How to Teach Kids Badminton Skills in 4 Easy Steps
Badminton is such a fun and easy sport that you can even teach kids as little as 7 years old to play it. Kids’ badminton rackets are considerably lighter and shorter than regular rackets so it won’t be a problem for children to learn all the skills needed to play the game.
4 Fun Drills Used by Coaches to Teach Kids Badminton
Your child can learn faster if they can learn along with other kids, so if it's possible, have a group of children do badminton training at the same time, so there’s no pressure. You can teach kids to play badminton with less stress with our 4 easy to do drills that are actually used by professional coaches to help children learn this fun sport:
1. Do Fun Warm-Ups
- First, tell kids to rotate their heads, then have them do arm stretching after. - Tell the kids to sit on the floor with their legs stretched out in front, then position the legs as far apart as possible. Have the kids bend from the waist and try to lean sideways with outstretched arms. Repeat on the other side.
- An alternative is to have the legs stretched in front, with the knees placed close together. Kids could then try to touch their toes by bending their torso forward.
- Another fun warm up is to have kids run forward, then touch the ground, then run in the opposite direction and do the same, for a distance of around 15 meters. Tell them to do this for about 5 minutes, to keep their heart rate up.
2. Do Shuttlecock Juggling
- Have kids count how many times they can hit the badminton shuttlecock with their racket as if they are playing with a paddleball. Have kids play in twos or threes so that they would want to do better if they know their teammate is working as hard as them to see who can have the most hits.
3. Do Footwork Shuffling
- Tell the kids to stand in front of the net, then position themselves as if they are anticipating a shot.
- Kids should have their feet around 1 meter apart, then ask them to jog lightly.
- The children should at the same time raise their rackets, ready to hit.
- Throw some shuttlecocks (one at a time) at the kids, and give them a chance to hit anything that comes their way. They should still do some slight jogging while hitting shots.
4. A Cool Cooldown Drill
- Have kids sit down comfortably then face them around three meters away.
- Put a racket in front of your face and have kids try to hit the racket by throwing a shuttlecock at you.
- Hit shuttlecocks towards the direction of the kids, and do it gently. Each hit gets a score. - This fun game can also be reversed with them having a racket in front of their face, and you trying to throw hits at them.
- The player with the most scores win!
Our Choices For Badminton Rackets
Trained Badminton Rackets
Yonex Badminton Rackets
Trained Kids Badminton Racket
Final Pro Tip for Teaching Badminton to Kids
Tell kids to grip their badminton rackets correctly as you begin teaching them the different kinds of badminton shots. Teach kids the forehand grip by telling them to pretend as if they’re shaking somebody’s hand with their dominant hand.
Train them to rotate their elbows as they learn to grip, while avoiding using their wrists to turn their rackets.