QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Skills and Techniques
This section has been created to help you understand how to go about answering Higher and Intermediate 2 exam questions.
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Describe the skills or techniques required to perform well in Badminton.
Badminton is a competitive game with complex skills. I think there are four main categories of skills: Service: Overhead shots: Underarm shots and Backhand shots. It is essential to be able to play these well if a player is to be successful.
There are three basic serves - High: Low: and Flick
The Overhead Shots - Overhead Clear: Smash: Drop shot
The Underarm Shots - Underarm Clear: Net Shot: Lob: and Drive.
These shots, along with playing them on the backhand, cover a range that can be played to attack successfully or to defend successfully against an opponent.
The Serves
The High Service allows you to move the opponent to as far back on the court as possible, thus opening up the court.
The Low Service is played when you want the opponent to lift the shuttle.
The Flick Service when you are under pressure from an opponent rushing into the net on a Low service or to fake a low service and play the High serve.
The Overhead shots allow three different opportunities. (a) The defensve shot of a clear to the back of the court. (b) The fastest attacking shot of the smash, and (c) an attacking shot when the opponent is at the back of the court- the Dropshot.
The Underarm shots are similar in that they allow (a) attack with a net shot when the opponent is far back (b) the opportunity to lift the shuttle over the opponent if he is at the front of the net, with a lob, and (c) attacking the opponent with a fast flat drive of the shuttle, horizontally over the net, when it is too low to be returned with a smash.
It is also essential to learn to play these shots on the backhand side so that the opponent cannot gain an advantage by playing the shuttle there and you are unable to return it.
Describe, in detail, how you gathered information about your performance.
We used two methods to gather information. (a) An Initial Observation Schedule, and (b) A Focused Observation Schedule.
We first of all played a competitive game of badminton against a classmate. We had two partners helping to gather information. The first one called out every shot you played and whether it was an effective shot or not, eg. High Serve - Good. The following levels of effectiveness were used - Poor: Good: Very Good. The other partner recorded this information onto a simple initial observation schedule, using abbreviations for the shots and descriptions.
(Notice - this is a DESCRIPTION! It is not explaining why you used this method)
Once this was complete you took the data and analysed it. (In other words you discovered your strengths and weaknesses, and therefore the area most needing developed.)
Because you now knew your strengths and weaknesss you were able to focus on the area most needing developed. This was done using a MODEL PERFORMANCE, which you compared your performance against i.e. Using MODEL CRITERIA on a FOCUSED OBSERVATION SCHEDULE. - A sheet containing the skill broken down into the three areas of Preparation; Action : Recovery, which were further broken down into sub-routines. You had a video of your performance and were able to replay it or/and play it in slow motion so that you could observe every detail of the skill. By breaking the skill down into its sub-routines you could observe whether or not you carried out that action similar to the model performance. (A simple tick or cross indicated whetether is was 'good' or 'needed work') This helped you find out where you were going wrong and let you know what exactly you needed to work on in your training to improve your performance.
Describe in detail an improvement programme used to develop the skill or technique
Choose the skill which needs to be developed, eg. the Overhead Clear
There are three important stages in learning and developing skills: The Preparation Stage; the Practice Stage; The Automatic Stage.
By taking the Model Criteria you already have the skill broken down into its sub-routines (The Preparation Stage) Now the skill is practised through building up the skill step-by-step. Mistakes are common here therefore it is good to have encouragement and motivation from your coach/teacher. At this stage the learning and developing can be a very quick process because you already have experience and some practical ability in playing the shot. It is the LINKING of all the sub-routines together to create the skill. (Combining the several parts together now needs to be strengthened and this is referred to as CONSOLDATING the skill). This is done by finding the correct method of Practice you will use to build the skill further. (The Practice Stage).(Skills can be simple,open, complex or closed and different types of practice have to be considered.)
The first practice method used was to SHADOW the movement of the skill without hitting a shuttle. Then, introducing the shuttle , try to play it to the back of the opponent's court. (Remember this is working with a partner who is 'feeding' the shuttle for you and not competitive) It can be a good idea to build in target to aim for otherwise boredom can set in. These targets can gradually get smaller. This is moving onto REPETITION practices ie. you are repeating a particular movement. This is a good way to groove the skill/ technique. (See L&L p71 for more focused detail)
The next method is to build in REPETITIVE DRILLS. This helps you move back and forward from the base position to play the skill. Different degrees of difficulty/pressure can be built in these types of practice but initially you would work together with a partner/coach/teacher to learn ad develop the movement towards the skill. Eventually over time the skill becomes automatic in performance and you begin to pay little attention to the actual playing of the shot. Concentration moves to things like the flight of the shuttle or speed of your attack. Errors are less likely at this stage because of the higher level of performance. As you move into this kind of practice (The Automatic Stage) the practices become more game-like and competitive so that you progressively improve.
It is extremely important to realise that practices have a work/rest built into them when planning. Also keep the practices demanding and work at a performance level otherwise it may not push you to improve. This is the principle of progression and is very important. Keep the quality of practices high. Think about quality not quantity, therefore practice ove a short time may be better than a long time.
Describe how you used motivation during your programme
When learning skills, especially new ones, it is crucial to have MOTIVATION. This is the driving force behind learning and developing the skill. Malcolm Thorburn describes it as "Your level of desire to succeed.". The more motivated you are the harder you will work to achieve what it is you workig for, eg. the school championship. Therefore, you need an objective, a long-term goal to aim for. As you work towards this you set 'motivational goals' - short-term objectives eg. improving your technique of a specific skill.
There are two types of motivation - (a) Internal or Intrinsic, and (b) External or Extrinsic.
Internal motivation is motivation that comes from inside of you - an interest, a personal desire to succeed to improve or for a sense of achievement. (It is important for you to have your own goals here.)
External motivation is that which comes from other sources - medals and trohies; money; fame etc. People can motivate you - mum, dad, teacher, friend.
It is important not to become de-motivate and a good way to help eliminate this is to set SMART goals. (This is an acronym - each letter standing for a word). The goals you set are Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-bound and if your set SMARTER goals they will also be Exciting and Rewarding.