Badminton - Gopichand's Institute

Now is the time for badminton...
to begin with I am a decent badminton player and looking ways to further improve my game :)

I usually practice in my office, where there are not many serious players around and most of them come for fun. Cannot blame them. Then I go to a place near my house, but only on weekends that too for only an hour and usually play 5-6 singles games and then back.

However I thought that I should have some professional coaching. So, I & my colleague went to Gopichand institute to check if we can find someone to train us on badminton. (That is a funny thought however, what will I do learning badminton at age of 28? Anyways...) To start with, I was apprehensive to visit there, as some one might not even allow us inside. (we might look uncles!). But still we reached there and went inside.

There were many guys practicing and practicing hard. Almost all were doing 2 - 1 drill, that is 2 guys were feeding a single guy and they changed places. In the end we found out that all were national level players. There was only one coach teaching them all. We tried to reach him however, someone asked us then why we were there.

Upon asking about the coaching, there was a cold response and the guy gave me some coach's number and asked to check with him he said playing timings were 11 to ..? and 7pm to 10pm. Charges were Rs200 per hour. But, then we need to get our own shuttles & Rackets. Yes and even partners.

I was wondering if we could meet Gopichand & he would be teaching there! I was dissapointed. However, I though I saw Guru Sai Dutt there, the guy who did well recently in Junior World Cup Championship in Pune 2008. So that was it. We came back.

In the back of my mind, I am still thinking that I will not call that coach, but get tips online. So started looking for some materials.

Some Chinese promo video - but good tips - images do good.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=EWqBVKNX1Js&feature=related

Good place to learn tactics
http://www.badmintonbible.com

Push Shot
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=dURbk5SlY-o&feature=related