Austria and Germany Internationals

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

2022 Guatemala International

Guatemala – Quarter Finals!

There has been a lot going on, and I have been working hard to improve different aspects of my game, especially the mental side of the game. Playing in Europe for the past couple months really opened my eyes to different to parts of my game. I was really happy to go to Guatemala and win my first two matches taking me into the quarter finals. A lot of small pieces started falling into place. I made different errors in my quarter final, which just means more work to be done.

Support me through GOFUNDME! or email, or comment about other ways to partner together.

Thank you to everyone for the support!

2022 BWF Mexico International Challenge

After a long run in Europe I was barely home a week before heading to Aguascalientes for the Mexico Challenge. I won my first singles against Mexico and then lost a tough game against Japan. In doubles we won a tough game but lost in three sets to Guatemala in a match that was very disappointing to lose. We had a good chance but couldn’t manage it in the end.

Thankful to be competing again. My time in Denmark training and competing turned out to be very profitable as I slowly match by match fix things that were identified while I was there.

Video: https://youtu.be/vdZWvPkdiNY

I can’t do this alone. Thanks to my sponsors Yonex Canada, Sweaty Training and Conditioning, Dynamic Athletic Therapy and Chiropractic, Supplement King Steinbach, and many individuals. If you want to help me out send me a message or check out 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.

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!

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

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Keeping Things Simple

Building on the last few blog posts about training. I would like to move forward to the next topic – keeping training simple. This goes hand in hand with my past posts about focus and intentionality. It is another piece of the puzzle that I have been working on recently.

Keeping training simple has a few different aspects, and a lot of benefits. It is easy to waste a lot of time on the non essentials. I have found that in trying to fix everything at once I inevitably fix nothing. This means that the first step towards simplifying training is creating tangible and focused improvement goals. Let me give you an example.

Let’s say I need to fix my backhand side defense. Working with my coach I realize I have two major issues that are hindering all the rest. The first is a lack of strength in my left leg when I get low. The second is a technical issue of my contact with the shuttlecock. There could be lots of other things in my game that need fixed. Maybe I need a harder a smash, and need to come to the net faster. Those are things that will be addressed in “general training” all that time you spend on court doing various drills. But looking at my matches, perhaps I am rarely able to get into a position to smash and follow to the net quickly because I end up making errors on my backhand defense. To balance my game out I will spend a significant amount of time on my backhand defense.

Following the example above I would need to keep practices focused on one of two things, my leg strength, or my technical issues with my BH defense. I could separate these into two separate training sessions. Perhaps at home I could do pause lateral lunges and RLE split squats to build some leg strength. On the court I would break my practice into a very few drills to work on my BH defense.

I kept one goal at a time – BH defense. Then I broke that goal into two main parts, and separated them into different practices. I would follow that up and keep the number of exercises to a minimum as well. Pick the most efficient ways to improve and stick to those. Make sure the quality is really high and you are staying mentally focused. Time and energy are both limited. Make the best use of both and stay focused on the goal you set for yourself.

How do you keep your practices focused on specific goals? Let me know in the comments!

Onward and upward!

Kevin

A Home Badminton Session

I wrote out this short simple footwork session for a few of my students, but realized it may be helpful to others as well. I encourage you to try it and let me know how it goes!

First off, why footwork?

Footwork is a few different things, but in large part it is a skill. Something that needs practiced and perfected. There is a physical and fitness element to it, as in all sports, but it is foremost a skill. The timing, rhythm, foot position, hip position etc are all critically important.

Whenever you do footwork you should give yourself specific skills to work on. For me during my footwork today I was working on the timing and push off my left foot. Watching my hip position and the timing of bringing my racket foot in towards the split step.

Footwork Session

Warm Up – 2 rounds

10/side low lunge with reach

25 low squats

50 jumping jacks

Footwork 30 seconds rest between each set 20 sets of 20 corners

5 sets of 20 front 4 defense corners

5 sets of 20 late back court to late front court

5 sets 20 2 corner defense

5 sets of 20 defense and back court

3 rounds fitness

5 Pushups

10 supermans

10/side bird dogs

10/side banded fire hydrant

50 skipping rope or pogo hops

10/side lateral lunges

Core 3 rounds

15 hollow rocks

25 Russian twists

20 plank shoulder touches

20 superman planks

You may notice that all the footwork for this session is defense position footwork. That was done on purpose as the goal was timing the push and finding that hip position in defense. I did my session in the grass. But you can do it in your garage, basement, living room, driveway, anywhere you can find space!

Don’t forget to stay low and push with the non racket foot, don’t pull with the racket foot!

If you have questions please comment below. Or tell me how your training is going during this period of physical isolation!

Onward and upward

Team Spirit – Help Others Help You

You won’t improve alone. You need people to help you, and you need them to improve too.

The last few posts I have talked a lot about personal development. I want to take that a step farther and talk about team development, and why I think we all need a team with us, and behind us.

You can do a lot of work on your own. If you are really smart, you can do quite a large portion of work by yourself. In the gym, outside, even footwork. It is hard to go beyond just putting in work if you don’t have people behind you.

Having people behind you can look vastly different depending on your level, and your access to professional advice. As a junior athlete, and my first few years out of juniors I did not have a consistent coach that I worked with. From a very young age I made it a habit of connecting with coaches and athletes wherever I went. The majority of my years as a junior athlete I created all my own training plans and led my own practices. This meant that I relied heavily on the advice of other coaches and athletes. I would ask a load of questions every tournament. Talk to athletes, ask how they trained, and what they thought my biggest weaknesses were. I asked coaches how to improve and what I should fix before the next tournament. I created a network of people who helped me.

As I have improved and moved into international competition I found that I need a lot more input and the improvements were much smaller and more precise. Both on and off court. I am very thankful I found professionals to help guide my improvement. That is a story for another blog post. I began working with Gao badminton for my on court and Jeff at Sweaty Training for my off court training. Now I have people behind me, supporting me. But that is only half the story. The title includes the word “Team” and that is the critical next step.

You need good teammates to help you train – and you need them to be improving with you.

On court especially you need to have good people to train with, and compete with. You need people who will push you, feed you quality drills, and keep you accountable for always doing your best.

Having good teammates means being a good teammate, and fostering the kind of culture you want to train in. You want someone to feed you good drills, stay focused, and keep the quality high? Then make sure you aren’t slacking when it is your turn to feed. Do you want constructive criticism, and positive engagement? Make sure you are being constructive and positive.

Being the teammate you want to have around has other positive side effects. If you are focused during your time feeding drills you will find yourself improving more. You will also have teammates who are improving and helping push you more and more.

Improvement is multifaceted. There are a lot of things you do on your own, but there are also things you need other people for. It is important for me to be the kind of teammate I want around. It helps everyone, which in turn helps me.

Onward and upward folks!

Let me know what you think, and your own ideas for train in the comments.

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The Right Headspace – Being Focused

It is time to put your ex’s texts and your poor grades on the back burner and put some work in.

Life is a confusing mess, full of things that require our attention and our loyalty. Take that from the kid who has played tournaments during moves, breakups, friend’s illnesses, family sickness, loss of friends, and pretty much anything else that could confuse or distract from performance.

All of those things in life are important, and worthy of your time, consideration, and energy. Sport is different though, it can’t be split up or divided. It cannot share headspace, and it requires attention to detail. This means several things to me. I can use sport to give myself a break from the confusion of whatever is happening outside. But I also can use it to train myself to focus on one thing at a time. The truth is that most things in life shouldn’t share headspace. Learning to focus on one thing at a time is an invaluable skill. Performance always requires undivided attention, sports included. The problem is, performance isn’t always our number one concern – it becomes such when we partake in things like sports, test taking, or flying helicopters.

Focusing at tournaments starts with focus at training. You need practice focusing intently. You also gain a lot more from training when you are focused well. We need to learn how to focus well!

I have been competing for a lot of years, been reading books on sports psychology for almost as many years, and I have a few tricks that work for me. However, like all things you will need to find what works for you. I am no sports psychologist, and while I have worked with a few, the following is simply an explanation of what works for me – don’t just mimic me, find your own set of tools!

Put the phone away! The first, and simplest thing I do before practice and before competition is put my phone away at least half an hour before I get on court. If it is a tournament often putting the phone away first thing in the morning helps me stay focused on competing.

Visualize. It is often the unknown that scares us. Visualizing helps run through every scenario. Have you ever been in a situation on court where you just lost three straight points and your tactics aren’t working? I have. The easiest solution is to run through the different possibilities before the match and contemplate how you will respond. That way whatever happens you have already been there. You aren’t unprepared and taken by surprise. You are mentally prepared and focused. You have been there before, and played it through,

Find something concrete to focus on. Don’t let the what-if’s get you off your game. Find something concrete to focus on. This plays out in several different ways for me. I often use my racket grip as my focal point. I feel it, and concentrate on its texture and position in my hand, as well as the tension in my hand. This helps me remain calm and in the moment. I also give myself specifics to focus on in the rally. Have I been giving away the net? Hanging back too far? Then I give myself the goal of taking control of the net and getting there early. Your mind can’t wander if it is working hard on something!

Breathing. There are lots of different breath protocols for efficient energy use, focus, remaining calm, getting pumped up, ect. But there are a few very simple things I try to focus on. Nasal breathing – between rallies using nasal breathing helps keep me calm while helping drop my heart rate. Hard exhales– get rid of that carbon dioxide! There are lots of other breathing techniques, but those two things help me the most.

Stay focused, stay in the moment!

Hopefully this was insightful and interesting. Have your own techniques for staying focused? Share them in the comments!

Onward and upward!

Tag: athletics

Austria and Germany Internationals

Luxembourg International

2022 Guatemala International

2022 BWF Mexico International Challenge

2021 Yonex Dutch Open

Showing Up Ready

cMake a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Keeping Things Simple

A Home Badminton Session

Team Spirit – Help Others Help You

The Right Headspace – Being Focused

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