Shannon Pohl Badminton Academy 720 Corporate Woods Parkway, Vernon Hills, IL 60061

"Best place in neighborhood for kids to learn badminton!"

"Shannon is a great enthusiastic *coach*! She is pedantic in her approach and has a vision of how to build your skills step-by-step. I recommend privates with any of the real coaches if you want to improve personally. For basics and fundamentals, the group classes are good if you are taught by and corrected by the actual coaches (Shannon, Jimmy, Clay currently). The group classes also give you a chance to meet other players at your level who you can play and drill with (subject to enthusiasm to do so). Usually there are courts open for open gym and ppl to play with. It's probably the lone badminton facility in the area. SPBA's organization and professionalism in dealing with students and clients could use tons of improvement. One nice policy - if you rent a racket there, you can use the rental amount towards buying a new racket. But their selection of rackets is not great. Despite a stringer being present in the shop, I couldn't get any of my rackets strung for months bc management couldn't decide stringing prices :-/. Is that really a reason not to string anyone's racket for months? It's a 2min decision. I rented a racket so many times it covered about 30% of a new $200 racket. Thankfully, now they are doing stringing consistently. This is one incident is many weird ones. Other than this, members receive few-to-no discounts/perks even in purchasing shuttles, equipment etc. Loyal/regular members treated the same as new clients. I got better discount offers at badminton warehouse. Regarding open gym time, It would be better if there were one general announcement for everyone to wrap up their games, ten mins before closing instead of coming across as rude by telling individual courts to wrap up even though they're loyal customers who know the rules and aren't actually keeping anyone back by stretching for a few mins/packing bag etc. Loyalty seems underappreciated in favour of the business you bring. The business model of the proshop/open-gym is designed so that you might spend more in a month there than playing in CA for a month."

"Well maintained badminton courts. Multiple courts available for open gym. You get shoes and rackets for rent. They also have a pro shop where they sell rackets, shoes, shuttle clocks, grips etc."

"My daughter wanted to learn how to play badminton so she could try out for the high school team. I found Shannon's academy so I signed us BOTH up. I figure if I have to drive her to class I might as well give it a try. Well, I had no idea how much I WOULD LOVE playing myself. Shannon is a SUPERB teacher. Why? Because she was able to teach this old goat how to play. Whether you are just starting out or already an advanced player, you can learn how to be MUCH better than you are today. I HIGHLY recommend her school."