In my last post on Interaction, I wrote that I volunteered to coach the UBC badminton team. Although most of the league play was just for exhibition purposes only, a few players decided to compete in the 2017 College/University Nationals at the University of Laval last weekend. Some players who regularly compete also joined the team, and although we were missing one female player, we were able to form a team for the team event. As the entire trip was self funded for everyone, including myself, it was a great learning experience for everyone. Perhaps it’s always a bit different when it’s on your own ‘dime’.

The team mostly arrived on different flights but we were able to share an AirBnB fairly close to the tournament venue. I actually was the last to get in on Thursday night and play began with the team event the next day. Unfortunately, there was a coach meeting at 8am the next morning, so I had to leave early to attend it. Although I could have taken the bus, I decided to take a 45 minute walk to the venue. Despite the -13 degree weather, it was a pretty good walk as it was the only exercise I would get that day. At the coach meeting, the tournament referee went through the rules and we were stuck with a major disadvantage. I had entered the team with one less female player (they were looking for four men and four women per team), but we could only manage three. As the rule at the time was that players could only play a single event (which is different from international rules), we would have to disqualify a match. Additionally, we found out later in the tournament that we were to announce which match we would default, and the other team was allowed to rearrange their players. I argued with the tournament referee about this issue, as it was likely a double handicap against teams with only 3 female players (University of Toronto had a similar issue). The argument was that the other team should not be allowed to make changes to their line up based on the match we would choose to be disqualified from. This happened during our 2nd team match where we tried to strategically default a match. We knew that Women’s Doubles would be quite strong for our opponents, so we wanted to throw that match and play the other 4. However, upon finding out we chose not to play Women’s Doubles, they were able to shift their strongest player that they placed in Women’s Doubles and put her into Mixed Doubles. Despite my protest, we were left to keep this handicap for the rest of the tournament.

Before I continue with the events of the tournament, I would like to take a moment to discuss the expectations that I had for the tournament. I knew that some of the players were not as strong as others, and I also have not really worked with any of the players too extensively. I realized right away that this is a similar situation that National Team players go through with the National Team coaches for the past 8 years. However, since I knew of the similarities, I had the chance to make a difference to see if I could make any changes. Basically, the mindset was, “If I was coaching myself, what do I want from the coach as an athlete?” Based on this question, I was able to talk with athletes earlier (most of the time) and asked them how I could best help them, and what kind of coaching that they wanted from me. In my experience as a player, I have rarely seen this request from a coach. Perhaps they may feel their job is to help me by telling me what to do, but if they don’t know how to best help me, then is it really going to be that helpful in the end?

Additionally, I expected that different players would need different approaches to coaching, and I had to adapt to each player, sometimes even within the same partnership. I had to make sure they were able to execute my strategies and that they knew that I am only going to assist them very slightly. I was also quite firm in letting them know my strengths and weaknesses as a coach, especially for the singles players because my expertise in that event is very limited. I tried my best to recap with the players after their matches afterwards, and I challenged them to think and treat each match as a learning experience instead of worrying about winning or losing.

To continue with the tournament, we had 2 rounds of the Team Event on Friday, then it went straight into the Singles events, followed with the Team Event semifinals in the evening. It was a lot of coaching and I was basically moving from one match to the other, with times that I had to leave a player and move onto another court if they were able to manage themselves. Because of this, I would have to give coaching strategies that the players can adapt themselves and hopefully they could think for themselves throughout the game. It was non-stop coaching all the way until from 11:00 AM to 10:30 PM, and I only really had a chance to eat a protein bar and one of my players bought me a wrap (thank you!). I have seen this happen at tournaments before, but I suppose it was the first time I’ve really experienced this high volume coaching. I know it can be really tiring for coaches, but for my first time, I was still very engaged and time just kind of went by.

The next morning, we started early as the first match was on at 9:30am. I didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast except for some coffee, and it was a much more challenging day with the doubles events in the morning and early afternoon. Unfortunately, most of our players did not perform as well, probably due to lack of sleep and fatigue from the previous day, but they kept up their best effort in their consolation matches. Additionally, there were some really strong teams including some other current National Team players. There were some difficult losses, but I did my best to keep encouraging the athletes to learn from their mistakes and make small adjustments in future matches. I think I finally got a break around 4pm that day, when 2 of our teams were to play each other in the consolation semifinal. However, we had to have our team 3/4 playoff at 6pm, so I did my best to prepare the team for that. I did not bring my badminton equipment on the first day, but on the second, I decided it might be good to do some easy drills to better prime the athletes for certain things they may face in their matches. Although I didn’t get  chance to do it before the individual event, I had a few moments where I was able to adjust a player’s tactical skills by running them through short sequences that were likely to come up in their matches. Most of the players really liked it, but I am only taking something I see coaches do with their players at high level international events. The fact that I have playing ability is also a great benefit because I can feed and do light sparring with players as necessary.

The bronze medal team event playoff had a surprising twist, as a few players from the other team didn’t want to play as they had individual event semifinals later in the evening. The opposing coach and I tried to come up with an agreement if we could have 1 player on each team double up to make it even, but the tournament referee did not allow it to happen. Because of this, it ended up that the opposing team had to give up one event as well, and it came down to the 3 doubles events: men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles. We made some last minute adjustments to our line up in agreement with the team, and it happened to work out beautifully as we kept our women’s doubles line up, but we were able to sub-out one of our players who was quite fatigued from the 2 days of matches. We took the mixed doubles match first, then lost a close women’s doubles. But our men’s doubles team came through in the end to take the final match and we came through with the bronze medal. Additionally, on the next day, as there was a player from UBC that only chose to play the individual event, he was able to get a bronze medal in men’s singles. It was a great finish to the tournament, with nobody left empty handed, and I am so grateful to get a bronze medal at my first major coaching event!

Of course it didn’t end there, as the team went to the mall for lunch before some of them left to return home. It was an opportune time to get feedback from everyone and I am really glad I did that when I had the chance to. Although I had to do some of the feedback in groups, I think everyone was able to be engaged and learn from other people’s experiences as well. I first asked players for feedback on what they liked and didn’t like about my coaching style, and then I would give them additional feedback on their overall performance and perhaps some additional steps to consider. It was a great way to communicate with the players and I was able to connect with each player in the end. Although I may not have come to a mutual agreement with every player, I did my best to leave the conversation with a question for them to find their own answer. For example, one player gave me feedback that the presentation of my coaching was too passive, and at critical moments of the match when the player was “fired up”, it felt like it was too passive to him. I first countered with a question: “Do you feel you play better when you are angry?” to get a bit more context, and since the player felt he played better when he was angry, I told him to think why I might have chosen to speak more “passively”. However, I did end with agreeing with him that if he feels it is better for me to be more “active” when he’s in his “fired up” state, I would do so in the future and that I apologized that we could not have discussed it earlier. I still challenged him to look for evidence in knowing if he really was playing better when he was “angry” and that based on what I saw, it did not appear to be true. But I left it at that by saying that I do not really know either, and in the future, I would seek to communicate with him earlier and deliver what he wants from me.

This was the general approach I took with most players as they are not my regular students. I think I might have been a bit more critical if they were my players, but I would also have set accountability higher. Since we had no time to make any changes, accountability was only a recommendation for a future event, so I worked with what I had. Based on my coaching philosophy, I think I did quite well. I took a process approach instead of an outcome approach in that I challenged the athletes to simply play their next match better instead of worrying about whether they won or not. I had to put my ego away and asked for feedback on my coaching, which was a great learning experience for everyone. I led by example by not giving up on my players, and in return, they didn’t gave up on me. I made sure I was adaptable as much as I could. Lastly, I did my best to add value to everyone. I did not know everyone very well, but I think I definitely made a much more lasting connection with everyone by the end of the event.

Overall, the experience was amazing. I pretty much funded the entire trip with my prize money bonus from winning the mixed doubles title at this year’s Senior National Championships, but I still think it was worth it. It would be similar to doing a weekend coaching clinic and I will definitely treasure the experience from this weekend for the rest of my life. I now have a better understanding of how other coaches feel when they are coaching these events, but I hope I never stay content and always try to be a better coach. However, I do understand that I have a benefit that many other coaches don’t have: I can still compete, and there is a good chance I could beat my players in competition. I think that this advantage automatically saves me the trouble of having to earn the trust of the athlete. They usually will give me the benefit of the doubt. However, based on their feedback, there were a few times they felt that they couldn’t execute the strategy and would rather have done something else. This was very valuable to me, and I will learn from this by making sure I tell the athletes that their own game plan together should always supercede my advice. They know themselves better and they are the ones on court playing. I think it helps for me to take this attitude based on my first 2 coaching philosophy principles: process over outcome, and ego.

To close, I would like to thank the athletes for the opportunity to work with them. As many of them appreciate my help this weekend, I really appreciate that they gave me the chance to coach them, as I am not their regular coach. I hope it has been win-win for everyone, and I look forward to a future opportunity to become a better coach and develop better players. And of course, I would like to thank the UBC HPCTL program for teaching me such incredible advances in coaching science that I only wish I knew earlier. Thanks for reading!

Interaction with others is a necessary thing, one way or another. We are all social creatures and I don’t think we would survive very long without the help of others. In a sport setting, it becomes extremely difficult if you need to do everything on your own. Although I have experienced doing a lot of things by myself as a player, I would never discount the assistance and efforts of those who have helped me along the way. I am who I am because of my interactions with others.

Perhaps it’s not the concept of whether we are interacting or not, but rather who we choose to do our interactions with. Perhaps there is also a level of comfort with certain people which causes us to stay where we are. Looking at my history as a player, I’ve been through many coaches. I would not expect anything else as a coach, for I have already coached many people. However, in badminton, there is a certain level of choice and our system has created personal coaches and National Team coaches (event only). Personal coaches would generally work with players in the same club, whereas National Team coaches would work with all eligible players who qualified for the event to represent Canada. Although the latter appears to be more important, both are required. It is analogous to considering whether training or competing is more important: both are necessary.

Given this level of choice, for a player to choose where they want to train is significant, as much as a coach choosing which athletes to take on personally. There is also a large transactional factor, where there are times coaches won’t say “no” if it gets food on the table. We are not always at the luxury to choose who we coach by specializing, but it can happen. Conversely, players choose coaches that may not always be the best fit. For example, former international players from strong badminton countries are often immediately seen as a good coach. But in my defense, as a Canadian athlete and coach, I have my own marketing strategies I will be using in the future. This is just business, and the interactions are often transactional: trading time and service for money.

However, despite the business of things, there are those who volunteer their time and service because they love the sport and want to see it grow. Maybe it gives them meaning and they enjoy doing what they do. I very much admire those people and I try to be one of them as well as best I can. Despite a busy schedule, I have volunteered to coach UBC’s badminton team for the season. Although they don’t have many events (only 4), there is an opportunity to play at the University Nationals in March 2017, which can qualify the winners to represent Canada at the World University Championships in Taiwan (August 2017). Although I may not be at all the events based on my own competition schedule, I do my best to lead practices and give players things to work on when they can.

Working with the UBC team has given me opportunities to demonstrate the core competency in a few ways. I ran two tryouts, with the first to filter out the best group of players (there were about 50 people who tried out), and with the second tryout, I was able to develop a core team (18 players). However, I really limited cutting the players and offered any people who made the second tryout a chance to continue practicing with the team. Despite a short season, there are other events that athletes might play, and I do my best to watch them play if possible. This is all on my own time, but it feels good to make that difference.

Of course there are reasons for me to keep a larger team, because I believe more players offer more depth, and also more people to train with. As a player, small team sizes make training extremely difficult, and training becomes less effective. To avoid this situation, I chose to have more people on the team. Additionally, expenses will be divided more evenly, and it becomes a lot more affordable to share the expenses for court time and equipment (e.g. shuttles). However, outside of practice, I know most people will gravitate back to their own social circles. This weekend, the team is competing at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo. Unfortunately, I am currently in Edmonton (with one additional team member) competing at the Alberta Elite Series, which is a national circuit tournament. I trust the assistant coach and management team will manage the team appropriately. As much as I’m used to doing things on my own, I think this is a good lesson for me in letting go and delegating the job to a capable team. I trust they will do very well.

I also left the team a team-bonding exercise (maybe to satisfy my desire to do something even though I won’t be there). The exercise is simple: have a list of all the players and management staff on the team, and find a common interest with each person. There were a few rules, to prevent people from having a list of everyone saying “badminton” or worse, “living”. Another included that you cannot have the same item on your list more than once, so a player can’t go around asking people if they like “sushi” and have a cluster of “sushi” answers. Despite this ‘homework’ assignment, the purpose of the exercise is to create conversation between people that may not know each other off the court. I understand that there is that “fear of rejection” that lives in our minds when we meet new people, and sometimes that becomes a hindrance to initiating what could have been a great friendship. Additionally, since I know people would gravitate to their cliques, I want to minimize the chances that people would be left out. I understand that sometimes people may want some alone time, but I want to provide options for them if they don’t and are forced to be alone.

The second reason for this exercise is that it becomes more difficult to be in conflict with someone if you have a shared interest. Despite the many differences we have, it is often the similarities that hold us together. Also, if I have to be the person to resolve a conflict, I can use an analogy based on their share interest to resolve the conflict. For example, if two players don’t agree with a particular strategy, but love pizza, we would go eat pizza and I would tell them,

“Badminton tactics are like pizza flavours. If you keep on eating the same flavour, it gets boring. Sometimes you need to switch it up and try something else. However, the switch doesn’t need to be proportional, you just need to change. Then you will either decide that you actual like this flavour better, or you will realize that you still love your original flavour. This is the same as badminton strategies. Sometimes you need to use a different tactic to throw your opponent off, before returning to the former tactic, or keeping the new one if it is effective. There often is no “half-and-half” pizza, so you both need to agree on which pizza you want to start with, just as much as you can’t have both people using different tactics at the same time.”

Yes, I know it might be a bit cheesy (pun intended), but these kind of lessons and interactions are often the most memorable. In terms of the changes I have developed in this core competency, I would say that reading “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey was a very good read for me, especially his habit: “Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood”. I do suppose we often all have our own perceptions about the world and how it operates and we are seeing what we see through our own distortions, usually comprised of our beliefs, values, and former experiences. This concept has forced me to ask more questions to others as a way of trying to understand their perspective better. As much as I do want to try to “put myself in their shoes”, perhaps it’s not actually the best analogy, as it might mean simply asking, “What would I do in their situation?” and still be armed with my current resources and knowledge. If anything, I am still practicing how to “perceive as they perceive” and truly empathize with them, to better understand their situation. I may not have to agree with it, but I hope this practice can help me understand people better. I would definitely need more time to work on this and I will update in the next blog post for this core competency.

Additionally, another change I am trying to implement is to judge others less and accept more. We often find solutions for other people’s problems so much easier because we see it objectively and are free of their “emotional baggage” tied to the situation. Hence, seeking understanding when interacting with others would be an effective strategy. However, for my own purposes and problems, to look at the situation objectively, perhaps from an outside perspective while eliminating as much “emotional baggage” as possible may offer new insights to solving my own problems. Perhaps I will have an example for next time.