Play Badminton Club at London Youth Games
#BadmintonForAll
Play Badminton Club participated at this year’s Adapted Sports Festival, hosted by London Youth Games on Wednesday 19th June 2024, at Gunnersbury Sports Centre. We were among several outdoor sports and activities engaging young people with physical and/or learning disabilities. Numerous schools from West London took part. We had a volunteer from London Youth Games to help us during the day which was wonderful.
We had set-up a few drills and fun challenges, in addition to playing badminton outside. Before we started on these, we got the children and their carers warmed up with chasse steps and lunges.
The children engaged with the variations we offered them on hand-eye coordination drills such as catching the soft ball with the Getnet at a short distance and then progressing to catching from over the badminton net.
They really enjoyed doing the keepie-uppies with the soft ball and the racquet which got them moving in different directions just to keep the ball going. We then introduced a challenge to this, by getting them to do it within a conned boundary. Initially, their footing and racquets would go outside the cones, but once they started to concentrate, they did well.
It was a successful event and a fantastic opportunity for our Club to be part of. Which is why we wanted to make our sessions fun and engaging, to help the children learn and develop new skills.
#BadmintonForAll
Ashish Patani
Badminton England Regional Disability Coach London & South East
I am very passionate about badminton and also for ensuring that badminton is an inclusive sports for all, as far as possible. Para-badminton is an adapted form of the game to ensure badminton is a sports assessable to all, regardless of physical impairments or special needs.
It was great to see so many participants get involved with this adapted version of badminton, and wanting more! They are so enthusiastic, engaged and willing to try new things.
An amazing group of children and great team work by the London Youth Games team and volunteers.
For more about para-badminton, please contact Ashish on ashish@playbadminton.club or mobile (07708 753 510).
