by Nico Mos
“I run a badminton school here in The Hague with my colleague and provide badminton training more than ten hours a week,” Eefje starts straight away. She once played in the Dutch youth team, but at the age of 18 she opted for a social career. “You can’t earn much in badminton, so in addition to training, I also have a job. I am a policy advisor at the MBO council.”
Denmark
Eefje visited Denmark at the end of June. “A new project has been started in Denmark called: ‘Advance’. In which 16 coaches from all over Europe are starting a training course, which should ultimately ensure that better resistance can be offered against Asia. Badminton is played quite well in Asia. This training is not only about the technical and tactical aspects, but also selection criteria, procedures and policy. Dealing with parents, dealing with the environment, etc. This course was great fun, but lasts ten months. Again in September and then in January and March. In order to resist top countries such as China, Indonesia and India. You can see that here, because about 70% of our players come from India.”
Badminton school
“I actually started a badminton school for the same reason that prompted me to start that Advance course. Even though I stopped playing top badminton at the time, you always remain involved in this sport. What struck us is that almost nothing had changed in 20 years, such as the same ideas, the same method of training. Actually, too few trainers who have the pedagogical qualities to deal with youth. Plus the fact that trainers often limit themselves to team 1, or they want the best team or the best class. We believe that a lot of attention should be paid to young people. You see that in addition to the physical aspect, youth are also less technical. Even as a small badminton country like Belgium. Perhaps badminton technical knowledge has been lost and the pedagogical climate has certainly not improved. We have been working on this for two years now and within two years you can see progress and successes. I would like to do more in this sport, but in badminton the volunteer idea is often prevalent. It should cost as little as possible. You should also be able to earn a living in this sport, just like a padel teacher, for example. Because we are a school, we do not receive any money from the NOC/NSF. We are also excluded from subsidies. So that makes it quite expensive to keep all this running. We would prefer to keep costs as low as possible, but pay the trainers well. We have retained the better trainers in the Netherlands and I am very proud of that,” says Eefje, who also mentions that the school is packed.
