一位羽毛球爱好者的博客

It’s Sunday once again, which means it’s time for another Sunday badminton session report. This week in addition to the court JP’s friends had booked, JP also booked a court himself because he invited some of his other friends to play. We had two courts and about a dozen players for about two hours, which means there was plenty of court time for everyone. Just like last week, I didn’t play very well this week but unfortunately my opponents were in better shape. At the end I only one four of the eight games I played, and there was one particular game that my side should have won but I screwed up a put away near the end and lost 19-21. I just wasn’t feeling well today. I had trouble moving my feet, and there were tons of easy shots that I missed. I suppose I’m still rusty from not playing badminton for two months prior to last Sunday. Hopefully things will be better next week.

Well actually if I want to get better at badminton then I should probably train, but I have a full-time co-op position right now and have to study for a test, so I don’t have the time. At least none of the people I’m playing against seems to be getting better lol.

After being absent from the sport for over a month, I finally returned to the court to play badminton last Sunday. The people JP and I used to play with on Sunday have reconvened so I have a place to play again. As expected after a long absence, I wasn't in the greatest shape, but it turns out that nobody was on form during that session, so I wasn't really at a disadvantage. Most of the games we played were sloppy with a lot of careless shots and unforced errors. They were not very competitive for the most part with one side (usually mine) having a clear advantage. There were also some air currents in the badminton center and that made things even worse. I lost my first game, but won every subsequent game during the session, so this qualifies as a "triumphant return" in my books since I could have done a lot worse. As expected, I'm feeling a bit sore today after yesterday's session, but it's not too bad since the games weren't tough.

Supposedly there will also be badminton next Sunday, so I'll post after that session as well. Hopefully the group will return to a regular schedule I have somewhere to play every week.

Last Saturday night I went with JP to an one-hour badminton session with two of his buddies. I don’t usually go to these sessions because most of the time there are four players already including JP, but last Saturday they were short one person so I went along. Since there were only four of us we pretty much played non-stop for the duration and managed to get in four games. All four games were JP and I vs. his buddies, and we won all four of the games, but all were close contests. We could have won with a larger margin but I wasn’t playing too well that day. My power game was there, but I made a lot of unforced errors and my feet were slow. As for our opponents, the guy who organized the session was an average player, but his partner was pretty experienced and has a nice backcourt drop shot. In at least two of the games JP and I were down initally and had to come back to win. This is especially the case in the last game, where JP and I were down 9-15 and I was struggling. We got the serve back thanks to an opponent error, and I just decided to stay up front and swing at what I can. That turned out to be a good plan as we basically stopped the opponent from hitting to our backcourt. At the end we won 21-15, going on a 12 point run to finish the game.

Even though it was only an one hour session, I was feeling pretty tired and beat up since we played four close games non-stop, and therefore the next day I play with our usual Sunday group.

Yesterday JP and I went to play badminton like usual, but unlike the past few weeks JP’s buddies had booked three hours worth of court-time rather than the usual two. A total of six people showed up, but only five of us ended up playing. The extra-long session and low number of players meant that I had to play a lot of games, and I’m not really used to playing for so long. Considering these facts though, I didn’t too badly yesterday, losing only the last game when I was completely out of gas. At the beginning of the session I was charging out of the gate and dominating from the front court. My strength waned as I played game after game, but my side managed to pull off the victories which really has more to do with the careless play of our opponents than anything too excellent on my part.  I did play fairly consistently though until the last game, so that must have helped too.

After the grueling three hour session, both of my knees hurt and I was dead tired. My knees still hurt as I’m writing this, but hopefully I’ll be okay in a few days.

Last Sunday I went to play badminton with JP and his buddies as usual. Attendance was a little better than last week where there were only five of us. We played a couple of doubles games and I won all of my games except for the first one. This may be because the people we were playing with played the day before and they were a bit worn out, while I had fresh legs. One of the guys who played with us actually had a great day and played better than usual. His shots weren’t pretty, but for reasons the opponents just can’t return them. JP and I both partnered with him once and won our games.

After playing doubles, I tried playing a short 10 points singles game against the son of one of JP’s buddies. He is still in high school but he has been trained to play singles where I almost never play singles (but I’m the better doubles player). I wasn’t used to playing singles at first and my opponent jumped out to an early lead. However, once I got used to pace I grabbed back a few points before losing 6-10. I think I’d be a decent singles player if my cardiovascular fitness was better, but unfortunately I still have a long way to go in that department.

JP is pretty busy these days with work and coaching so he hasn’t had the time to post here or write new articles, so for now we’ll have to make do with my weekly Sunday badminton posts.

This week there were only five of us playing. More people were supposed to show up but they didn’t. For the first hour JP and I and the other spent our time doing skills training. During training I did some footwork exercises with JP. I don’t even remember the last time I worked on my footwork, and I was winded after a few rounds. This just goes to show how unfit I am. My lack of stamina proved costly as JP and I lost the first game we played due to my numerous screw-ups. I got my second wind shortly after and JP and I dominated the second game. In the third decisive game, our opponents recovered a little after a rest, but JP and I still prevailed. The last game was JP and I vs. JP’s buddy and his son, so it was a father-son team match up. We should have won the game since we had superior firepower, but my strength started failing again we lost a close one.

So in the end I had .500 record this Sunday. Although I didn’t play that many games, I got plenty of exercise thanks to the footwork training beforehand. I exercise pretty regularly these days but I still haven’t managed to lose any weight. Maybe it’s time to try dieting again.