This is my first time officially coaching a tournament in Washington for Bellevue Badminton Club, and I was quite impressed with the overall performance. Of course some of you may have done better than others, but I would like each of you to compare your performance relative to yourself only. Ask yourself some of these questions:
How much effort did you put in at the tournament?
How much effort did you put into training before the tournament?
How much effort did you put into off-season training, such as summer camp training?
Why don’t I like comparing with other people? Simple, because it is out of my control. For example, as a coach, I cannot control what other coaches at other clubs do. I cannot even control what other coaches at our club do, nor can I control whether players listen to what I have to say. But I have set certain standards for myself and I do my best to uphold them when I can. It’s never 100%, but that’s what I continue to strive for. I get angry and frustrated like anyone else, but when I realize what I’m doing, I have the opportunity to choose: do I want to continue feeling this way, or can I make the change?
Here are some observations I made from the tournament. Some may apply to you, and some may not. As the saying goes from Bruce Lee,
Warming Up / Arriving Before Match
I didn’t see very many people warm up very well. If you did, then good work. This is the single, easiest thing within your control to manage. We have shown you how to warm up in group lessons, and you have an idea how much time it takes to get ready (~15 minutes). If there are no warm up courts (which is typically expected at tournaments), then can you warm up in a small space?
Again, you should have some general idea how to warm up because… group lesson warm up.
Showing early enough to warm up is also important. I would typically arrive an hour before my match was scheduled, so I can have at least 30 minutes to warm up. The extra 30 minutes is a bit of a buffer for registration, getting the layout of the venue, and settling in before warming up. In terms of time management, it’s best to double the time you need when planning because something always comes up.
Pre-Match Preparation
I see a lot of people on their phones before they play. Fine, no problem. However, after a certain period of time, they are STILL on their phone. Then, before they know it, their match is called and their eyes are still glazed over from looking at their phone, reading, or whatever else that contributes to that effect. Staring at something for a prolonged period of time will likely take the eyes more time to adjust, which may affect the beginning of the match.
I don’t have the research to support this, but I would hypothesize that staring at something for long periods of time will lead to dry eyes, which would make it more difficult when adjusting to a competition environment. Whether I’m right or wrong, is that a risk worth taking? My recommendation is to limit screen time if watching videos or gaming for and extended period. Casual texting or social media shouldn’t be problematic unless your eyes are glued to your phone for longer periods of time. If studying, I would suggest trying a pomodoro-style approach (25 minutes studying, 5 minutes break away from books/screens), and give yourself at least 15 minutes before your match to focus on preparing for your match.
Water. Shoelaces. Food. These are all preventable things that should be covered in advance. Before your match, make sure you have enough water. Make sure your water bottle can hold enough water that will last you the entire match. Tie your shoelaces in advance and make sure your gear is ready. Grip your rackets before the tournament. Eat enough to make sure you can last through your game.
After a long game, eat something to re-energize especially if you have to play again later. General rule of thumb for most people: protein for recovery and carbohydrates for energy. Carbs can be simple (i.e. more processed) because it will be readily absorbed by the body. For example, it may be better to eat white rice instead of brown rice because your body needs more time to digest brown rice. However, do limit the amount of fructose (i.e. sugar) because of the way it’s transported in the body (keeners will know: facilitated diffusion vs. active transport).
General Badminton Tips
1) More depth in shots to the back/rear court. A lot of you aren’t hitting it far enough to the back in your pushes or lifts. This is usually a preventable error, but it is quite hard to detect because your opponent isn’t going to let the shuttle drop on the floor (wishful thinking is not a good strategy). What will typically happen instead is that they will be able to attack very well, or have the chance to push you very far back. This is very important especially with slower shuttles, which I observed earlier in the tournament.
2) Don’t try to clear from a bad position. Clearing from one end to the other is actually not easy, especially with a slow shuttle. And especially when you are late. Even I have difficulty clearing from the deep back corners, so I don’t even bother most of the time. The best recovery shots are shots that are flat because it prevents your opponent from getting sharp angles. Clearing half court does the opposite and usually lets your opponent do anything they want. A flat recovery shot will usually give a flat return, which can be followed up by a good lift. It’s much easier to lift to the back from the front, so consider it a two-part clear: flat recovery shot into a high lift, instead of a desperation half-court clear.
3) Cross-courts must be cross-court. Some of the cross-court shots I see are closer to the center of the court, which allows your opponent to cut off that angle. Generally, hitting straight is better, because your opponent cannot cut off the angle. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. See, math is useful. You can even consider the Pythagorean Theorem too (c-squared > a-squared). If you happen not to like math, basically it just means that if you want to run less, just hit more straight. If your opponent hits cross-court, then return straight, which makes them have to move more. There are more advanced tricks which we will cover in our classes, but this is a general rule that should be followed most of the time in singles.
4) Doubles attack. Channel the attack and work with your partner. The best way is to hit down the middle. If you want to hit down the sides, then you should follow it up, and your partner should look to cover cross-court returns. There are exceptions to this, but it’s the easiest strategy to follow if the front person is standing in the center of the court when the back person is attacking. This has been covered often in our group lessons, so please make sure you practice it well so it can be applied to game and tournament conditions!
5) Yelling. The basic elements to this is to question why you yell in the first place. As a junior in Canada, it wasn’t something that was done at all. Tournaments were actually pretty quiet back when I was competing. Mind you, I’m kind of old now, so it’s been about two decades. I remember I played against someone who recently trained in China, and he started yelling after he won rallies. I got super mad and started to mock him by yelling back sarcastically, for extended periods of time, or whatever else I could think of. Later on, I watched those matches again, and I realized it was a normal thing to do. I just didn’t know any better and it was my fault.
Fast forward to when I started competing internationally and I played in my first Korea Open. My partner and I played a team from Chinese Taipei, and after we lost, our Korean coach asked us, “Do you know why you lost?” It was a confusing question, because I wasn’t sure if he was being rhetorical, so I said something like, “Because… we’re Canadian?” but he quickly responded, “It was because you didn’t yell enough.”
“Um… what?” was my first reaction, but he clarified and said that we didn’t show “fighting spirit”. It looked like we didn’t really want to win because he perceived that we were too passive. So then we had to learn how to “yell” to show “fighting spirit”, but that was all it was. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing personal to anyone.
Some of you yell to show “fighting spirit”, but some of you take it too far. It seems like you’re engaged in a yelling match because it really looks like that. If other people in the tournament do that, that’s on them. Sometimes people do it to rattle you and throw you off the game. If you’re either intimidated into being quiet, or provoked to start a yelling match, you’ve already lost.
Remember, yelling is a chance to display “fighting spirit”, and beyond that, it should take minimal energy. Some of you yell like you’d lose your voice the next day, or that you’d pass out from the extreme physical exertion. Neither is useful if your goal is to win the match. Be careful.
Last point I’ll make here is one I learned far too late: do not do anything to provoke your opponent into trying harder to defeat you. This leads us to our last topic.
6) Drive Serves. Be careful with these, because it’s often not worth it. If you can beat someone without drive serving, then do that instead. Why take the chance to do something risky if you don’t need to. Second, don’t do anything that may risk pissing off your opponents and then make them try harder to beat you. I used to do everything I could to make my opponents suffer if one of them drove serve me or my partner. I wouldn’t retaliate right away. I would bide my time and wait until there was an opportunity to retaliate. After a while, I got a little better at dealing with it by ignoring it. I would promptly finish the game, but have no respect for my opponents. If I was the stronger player/team, I would sometimes give some pointers to my opponents, but not if they play like that.
There a big difference between an unintentional drive serve, or even regular flick serves. I would be slightly annoyed by flick serves, but never to the same extent as an intentional drive serve. Some people don’t see a problem with it, or they say that the service judge (or usually the umpire) didn’t call it, so it’s fine. Perhaps, but it would depend on the tournament, and it would depend on the service judge. Can you guarantee that you wouldn’t get faulted on your serve at an important tournament? Nationals maybe? That’s a lot of risk. Risk in not getting faulted. Risk in serving accurately. Risk in not serving it out. Risk in not having your opponent attack your drive serve. If you want to throw away everything on one serve, that’s fine, but that won’t get you very far in the long run.
Why not just get better at your short serves and third shots instead? Stronger players will easily handle drive serves, that’s why it isn’t a very effective strategy at higher level play. Isn’t that where you want to go? If so, why not just learn more advanced techniques that will earn you respect from other players? I’ve never heard anyone compliment someone else on having a good drive serve.
“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
The best thing to do against a drive serve is not to do it back, but to return one effectively. Three things you can try are 1) back up slightly, especially in singles; 2) put your hand up to indicate that you aren’t ready yet, and make sure your racket is in a good position to cover the drive serve; and 3) just block the serve so it can fall down right away. Many people try to drive it back, but their swing is too big and they end up making a mistake. This is what they want, and the worst thing you can do is to do exactly what they want.
Remember, these are still opinions. You do not have to agree with me. There are many different ways of playing badminton and I don’t like to say things are wrong. Rather, consider it on a continuum of effectiveness, from less effective to more effective.
Hopefully these can be some key takeaways to learn from and practice before the next big tournament. The Northwest ORC is coming up quickly and it will be much more difficult with players from across the country potentially entering. However, please trust in your abilities and if you train hard, you have the skills to compete with the best. Mind you, I never said you would win, but I never said you would lose either.
One of my favorite mantras for competition is to “win first in your mind.” You first have to believe that winning is possible, then you can take steps towards making it happen. How are you going to win? What are you going to do? By constantly asking yourself these questions, you should hopefully be formulating a new strategy in your mind and adapting to your opponent’s habits throughout the game. If you stay focused on the process, then good things can happen: you get to 21 points first (or win by two). Sometimes it just doesn’t work out in time. Your opponent gets to 21 points first. It just means that you weren’t able to figure it out before your opponent. That’s totally fine. It happens. Someone has to win because there are no ties in badminton.
As long as you try your best and focus on the process of executing the best strategy you can against your opponent, what more can you really do? Win or lose, you should be happy you tried your best. The greatest tragedy is the one who worries too much about winning and panics, causing them to play worse and lose even faster. That person didn’t even get to play their best. Don’t be that person.
You know the thing I miss most about competition? It’s the chance to play. Enjoy it while you still can.
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