Open Inquiry #3  Badminton Progress Jan-Mar

At the start of the semester I found out about badminton drop in at CARSA and began looking for people to play with. I managed to gather up a group of classmates, usually there are four to 8 of us depending on who is available. By fluke I had asked Payten who turned out to have played in high school and is really great. As well as Lucas who also played and coached when he was in high school. We have been playing almost every Wednesday since the start of January. Due to end of semester projects it’s been more difficult to get everyone out to play but we do our best. 

After learning how good Payten is I decided I should measure my progress against her. We make sure to play at least one, one on one game each time we play. So far I have yet to ever get even close to beating her.  The first game we played the score ended with 4 points to me and Payten beating me with 21. Over the past couple months my best game was 13 to 21 for Payten.  Although I still don’t think she has gone all out on me. The last time we played I only managed to score 7 points. I also played against Lucas one on one once so far and he beat me 10 to 21, although he barely even tried. He just kept launching the birdie all over the court, making me run constantly. 

Because of all the losses I’ve been reflecting and listening to Lucas and Payten on what I need to work on. The big things to work on for me are:

• Positioning on the court: Because of how I played in highschool which was to just wack the birdie as hard as you can I would always go to the back half of the court on instinct. Which Lucas and Payten would take advantage and do a drop shot, a weak short shot that barely goes over the net, and with me at the back of the court I can’t make it.

• Need to practice my short serves: When you serve in badminton it has to cross the first line on the opponents side of the court. If the serve doesn’t cross it and the opponent plays it the rally continues. The idea with a short serve is to get it just over the net and just inside the line. What happens when I try, is the birdie goes too high and payten or lucas smashes down on me getting the point. 
• Another basic thing that Lucas corrected me on was how I hold my racket. Because I had never looked up anything on the correct techniques, anything at that point how I held the racket was fundamentally wrong. I still need practice switching between grips but it’s getting better.

Those are just a couple main things. I will add more as I discover more technical things I can improve on. 

The next post will be on the two weeks before the tournament and how I was training to get ready for the tournament.