.

Indeed, I went the 'stable' route and did my degree became "older" and now compete in ranking tournaments at 27, which holding a job. Almost 2 years later of regular coaching (after starting at 25), I am now able to just about hold my own against lower U16-U18 players, but it'll be a while before i'll be cracking the 20 year olds. The only thing I have is that many of them will let up on training, and it'll be a case of the tortoise and the hare.

BUT, this will only possibly work in national/county competition which is fine for me. As soon as you go international/professional, people by the nature of being professional, are not going to 'take their foot of the gas' when it comes to training. I will never catch them because i know from my past 2 years experience that I follow a typical development curve and i'm not extremely talented - you have to be talented and start training early to match middle-pack professionals, and you'll have to be extremely talented to catch them up if you start late.

 

@Whittalboy I really hope you've made the right decision for your life. I'd be very interested to see how far you've got in your badminton journey. The fact that nobody has achieved a certain thing shouldn't make you think of it as impossible. I believe successful people can be divided into two types - optimistic dreamers who succeed and become examples, and realists who follow the already set examples. Be the first type, set goals and go get them! From what you've shared here, I can see your heart had already made the decision but your mind was a bit scared of the challenges ahead. I really hope you've listened to your heart and now you're living the life of your dreams - travelling the world, playing your favorite sport, practising, eating right and all that wonderful stuff that accompanies the day of a competitive player. Remember that by telling you what you can't and what is not possible, people are showing you their own limitations, not yours

 

Been following your posts here for sometime, must appreciate you for the dodged persistence.

Out of curiosity, how much does training cost in the UK? Here in the US, it is one of the biggest hurdles for me with an hour of coaching costing upwards of $80. Being a non professional and not a very young player this is THE biggest hurdle, at least for me.

 

Thanks - I hope my posts inspire others to strive to improve, but with a healthy dose of realism!

Coaching varies on the level of the coach as you'd expect. For 1:1 tuition, including court costs and shuttle costs, a coach for beginners/early intermediates can be as little as £15 an hour. My own coach is a division 1 county player who is about £25-30ph, and I've also trained with an english international player who coaches on the side who costs £40ph.

I found the coaching really makes a big difference, about as influential as the advice and critique I get on these forums. The critique and coaching both identify problems, which are incredibly hard to spot by yourself (even if you watch your own videos), and without either, plateauing is inevitable.

The coaching really makes a difference in that you are provided with what i regard as the 3 vital ingredients to improve:
1) direction i.e. identification of weakness
2) feedback i.e. a method to remove weakness
3) an environment to practise the method

I can get help from these forums which gives me (1) and (3), but (2) is a slow feedback loop - coaching allows instant feedback, and in the space of 2 minutes, you could have gone tried 10 different "how about this?" ideas, where on forums it would be weeks.

I can also get a consistent feed with a training partner (which I do also do), which tackles (3), but will have limited (1) and very little of (2). My training partner can tell me my smashes appear to be harder and more accurate, whereas a coach will tell me I'm ingraining a bad habit and to loosen off or else I'll be worse in the long term.

The way I see it, many people are willing to pay £20-25 per hour to take weekly lessons to learn a musical instrument, even though there are plenty of YouTube videos around. Why should badminton be any different?

Hope you can figure out something!

 

I think it depends on yourself and your potential. I think anything is possible with enough "significant" source.
With enough money ( to pay for a coach, to cover living expense, and to cover your touring expense) I think you would be able to give it a shot!!

But personally the level you are on right now is still not completable with the pros. I used to watch the video while Li/Lui played against part-time badminton players in China. The part-time players were actually very good I wonder if anyone in local would be able to beat them. They were not just good enough to make it to the nation team. And as we all know Chinese players are playing at very high standard. Li/Lui played it like they play against kid. Imagine at your level and playing against beginners. Badminton is just like that. I couldnt find the source tho.

In addition, you could look up in this video. That's how fast game is and it is actually faster in real life. If you think, you could catch up with it. I think It is worth to try because I would too if I have enough money.

PS. I got to play and train with ex-pro from my country. I still couldnt find a way to beat them lol even they are in 40s.