The Badminton World Federation (BWF) continues to promote the development of our sport at all levels, and the education and training resources for players, technical officials, administrators and coaches are part of this.
Sharon Springer works as an Education Resources Manager at BWF and was part of the development team of the pilot course for coaches level 3 in Asia, Europe and Pan Am, evaluating the coaches and conducting the course to adapt it to the different contexts in the badminton world.
“I am in charge of Education at BWF, that is, everything that has to do with the preparation of coaches, those who handle the events, a bit of technical officials, all the programs we have to train the Associations to manage their tournaments, players, administrators, everything necessary to strengthen the entire system. We see all this in BWF and ensure the integral development of all Associations in the world.”
Within the training programs for trainers is this new course, Coach level 3, which leads the coaches to think beyond the technique and to direct the athletes to a more complete development that leads them to succeed after facing different game situations.
“The level 3 course is the highest point in the preparation of coaches so far. We always talk about a trajectory for players, from base to the podium, but for players to do that it is necessary coaches to guide them on that path. Coach Level 1 and 2 Courses are based on the player’s performance on the court, but level 3 takes a step back to help the coach contemplate his role in a different way to contribute to the development of the players, while going deeper because it examines the level of the elite coach and how we can move from a system in which the coach tells the player what to do, which limits the process, to the coach’s role as the person who helps the player to progress, helping him/her learn to think, solve their problems and make decisions. That is why it is a very interesting course because it helps the coach to have a holistic and specialized vision at the same time. ”
In the last Pan Am Games 2019, we could see that the majority of coaches that accompanied the athletes participating in the competition were from our region, which shows that more associations are committed to their local coaches for high performance and at the same time evidence a good development of our sport throughout the region.
Springer has been trained as a coach, 7 years ago she took the Coach level 1 course in Costa Rica, and knows about the evolution of our sport in recent years.
“I took the Coach Level 1 Course in 2012 and I was just getting involved with badminton as a new fan. From there, the coaches base in the region has grown. Now we have coaches who are able to take the kids who have learned badminton at the school level and give them a little more training. That has been a first step, having a lot of coaches to catch a lot of kids, and that’s important, because if those coaches don’t do their job well, the players leave. We already have in the region many coaches level 1 but also a good number of coaches level 2, where they are already in the next step and we can see the professionalism, the level of knowledge, planning, processes, etc., and we hope that with level 3 the development continues to be strengthened.”
