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Showing Up Ready

Showing up ready to train is a big deal when it  comes to having meaningful practices. Being ready involves a few different aspects. The physical aspect – are you there with all the equipment you need, on time, with your body ready to put the work in? And the mental side – are you there focused and mentally prepared for the adversity that is training? 

Here are some tips I have found helpful for getting ready to train.

PHYSICAL      

  • Don’t eat a heavy meal before  training. This may seem like old hat, but showing up to training feeling the weariness of post meal nap syndrome is not ideal for training.
  • Show up five to ten minutes early. You need to be on court the time that training starts, not show up at the time. The minute training starts you want to be making progress. Be ready and warmed up!
  • Make sure you bring a water bottle. Walking to the water fountain may not seem like it takes that long, but the truth is that time adds up, and every step away from the court is an opportunity to lose focus and for your mind to wander. Stay close, be efficient, and stay focused!

MENTAL

  • Keep the goals close. If your goal is to medal at provincial championships, keep that in mind throughout practice, remind yourself why you are practicing, and why you need to be doing everything perfectly. 
  • Focus on what you can change. All sports are a battle with adversity. It is important to focus on the aspects of that adversity that you can affect. Your attitude, your effort, your play, control, focus ect. And not to get bogged down by the external things like poor shuttlecock quality, lighting, drafts, sick stomachs, or even training partners who aren’t as good or as focused as you are. Make sure you hold yourself to the standard you want to create, and let the rest go. 
  • Stress creates growth – embrace obstacles. Bright lights in the background? Just another opportunity to practice for the unknown obstacles at a tournament. Didn’t get the meal you wanted before practice? Training for those delayed games where you are standing for  hours waiting for your match to be called while they fix a broken court, or wait for the roof to quit leaking. (both have happened to me at international events). 

At the end of the day how we show up to practice/tournaments/off court trainings will dictate how the practice goes, and how we progress and improve.

I hope my tips were helpful. Comment and let me know of other things you do to make the most of practices!

If you want to work one on one with me check out this LINK and sign up for a call and say you would like to work with Kevin!

If you would like to support my training/competing/coaching feel free to donate below.

GoFundMe

Featured

Virtual Coaching

Photo by Kaleb Barkman

I recently partnered with Badminton Justin to offer professional virtual coaching! We provide on court and off court programming, match analysis, and much more.

We are a team of professional athletes and world class coaches who work together to give you everything you need to take your game to the next level.

Those of you who know me know I am passionate about making badminton accessible to everyone, and finding efficient, and better ways to train and improve. This is a big step in making knowledge and training accessible to everyone.

I love traveling the world, meeting new athletes and coaches and learning from everyone. This is a great way for me to pass on what I learn to more people.

If you are interested in signing up you can check out the website here, book a call here, or purchase here

2023 Forza Norwegian International

Norway was an exciting tournament. I had had some good time to train, was feeling fitter and faster than I have. I arrived in Norway the afternoon before I played and took a train to the city of the event where I went directly to the hall. Unfortunately they booked 8 people per court in half hour blocks. This meant I got very little time on the main courts. 

Tournament day arrived and I got ready to play. Didn’t feel top notch but felt focused and relaxed. I got on court against the 9/16 seed from Denmark, Mads Juel Møller, feeling confident I could play well. The first set went by with a poor scoreline. I wasn’t aggressive enough – the rallies were ok, but I never put enough pressure into the match. Karl Kurt, a player from Estonia came on court at the change of ends and challenged me to be more aggressive and move up in the court a lot more due to the very fast and oddly tumbling Forza shuttles. The second set was much better. I was able to control the match a lot more, and the game was tied up at 17-17. I missed a crucial net kill and lost a lot of confidence mentally and lost the next point as well. The match ended 21-18. Overall felt I played a good match, especially the second set. Mads is a strong player and able to control the court well. I was happy to play aggressively and move well. However I felt I needed a bit more edge at the end of the match – I didn’t stick to the game plan and ended up defending too much in the last 4 points. 

A lot of small things to work on, but also a lot of improvements. This is the slow, sometimes bitter journey of improvement. 

You can watch the match below. If you like my videos don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube!

If you want to support me here is the link to my gofundme

Austria and Germany Internationals

Photo by Norbert Karrer
Photo by Norbert Karrer

Austria Open in Graz was a wonderful experience. The city itself is beautiful, and the hall is great. I went straight from the airport to the hall and got 2 separate 1 hour practices in the day before my match. The shuttles we got at the venue were not the babolot shuttles we ended up playing with. They were a mix of Victor and Yonex.  The morning of my match I woke up feeling super sluggish, drank my coffee and did my routine, and knowing I was feeling sluggish I went the venue early and did a much longer than normal warm up. However first hit on the court I could tell the shuttles were insanely fast Babolot shuttles that flipped weird. I didn’t control the shuttle well and soon found myself trailing by quite a lot. I quickly let my frustration get the better of me and the match slipped away.  I spent a few hours afterwards very upset, frustrated, and disappointed in myself.  Right after the match another athlete came and talked to me, and said that he felt I needed to focus on being positive and looking at the things I did well instead of the things that were not going well. I had some good reminders from my coach as well not to waste energy on the negative and to instead focus on solutions, which thankfully I found, at least in part, in the next match in Bonn Germany. 

In Bonn the venue was quite small, and we used Yonex shuttles, something I am much more used to. Though my first  opponent had had some very good recent results, I was focused on playing well, and staying focused, and keeping the negative self talk at bay. I won my first match quite well, though I squandered a huge lead in the second set, and ended up winning quite close in two sets, I felt I played the way I needed to. Second match I played decently well, and had a close back and forth match where I made a few unfortunate errors that cost me the match in the end. 

Sports is hard, and development is hard. Not every day is a good day, and sometimes, even when we have good days we cannot quite manage the win. But we keep striving forward! I have Danmark Masters this week, and hope to bring my best game- but one day at time. First some coaching and training today! 

Thanks everyone 

Kevin 

If you want to support me financially you can donate through my GoFundMe or my BuyMeaCoffee

Luxembourg International

Luxembourg International

The Luxembourg International has to be one of the most challenging events I have faced recently due to a large number of factors. I flew in from Jamaica, boarded three different flights that I then had to get off of due to mechanical or crew issues, was delayed by more than a day, and missed my scheduled practice. I got less than half an hour on the main courts before my match. Despite my best efforts to plan for a day and a half to practice and recover from travel, and trying to set myself up to play well things didn’t go as planned. I did my best to shake the travel out of my legs, and compete, but I have never gotten on court feeling so sluggish and exhausted. I had 50 hours of travel, and no sleep weighing my legs down and it showed. I had a very winnable match against Spain in singles, but couldn’t pull it off. Lots to learn, and nothing to it but pushing forward for the next one!

If you would like to support me you can send me an email or donate through my GoFundMe

2021 Yonex Dutch Open

The airport in Amsterdam was exactly what I expected, – classic colors, odd white toilets, and lots of lights. The customs officers didn’t even glance my way as I walked through, and immigration officer simply smiled at me and stamped my passport with a  “enjoy your stay in Netherlands,” Her smile matched her accent – long and carefully pronounced. 

The lady who helped with my train ticket walked me through the changes and how the train worked. And while the different sized euro bills make a mash of your wallet most things worked smoothly. 

The things I didn’t expect were the lush jungle like farmland filled with little sheep, the way people wear winter parkas on summer like days through the sunshine, or how no one is ever remotely on time. The last one surprised me the most. 

The little tiny roads, and electric super slim semi trucks fit right in with the little electric cars and tiny fences and quaint little houses. The tall talkative people that can swap between more languages than I can count in brought up self made memories of every spy book I have read. 

I didn’t spend much time in Amsterdam as the tournament was in Almere. Almere, an Uber driver told me, is only 40 years old. The whole city, from the land it was built on is new. “Here in Holland we even build our own land,” he told me. 

The Venue for the BWF Yonex Dutch Open was beautiful. 4 courts in a wonderful stadium. The shuttles were a little slow, but nothing aggressive. White seating meant it was hard to see when there weren’t many fans. 

In the same building but across the hallway was another gym with 16 practice courts. An amazing set-up which allowed us to practice twice a day on the lead up to the tournament as well as every morning before matches began. 

I played against a player from India with the trickiest hands I have faced. A few things became really clear watching the video of myself losing – I need more speed, and more attack. While I rallied well with, and the game had its ups and downs, and there were definitely some tactical errors on my part, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was that when I built myself the chance in the rally I wasn’t speeding up enough to take advantage of it. There were other technical and tactical things of course, which will be added to my training. But thats a whole other story! 

In doubles we won our first match against a Netherland and Irish pair, and then lost out to a faster paced Malaysian pair. 

The Dutch Open moved my ranking up to 267 in the world. 

I am currently in Czech Republic for the BWF Li-Ning Czech International Series. I play my first doubles at 9am  local time on Thursday, and then my singles at 1:40pm. 

Thank you everyone for your support! 

If you would like to help me on my journey financially you can contact me about sponsorship opportunities or donate through this LINK.

Mexico and Guatemala

Learning doesn’t happen overnight – sometimes it takes some hard losses.

After almost two years of not competing I flew to Aguascalientes to compete in the Mexico International Challenge. After a long day of travel I arrived about half hour too late to practice due to covid cleaning. The following day I had one practice scheduled. We were given Yonex AS 40 shuttlecocks for practice. Fast, but lightly tipped were very controllable. 

Once the games started it was announced they ran out of Yonex shuttles, and would be using Trekke birds which had been used for the two week training camp that had happened before the tournament. These were tipped half way down the feather and flipped quite different and were hard to control. 

My game lasted over an hour. I struggled to control the bird and used mostly neutral shots trying not to make errors while my opponent played freely. While a disappointing and frustrating loss I left excited to train and with some clear goals to reach. 

Two weeks later I spent 26 hours in transit to go to Guatemala City for the Guatemala International Series. Another adventure ensued as flights were delayed, airport shuttles never arrived and there were issues with hotel bookings. Eventually I got on court for my match, won my first game, and then in another three set battle that turned out to be mostly mental on my end I lost to fellow Canadian Kevin Lee whom I had beaten in our last meeting. I had fixed many of the technical and physical issues that had plagued me, but my mental rhythm for matches severely lacked. I played focused, but often focused on the wrong things. Overthinking or playing too many different tactics at once.

I returned to Manitoba with a lot to work on, mostly mental. Lots to do with tactics and building the mental side of what to focus on when. 

These two tournaments helped me reach a ranking of 278 in the world. Which means I am part of the way back to where I was pre covid shutdown. 

Covid has been tough on everyone, and taking an almost two year break from competition definitely has its downfalls. Lack of match practice and tournament practice is one of them. But there are perks as well. I have made gains on my fitness and movement and my training has improved. I am injury free, and haven’t been sick or missed practice in a long time. 

If you want to watch the Mexico and Guatemala matches you can find them below. 

If you would like to help me on my journey financially you can contact me about sponsorship opportunities or donate through this LINK. 

BWF Yonex Mexico Challenge Video

BWF Yonex Guatemala First round Video

BWF Yonex Guatemala Second Round video

Showing Up Ready

Showing up ready to train is a big deal when it  comes to having meaningful       practices. Being ready involves a few different aspects. The physical aspect, are you there with all the equipment you need, on time, with your body ready to put the work in? And the mental side, are you there focused and mentally prepared for the adversity that is training?

Here are some tips I have found helpful for getting ready to train.

IMG_1281

PHYSICAL      

  • Don’t eat a heavy meal before  training. This may seem like old hat, but showing up to training feeling the weariness of post meal nap syndrome is not ideal for training.
  • Show up five to ten minutes early. You need to be on court the time that training starts, not show up at the time. The minute training starts you want to be making progress. Be ready and warmed up!
  • Make sure you bring a water bottle. Walking to the water fountain may not seem like it takes that long, but the truth is that time adds up, and every step away from the court is an opportunity to lose focus and for your mind to wander. Stay close, be efficient, and stay focused!

Barkman_Badminton-4

MENTAL

  • Keep the goals close. If your goal is to medal at provincial championships, keep that in mind throughout practice, remind yourself why you are practicing, and why you need to be doing everything perfectly. 
  • Focus on what you can change. All sports are a battle with adversity. It is important to focus on the aspects of that adversity that you can affect. Your attitude, your effort, your play, control, focus ect. And not to get bogged down by the external things like poor shuttlecock quality, lighting, drafts, sick stomachs, or even training partners who aren’t as good or as focused as you are. Make sure you hold yourself to the standard you want to create, and let the rest go. 
  • Stress creates growth – embrace obstacles. Bright lights in the background? Just another opportunity to practice for the unknown obstacles at a tournament. Didn’t get the meal you wanted before practice? Training for those delayed games where you are standing in  for  hours waiting for your match to be called while they fix a broken court, or wait for the roof to quit leaking. (both have happened to me at international events). 

At the end of the day how we show up to practice/tournaments/off court trainings will dictate how the practice goes, and how we progress and improve.

I hope my tips were helpful. Comment and let me know of other things you do to make the most of practices!

 

Canada Open 2019 2

If you would like to support my training/competing/coaching feel free to donate below.

If you would like to purchase on or off court programming, virtual coaching or match analysis email me at kibarkman@gmail.com

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