The Academy
Your training home for foundations, singles, level doubles and mixed doubles, with practical drills and earned milestones.
The Academy at /me/academy helps you understand badminton, practise decisions and take a useful drill to your next session. Begin with the fundamentals or choose a singles or doubles skill. Explanations and diagrams support learning; physical technique develops through practice and feedback.
The Academy is included free. Sign in and open Academy from your player navigation; no Pro subscription is required.
Finding your way around
Open Academy from the Player group in the sidebar. The academy has its own full-width training space and navigation. Use Clubhouse in the academy header to return to the player area.
On your first visit, select Find my starting point, choose your experience and select any pathways that interest you. Select Build my training home to save your choices. You can skip setup and browse immediately, or use Personalise my training to change your choices later.
Your training home shows the next lesson, pathway journeys, on-court practice and achievements. My training returns home; Explore lessons opens the library; Match simulator opens the match simulator; Court lab opens the free-form simulator.
| Door | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Explore lessons | Six foundation lessons, eight tactical units and three dedicated mixed doubles lessons, arranged into four pathways |
| Simulator | Drag anyone anywhere, pick a shot and a target, and watch the engine play it out |
| Match | Set up singles, doubles or mixed between players of any level and watch a whole game, rally by rally, with a coach's review |
Tactical court pages have a 2D / 3D switch. The plan view helps you read a position; the 3D view shows movement. Your choice is remembered on this device. In the 3D view the Behind, Side and Above buttons move the camera. Full screen fills the whole screen with the court and its controls, so you can watch a match or a simulated rally play out; press Escape or Exit full screen to return. Beginner lessons have simpler diagrams with buttons for comparing court areas, shots and movement.
The course
Every lesson is available to browse. You do not need to pass a test to open a later lesson. Shared tactical lessons count towards every relevant pathway without repeating the check.
Mixed doubles
Mixed doubles combines shared doubles skills with three dedicated lessons: Build your mixed partnership, Shape the first three shots, and Turn defence into a connected attack. Each has knowledge checks and a partner drill. Roles adapt to the rally and the partnership's strengths rather than being fixed by gender.
Achievements
The academy records Understood when you pass a knowledge check and Practised when you record completing the drill. Milestone patches require both. The achievement panel shows the required totals and your progress; a celebration appears when you earn a patch while training.
Court ready covers the six foundation lessons. Singles foundations and Doubles foundations cover their five shared tactical lessons each. Connected partnership covers the three dedicated mixed lessons. These recognise learning activity and self-recorded practice, not a verified playing level or coaching qualification.
Start playing
The beginner pathway covers the court, scoring, grips, movement, serving and first strokes.
- Read the learning outcome and the three coaching points.
- Explore the diagram. Open Demonstrations and references for further resources.
- Choose an answer to each knowledge question and select Check my answers.
- Read the explanations. All three correct answers pass the knowledge check; you can try again.
- Take the practical drill to your next session. Select I practised this after doing it.
Reading, passing a knowledge check and practising physically are recorded separately. Answer selections and results are saved, so you can return later.
Tactical lessons
Inside a unit, work through the steps left to right:
- Concept: one idea, in a few sentences.
- Worked example: a rally played through the engine with a caption at each stroke. Use play, pause and step.
- Try it: the same situation with the last decision taken away. You choose.
- Puzzle set: eight situations. A best answer earns 1 point, a close answer earns 0.5 and an incorrect or skipped answer earns 0. You need 70% to pass, which is at least 6 points from a standard eight-question set.
- Hall drill: something to take to your next session.
After each answer, read the explanation of the situation. Play it out shows a simulated continuation. The model recommends a tactic for that position; it does not guarantee the outcome of a real rally.
The Results step keeps your score and explanations available. Choose Take it on court or Practise a fresh set. Your current step, puzzle and submitted answers are saved when you leave. A fresh set replaces the current attempt, while your best unit score is retained.
For shot questions, select a shot and a court area, or open Choose a named target. For positioning questions, drag players or open Position players without dragging to choose an area and adjust their position. These alternatives also work when using the 3D view.
Open Badminton words, explained beneath a tactical lesson or the course map for definitions such as base, tape, lift and seam.
Confidence and review
Tactical concepts you meet get a confidence bar based on your puzzle results. It is an indication of performance in these exercises, not a measurement of your playing standard.
Incorrect, close and skipped tactical decisions join your review deck. A review contains up to six decisions. Questions remain queued until you answer them with the best answer; opening or leaving a review does not remove unanswered questions. When there are no queued mistakes, a review can use decisions from your latest simulated match in the current academy visit. A new learner can start with the course instead.
The placement test
Check my level opens an optional tactical knowledge check with sixteen puzzles, two per unit. Each unit is assessed independently. At least 1.5 of its 2 points marks that unit passed, even if you missed an earlier unit. The results show strengths and ideas worth practising. You can leave and resume the check.
Saving your progress
Progress saves to your account as you learn. If a save fails, a message offers Retry saving. Keep the page open and retry when your connection returns. Where browser storage is available, pending changes are also kept on this device for recovery.
If your saved progress cannot be loaded, the academy shows a retry screen rather than starting you with an empty record.
The simulator
Drag any player or the shuttle to a position, then pick a shot and tap a target. Shots you cannot play from that contact height are greyed out, and the fold underneath explains why. Step plays one stroke; Run lets the engine play the rally to its end. The engine models the racket, not just the body: a player reaches for a shuttle with a real arm and racket, moves to a stance, and hits early if they can.
The match simulator
Pick a format, points to play to, and a level for every player from Beginner to Elite (or open the attributes and set movement, reaction, power, consistency and the rest yourself). Play the game simulates it. Then:
- Watch the game replays it from the first serve; use the arrows to move between rallies and the speed button to slow it down.
- The coach's review picks out what decided the game: errors, late contacts, lifts that gave the attack away, serve variety, the best winner. Where a card names decisions, Train these decisions turns them into puzzles for your review deck.
- Rallies and Numbers are folded away underneath for when you want the detail.
The same seed always plays the same game, so the page address of a match can be shared.
Settings
Academy settings (/me/academy/settings) holds your default court view, shuttle flight line, court layers and Reset training progress. Reset clears beginner and tactical results, saved attempts, practice records, confidence and review questions. Lessons remain available to browse. Confirm the reset only when you want to start your records again.
Tips
Read the situation. A close answer may be playable. Compare its risks with the model's preferred option and ask which opponent position or contact height would change your choice.
Use the hall drills. Screen practice trains choices; the hall drills turn them into habits. Take one to your next club night.