For everyone, from beginner to expert

For beginners (and for everyone, really!), we cover basic techniques thoroughly and clearly. We are very careful to avoid ambiguous or misleading instructions.

At the other end of the scale, it's also fun to cover very advanced techniques, and we go into details that are rarely discussed elsewhere.

Short, but not superficial

I’ve watched lots of coaching videos myself, because as a badminton coach I’m always interested in learning something new. I find most of them frustrating, because they take a long time to say very little.

Our first efforts were like this too. We didn’t have a script, just bullet points. I rambled and repeated myself, and tried to cover too much in one video.

We now keep our videos short and to the point, typically about 2–5 minutes. We plan them carefully to ensure they are clear and focused. Despite being short, they are packed full of useful details. We don’t waste your time. Every part of the video must be useful, or it gets cut.

(For now, you'll still find a few older videos on the site that we haven't yet replaced. We're working on it.)

Making complicated things seem simple

Badminton is a complicated and technical sport, so many coaching resources play it safe by heavily simplifying everything they say. This makes them easy to understand, but it also means they’re not much use beyond beginner level (and sometimes not even then).

Our approach is different. We don’t think players are incapable of understanding complex ideas, we just think they need better teaching. We find ways to make the complex stuff seem simple.

We explain things in a more nuanced way

Much instructional content (and even coaching) is very black-and-white: everything is either wrong or right, to be done always or never. This is not realistic, and creates problems for players — such as persisting with impossible techniques, or stopping themselves from experimenting with different options.

Some things are definitely incorrect, such as using a panhandle grip for smashes. But many other things are less clear-cut:

• Shot technique often changes, depending on where the shuttle is
• The same goes for footwork
• Even at a world-class level, different players hit and move differently, and use different tactics

When there are multiple good options, I'll explain them all. I also distinguish between standard coaching ideas, and ideas that are more experimental or based on personal experience. There is a difference between you should definitely do this and you might want to try this.

Being as accurate as possible

We check our facts thoroughly. When I’m planning a new video, I double-check anything where I have the slightest doubt.

World-class players are the gold standard that I check against. I check that everything I teach is consistent with what those players actually do, and this is more important to me than following traditional coaching. But I also consider other sources too.

Superb value for money

Of course, you can find plenty of free videos on YouTube. A few of them are pretty good, but in general, the quality is poor. Some of them teach techniques that are flat-out wrong, and most of the rest only cover introductory ideas.

How are you supposed to tell the good ones from the bad? And do you really want to spend huge amounts of time sifting through them, watching videos that take forever to say anything, and mostly repeat the same points from other videos you already watched?

We have to charge something for our videos, because making high-quality content is a lot of work (not to mention all the work that goes into a website). But think about how much everything else costs you, as a badminton player:

• A clubnight costs around £10–£30 a month
• Good feather shuttles cost about £15–£25 for a single tube
• A pair of shoes or a racket can cost over £100
• Personal badminton coaching costs serious money

Personal badminton coaching can be very useful (and I do recommend it), but it's expensive. For 90 minutes coaching once a week, you can expect to pay about £180 a month (plus travel costs).

Compared to that, what is £3 a month? It's trivial. It's 1–2% the cost of weekly coaching. It's the cost of two feather shuttles. It's cheaper than a single drink after a match.

That's why we think Badminton Bible membership is amazingly good value. And we want to keep it that way: we want this website to be affordable for as many players as possible.

In fact, the current pricing is definitely too cheap. It was an introductory price I never got around to changing (I never said I was good at business!), and we will be increasing it for sure. That price change won't affect any current subscribers though, so you might want to subscribe now while it's still so cheap.