Decision making in badminton

INTRODUCTION

Badminton is about making quick adjustments to situations! Players continuously try to puncture each other’s comfort zone. It is a game of solving multi-situations and creating time and space pressure situations for the opponent.

Types Of Decision Making In Badminton

Shot making is all about decision making. Decision making involves anticipation – seeing cues, best guess of opponent’s shot and moving into position to retrieve, shot selection – what shot, where to, shot pace, shot angle and when to play and deception – shot direction, deception type and shot timing.

Factors Affecting Decision Making

• Pressure level of game, match or the competition • The opponent characteristics

Qualities Of Excellent Players

The factors that make a player to be a talent are: athleticism, fundamentals, character and court sense.

What Is Court Sense?

It is about improving play ability through game knowledge, developing winning strategies, anticipating what the opponent(s) do and making appropriate decisions. Court sense involves: Building The Player Badminton players need to be productive. Productive players are thinking players who think matters at hand and recognize patterns and can choose options • Shot selection and execution • Percentage play • Feel of the game • Space, position, timing, angle, etc • The player characteristics • Exposure to tactics • Shot characteristics efficiently. They can solve problems and can creatively make small changes in existing ways, can think zig zag outside the box and are practical.

Considerations In Coaching Decision Making

Merely training a plethora of shots in situations without the meaningful tactical application will not help develop a productive player. Tactical training involves decision making and decision making is based upon perception. • The Grammar Of Seeing – Perception British neuropsychologist, Richard Gregory in his book “Eye and Brain” describes perception as a dynamic searching for the best interpretation of the available data. Therefore, the quality of the thesaurus of situations will decide the efficiency and quality of a player’s decision making (response). • Information Theory If a player is able to see before his opponent, he will have the competitive edge and can process habits, patterns or play models (paradigm) or strategy. “We can only see what we know how to look for. “ (Neisser 1976) • The Paradox Of Strategic Vision Poor quality thesaurus of situations means fewer ways. Opening the player’s eyes to possible situations leads to many solutions – fixed solutions, probable solutions and creative solutions. It is important to develop neuro awareness and motor unit recruitment and speed-up and increase “situational information storage.” • Who Is The Player? The player is not merely 600 muscles and 206 bones. The player is a bio-psycho-socio unit. • The Nature Of Badminton In A Nut Shell Badminton is a game of opposites, involving hard and soft shots, quick starts and stops, quick fluid changes in direction, and multi-pace, multi-angle and multi-direction shots as well as movement. • A Player Is A Product Of A Series Of Battles Each victory, gives the player the stimuli and experience. Every victory adds on to the athlete’s action thesaurus. • Detailed Breakdown Of Problems And Situations Develop drills for learning and relearning and eventually leading to complex game situations within specific court areas. • Cubes Within A Cube Cubes are parts of the court. The court can be divided into 18 cubes with 6 cubes per layer. Each cube is a target area for shots to be played into and from. • Badminton And “Wei-Chi” Each cube becomes a zone of decision making. Each attempt to solve a situation involves “wei-chi” ( Chinese word for crisis and opportunity).

• Principle Of Infinito Complete training curtails individual creativity. By purposely inserting unfinished instances in techno-tactical sessions, and encouraging players to make decisions, they will develop moments of brilliance. • Develop A Winning Habit A competition is about winning. Therefore, training must be competitive. Players must be encouraged to fight and win in terms of consistency. • Understanding Principles And Methods Of Teaching Tactics Tactics need to be taught. To achieve these, coaches need to understand principles of tactics and methods of teaching.