something about badminton and was also a coach, I think. But that was in my infancy, and only my two older sisters benefited from him. Otto and Oda were gone when I got a little older.
The hall was my playground.
So the simple answer to the boyfriend’s question was… ..
▪️ …… .we learned it damn ourselves!
Trial end error. Copy paste. Learning by doing….and playing.. “Play” her i betydningen “at lege”.
In English, “play” does not exist as a separate word. (And let me just kill a myth I myself believed in. The English language has no more words than the Danish)
We even learned the right movements.
Learned to anticipate – predict the flight of the ball, to have the somewhat heavier racket ready the optimal place, move and be ready to return, precisely through countless hours of play and play.
Learned to read and decode the opponent and his favorite strokes and make counterattacks. And counterattack on opponent’s counterattack.
Learned even the right grip.
Learned myself backhanded.
Learned to repair a skipped string myself.
Taught ourselves the Sidek serve in the late 70s and early 80s, before IBF (today BWF) banned the serve on 1 July 1982 at the request of Denmark and with a 91-1 vote at “The IBF Annual General Meeting” in May 1982 against the serve.
I even learned the intermediate jump, which I first as a 29-year-old in Viby by Kent Madsen, now national coach in Austria, during a youth training was told was called a preload jump. I had no idea. No one had ever told us about it, asked us to train it, shown it and named it. We had just done it. For it was natural to do so. We had seen others do it.
For Kent’s youth training, I also learned to drop the net, to get the ball to curl, spin, while I practiced with a little boy of 130 cm who knew it much better than I – and by the way at the same time fought for the place as fourth men’s singles at Viby’s 2nd division team against Mathiesen.
There were so many things I, with my badminton upbringing in a small and amateur-run club, could not put into words – nor had I learned, but which I and we fully or partially mastered anyway.
Slightly strange. Very strange! Without a knowledgeable coach.
We learned to play badminton by ourselves, I will answer.
The adults, including my father, did what they could and thought worked, with heart and desire. They were there for us, but I actually think we learned it ourselves. By playing next to the organized workouts. For hours. Every week. Over several years!
A miracle.
▪️But… ..what happened… ..
Med .with the “on their own” / “unattended” / “self-learning and self-taught” culture?
When and how and why was it lost – and was replaced by an “organized and externally managed training with goals and development (and ranking)” approach?
When did we lose it …… this culture of self-directed play, with formation on its own?….
▪️Change (development?)
Halls with functioning cafeteria / canteen with adults were replaced by vending machines (and no cafeteria). Or nothing at all.
Unattended was replaced by constant supervision by mobile, coach, direct and near adult presence.
Freedom was replaced by “we adults need to know where our children are… ..who they are with… ..and what they do”.
Active, social and “near-physical” play was replaced by sedentary play, semi-alone in front of a screen with digital and non-physical togetherness.
Open halls with replaced by closed halls.
The combination of play, bathing and dressing, and talking / waiting time and own transport to and from the hall and own made play agreements were replaced by pick-up and drop-off, home dressing and purpose and usefulness and efficiency.
Independence, freedom and responsibility were replaced by …… or handed over to, or perhaps rather taken over by others (adults aka parents, coaches etc).
A culture was poured out with the bath water, which also stopped running out into the changing room’s shower room.
▪️The dinosaur again
Can you hear it? It is again the old dinosaur that shouts something in the style of… .. “everything was better before”.
But it is not so black and white. Nuances, thank you, Mr. Dinosaur!
But something WAS better. And something BECAME better and IS now better.
The knowledge base is better now. The coaches are better now. Equipment and economy are better now. The halls are warmer now ¯ _ (ツ) _ / ¯
Parental involvement is …… higher! But better? Hmmmmm jo .jo.
The play on its own is reduced. Which I think is a big step backwards. A game that unfortunately can not be measured and structured and seem useless, but which is ultra important.
The time in the hall is reduced.
▪️What do we do now?
We get the game back.
They will try that in Esbjerg.
In Esbjerg, they will as an experiment open the hall on weekdays between 12.00-15.30….
“With the scheme, Badminton Esbjerg wants to establish an offer for all youth players / young seniors, where they have the opportunity to be together in Esbjerg Badminton Center both before, during and after training. The experiment must promote community and togetherness across level and age – as well as provide the opportunity to read homework (homework café), be with friends and do social activities after school????????”
Big thanks!
To reintroduce old virtues. I wish more would follow and “Make Badminton Great Again” -old style to new style!
Children are not a “resource” to be developed and have “development and career plans”. They should also not have “adult training”, ie the same training as adults receive.
“…… The children disappear from association sports – the analysis is often that the associations lose to the screens. Also think that it’s about the children seeking the community on the screens when the sport becomes individualized. In our cycling club, we build on the community. The children come just as much to eat together, cuddle around the pool table and talk to each other as they do for cycling. When the sport becomes too focused on results, it becomes a sport for the few ”.
Anders Raastrup Kristensen, Ph.d, lecturer, Kbh Uni, LinkedIn, 13.02.2022
Community and play …… .this is the way forward.
▪️Hov! So what did the boyfriend think about DM?
…… it was her debut as a real spectator at top-class badminton – and then sitting quite close to the court.
She was wildly impressed along the way and on the way home. Impressed with the hardness of the blows, the sound, the speed of both the bodily movements and the flight of the ball, the flexibility, the mobility, the jumps …… “how do they reach that ball?”. Men’s doubles and men’s singles in particular made her raise her eyebrows.
Badminton IS something completely different, and much more dynamic, lively, wild and violent, and above all fast and hard IRL, sitting a few meters from the court in relation to the two dimensions of the screen. Something completely different. The sport should also be experienced live, at a short distance in a hall. And thank God we can get relatively close to the big Danish tournaments. Proximity is important in the experience.
So she should join next time too! And then we might as well fill the car with young teens.
A fan is born!
Badmintonbladet.dk / Per Damkjær Juhl
