Some Miscellaneous Information

Chapter 5 Some Miscellaneous Information This chapter presents some miscellaneous information and thoughts about badminton. Some topics are related to badminton skills (e.g., picking up a shuttle with a racket), some topics are about important thoughts about badminton (e.g., psychology in badminton, top men s singles badminton players, about strong and soft shots, about passive and positive styles of play, about offense and defense, about shuttle speed, and about playing badminton alone), and the others are discussions on some general topics (e.g., badminton etiquette, prevention of injuries, and about fun). 5.1 Picking up a Shuttle with a Racket Picking up a shuttle with a racket is one of most basic badminton skills. While being able to do it tells nothing (as most badminton players can do it), not being able to do it immediately reveals a novice. Moreover, picking up a shuttle with a racket instead of a hand saves time and looks much more graceful. So no matter one wants to play badminton more professionally or simply does not bother bending over to pick up a shuttle with a hand, this skill is a good one to acquire. Players usually learn this skill in the early days of learning to play badminton. It usually takes a few hours. After learning the skill, as we keep using it whenever we need to pick up a shuttle, this skill will become more and more natural. In Figure 5.1, two ways of picking up a shuttle with a badminton racket are illustrated: (a) with the cork pointing toward the player and (b) with the cork pointing away from the player. In addition, (a) shows picking up a shuttle with a racket in the beginner s stage, whereas (b) shows it in a real match. Although it may take some time to excel in this skill, the basic skill could be learned with a few hours practice. The key steps are as follows. 89

90 CHAPTER 5. SOME MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION Figure 5.1: Illustration of two ways of picking up a shuttle with a badminton racket: (a) with the cork pointing toward the player [75] and (b) with the cork pointing away from the player [76]. (a) shows picking up a shuttle with a racket in the beginner s stage, and (b) shows it in a real match. (1) Adjust the standing location so that the shuttle locates in front the body, to the right side, and within the reach of the racket. (2) Place the racket beside the shuttle, forming an angle of about 45 or smaller (the smaller the better). (3) Pick up the shuttle with an acceleration of the racket from right to left. (4) When the shuttle leaves the floor, use fingers to rotate the racket to facing up, and at the same time gradually decelerate the racket until finally coming to a stop. Then the shuttle will stay on the string bed. (It takes time to practice decelerating the racket. If the racket stops too abruptly, the shuttle will fly off the racket due to inertia.) It seems to be easier to pick up a shuttle when the cork was pointing toward me, as shown in Figure 5.1 (a). The reason is that in this configuration the shuttle is less likely to roll away from the racket when first touched by the racket during the picking-up process. Players could first learn to pick up a shuttle in this way. After one becomes more skilled, there would be no difference no matter the cork was pointing toward or away from me. The same technique works for both situations. 5.2 Badminton Etiquette Unless a player plays badminton alone as some players do when training some specific skills, playing badminton is a social activity, and similar to any other social activity, certain etiquette apply. Below are some examples [77]. (1) Safety first. Always keep the racket in hand and never let it fly off. In situations where hitting a shuttle could cause injuries to the partner or

5.2. BADMINTON ETIQUETTE 91 opponent(s) or cause a collision between rackets, the best option would be letting the shuttle go. For amateur players, losing one point is much better than causing injuries or breaking a racket (or even worse, breaking two rackets at one time). (2) Share the cost of the court and shuttles. Compared to some other sports (e.g., running, swimming, soccer, basketball, table tennis, squash, etc.), badminton is a relatively expensive sport. The racket, string, over grip, badminton shoes, and other accessories could all be expensive. Furthermore, it is repetitive investments to rent a badminton court and buy shuttles, which are often the largest expenses in the badminton sport. Thus, it would be good if all players can share the cost of the court and shuttles. (3) Actively pick up the shuttle when it falls on your side and deliver it to the appropriate player. (4) Take turn to play when there are other players waiting, particularly when we are playing on a public court. (5) Do not hit the shuttle into an opponent s body intentionally and apologize immediately when it happens. Although body shots are sometimes very effective in earning points, they could possibly irritate the opponents and result in unhappy experiences. So try to avoid playing them especially in casual plays, where there is no incentives of prize money or title. (6) Be on time. In this busy world, every one lives a busy life. When we have an appointment with somebody, we should try to show up on time. In order to avoid being late or letting the appointment occupy our schedule (more exactly, our mind), we may consider going to the badminton court alone and find some one to play with. (7) Try to avoid borrowing racket from others. The author once checked out a racket from CoRec. It was broken during his play, and the staff at CoRec asked him to pay $15. He argued that the racket had been used by many players before he checked it out and that it just happened to break in his hand. In the end, he was fortunate to be exempted from the payment. It seems this argument applies to almost all situations, in which we borrow something that has been used from others and unintentionally break it while using it. To avoid unhappy experiences in playing badminton, the best way would be avoiding borrowing rackets from others, particularly if one plans to play badminton repeatedly (i.e., not just for one or two times). (8) Clap or shake hands after playing a game and have a talk. In badminton, the competing players are separated by a net, which limits the communication between/among the players. As a result, the after-game talks are good opportunities to exchange experience of playing badminton, offer each other suggestions for mutual improvement, share recently lives, and build friendship.

92 CHAPTER 5. SOME MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION 5.3 Prevention of Injuries No matter for professional or amateur badminton players, injuries are disastrous. Due to the high intensity of badminton, injuries are not uncommon. The body parts that are prone to injuries in badminton include ankles, knees, waist, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers, most of which are joints of our body. Among all injuries, knee pain is probably the most common one, particularly for the knee on the racket-hand side. A few suggestions to prevent injuries are as follows. (1) Build a stronger body through physical training exercises, as discussed in Chapter 4, and improve badminton skills so as to use less footwork and hit the shuttle with less pain during play. This is the most useful and long-lasting way to prevent injuries. (2) Warm up sufficiently before playing games. (3) Limit playing with those who have much better skills but do not adjust their skills according to the opponent s skills. Challenging those high-level players may seem interesting and rewarding, but the chance of getting injured is much higher because we are playing at a state that is close to or even beyond our limit. (4) Wear protective equipment (e.g., knee brace, elbow brace, wrist brace, etc.). Although the effectiveness of those braces is hard to evaluate, they should be somewhat beneficial. (5) Do some stretches and take time to cool down after play before taking a shower or going outside. This is particularly important if the indoor and outdoor air temperatures differ greatly. Going into a much hotter/colder environment after play with a sweating body could easily cause heatstroke/a cold, respectively. 5.4 Psychology in Badminton There has been a long debate about the influence of psychology in the matches between Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei. It is generally agreed that Lee Chong Wei has some psychological burden when playing with Lin Dan, because he lost in most of the matches played with Lin Dan in the past, particularly in many important matches, such as the Olympics and World Championships finals. Although we, as amateur players, are not playing badminton at such a high level or with so much pressure, psychology does play an important role. Some specific aspects are as follows. (1) Be confident and believe we will win when playing badminton matches. Confidence has a close relationship with the quality of shots. Oftentimes, we see a positive chain effect, that is, being confident playing high

5.5. TOP MEN S SINGLES BADMINTON PLAYERS 93 quality shots being more confident playing higher quality shots, or a negative chain effect, that is, being unconfident playing low quality shots being more unconfident playing lower quality shots. Confidence matters a lot. Aiming to win is the spirit of all sports; it drives us to improve our skills so that we can become faster, higher, and stronger (i.e., the Olympic motto). (2) Control the pace of the game. Every player has an intrinsic, optimal pace of play. When the pace of a game matches the optimal pace of a player, he/she is more likely to have the best performance. (3) Deal with frustrations properly and play in a positive manner consistently. Occasionally the opponents are able to return the shuttle no matter how well our shots are played. This could easily cause frustrations or other negative effects in the following points. Probably, the best way to deal with this kind of situations is to treat every point as an independent, new start, play with more patience and a more positive attitude, plan the shots more carefully, and seize the opportunities to win points when they come. Oftentimes, how a player deals with frustrations greatly affects his/her performance and thus the result of the match. It takes time to learn dealing with frustrations with patience and a positive attitude. This is also one of the biggest differences between experienced players and novices. 5.5 Top Men s Singles Badminton Players As is true for almost any field, people long for and respect leaders. Similar to Bruce Lee in martial art, Michael Phelps in swimming, Roger Federer in tennis, Kobe Bryant in basketball, and Lionel Messi in soccer, the top men s singles badminton players are the leaders in the badminton field. The value of those top players lies primarily in the fact that they show new, effective ways of playing badminton, thus bringing new possibilities to the badminton world. As the top players continue bringing new possibilities into the badminton world, we human as a whole gradually expand our knowledge about badminton and gain a more and more well-rounded understanding of this sport. Figure 5.2 shows 15 top men s singles badminton players [78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92], which are selected based on the videos the author has watched. The players are ordered by their family names from A to Z. For each player, we have included the name, height, country of citizenship, and date of birth. Among the players, Chen Jin, Peter Gade, and Taufik Hidayat have retired, while the others are still actively playing tournaments. All the top players are superb, in terms of equipment, techniques, footwork, and other aspects. Furthermore, some players earned a brand because of their unique skills or styles of play, such as Taufik Hidayat s backhand skills, Wang Zhengming s four-corner shots, Kidambi Srikanth s deceptive shots, Chou Tian Chen s powerful straight smashes, Lee Chong Wei s cross-court smashes, Lin Dan s dive defenses, and so on.

94 CHAPTER 5. SOME MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION The best and most successful players in the badminton history so far are, without any doubt, Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei. Lin Dan had completed the Super Grand Slam in 2011, which means winning all nine major titles in the badminton world, including the Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cup, Thomas Cup, Sudirman Cup, Super Series Masters Finals, All England Open, Asian Games, and Asian Championships, and has been the first and only player to achieve this feat so far [87]. Lee Chong Wei was ranked world No. 1 for 199 consecutive weeks from August 21, 2008 to June, 14 2012 and has been the first and only player to make this achievement so far [85]. Considering Lee Chong Wei s body conditions (very slim and relatively short in height) and training environment (particularly his training partners), it is believed that Lee Chong Wei has overcome more obstacles than Lin Dan in making the achievements, although his achievements seem less shinny than Lin Dan s. Both of them deserve the respect from all badminton players in the world. Similar to any other sports, badminton court is a battlefield mainly for young players. As the players from the last generation (e.g., Lin Dan, Lee Chong Wei) are about to retire, the younger generation has started to fill in. Currently, the leading stars are Chen Long, Viktor Axelsen, and Kento Momota. Kento Momota is arguably the best among the three because his skills are superb in terms of controlling the shuttle and more importantly he has an excellent understanding of the badminton sport. To some extent, Kento Momota s playing style and performance are similar to Lin Dan s. It is expected that these players will dominate the men s singles badminton field in the years to come. (Unfortunately, Kento Momota was suspended from playing badminton tournaments in April 2016 by the Nippon Badminton Association, as a punishment of his frequent gambling in casinos because casino gambling is illegal in Japan [93]. More seriously, Kenichi Tago, the once No. 1 and currently No. 2 men s singles badminton player in Japan, was fired by the Nippon Badminton Association because of the same reason. Hopefully Kento Momota will come back soon.) 5.6 About Passive and Active Playing Styles Playing passively or actively are two distinctive styles of playing badminton. In the passive style, a player returns a shuttle with no purpose in mind (and often with struggles or an unbalanced body). The shuttle could land anywhere (obeying the aerodynamic laws, of course). In the active style, a player returns a shuttle to a specific region and with a clear purpose, such as hitting the shuttle to the rear court of the opponent s backhand side to move the opponent to the back corner and to prepare for a following shot to the diagonal, front corner. The passive style is commonly seen on beginners, while the active style on more advanced players. A player s style of play could change according to his/her level of skills. Initially, every player plays passively. As one becomes more skilled, one gradually turns to be an active player and finally reaches a stage, in which almost every shot is played with a clear purpose. This is a process

5.6. ABOUT PASSIVE AND ACTIVE PLAYING STYLES 95 Figure 5.2: 15 top men s singles badminton players in the world (past or current), including each player s name, height, country of citizenship, and date of birth. The players are ordered by their last names from A to Z.

96 CHAPTER 5. SOME MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION that all badminton players who play badminton for an extended period of time will go through. The style of play depends on and meanwhile shows a player s level of skills. In the active-style stage, the strokes feel good, and the shots look beautiful. The sooner a player passes the passive-style stage and enters the active-style stage, the sooner he/she would appreciate the beauty of badminton. 5.7 About Offense and Defense Offense and defense shots are two types of shots in badminton (yet a third type is called transition shots). There are two common strategies of winning a point. One is by playing offense shots, which directly lead to a win; the second is by playing defense shots, which cause errors by the opponent and indirectly lead to a win. Statistically speaking, playing offensively has a better chance of winning a point than playing defensively. In fact, this was the playing style adopted by some players (e.g., Xia Xuanze [94]) in the 1990s and 2000s. Despite being effective, this style has some disadvantages, such as costing too much energy and increasing the possibility of injuries (e.g., shoulder and knee injuries). Considering the disadvantages, few players adopt this playing style nowadays. Another reason for not adopting the offensive playing style is due to the better equipment and training methods nowadays, which lead to the players much better defense skills. Occasionally we could see players adopt the offensive playing style, particularly when a young player is trying to beat a much more experienced senior player. The main reasons for this kind of phenomena are: (1) young players have a higher chance of winning the match by playing offensively instead of defensively, and (2) young players usually have more energy than senior players. The most common playing style adopted by the top badminton players nowadays combines offense and defense shots, with the players playing many defense shots, transition shots, and slightly offensive shots until a good opportunity comes and a big offensive shot is played to win the point. This is probably the best badminton playing style as it combines the advantages of offense and defense shots. From the audience s point of view, this playing style is also preferred because it usually leads to much longer and more enjoyable rallies than the offensive playing style. 5.8 About Strong and Soft Shots In badminton, usually a mix of strong and soft shots is played. Strong shots are those that are played with much power, in which the shuttle flies with a high speed along a straight trajectory. Soft shots are those that are played with relatively little power, in which the shuttle flies with a relatively low speed along a curved trajectory. Compared to soft shots, strong shots are more likely to cause the shuttle to be blocked by the net due to the straight shuttle trajectory or fly outside of the borderlines due to the fast shuttle speed. As a result, the effective angle for strong shots is much smaller than that for soft shots, as

5.9. ABOUT SHUTTLE SPEED 97 Figure 5.3: Illustration of effective angles for (a) soft shots and (b) strong shots. The angle for soft shots is much larger than that for strong shots. shown in Figure 5.3. It is apparent that the smaller the effective angle, the less the required movement for the opponent to return the shuttle. To this end, although strong shots are fast, they are not necessarily more difficult to return than soft shots, unless the shuttle speed in the strong shots is sufficiently high so that the opponent is not able to return the shuttle due to the limit of reaction time. In professional matches, the players have to play strong shots in order to win points, because all professional badminton players have good footwork; in other occasions, soft shots are usually equally effective in winning points. A good strategy is to combine soft and strong shots playing some soft shots to create a good opportunity and then playing a strong, winning shot. 5.9 About Shuttle Speed In the videos of professional badminton matches nowadays, it is common to see numbers showing the shuttle speeds when the players play smash shots. Those numbers are generated by Instant Review Systems (IRS) and calculated by using some photo processing techniques. They represent the initial speeds of the shuttles. Because of air drag, the shuttle decelerates dramatically during its flight. Some well-known records of shuttle speeds are: (1) 332 km/h, produced by Fu Haifeng, a men s double badminton player from China, on June 3, 2005 in the Sudirman Cup in Beijing [95]; (2) 305 km/h, produced by Taufik Hidayat, a men s singles badminton player from Indonesia, in September, 2006 in the World Championships in Madrid, Spain [83]; and (3) 493 km/h, produced by Tan Boon Hoeng, a men s double badminton player from Malaysia, on July 28, 2013 in testing the Yonex s Voltric Z-Force rackets [96]. It should be noted that the shuttle speed depends on the time duration used in processing the photos the shorter the time, the higher the shuttle speed. Also, with better designed rackets and well trained players, the shuttle speed is expected to increase as time goes by, although it may saturate some time in the future. Generally speaking,

98 CHAPTER 5. SOME MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION to win a point with a smash shot, the shuttle speed has to be sufficiently high so that the opponent has no time to return the shuttle due to the limit of reaction time. This could usually be achieved in the following ways: (1) by playing a smash with a sharp angle (or a short flight path) so that the shuttle reaches the floor within a minimum amount of time, (2) by playing a smash with a high speed passing the opponent s body so that the opponent has no time to return the shuttle in front of his/her body, or (3) by playing a smash which lands at a location far away from the opponent so that the opponent has to move to return the shuttle, increasing the opponent s reaction time. Another topic regarding the shuttle speed is how we feel about the speeds. With proper training and experience, the limit of the shuttle speed that one can manage would gradually increase. For example, initially one may feel a shuttle that flies at a speed of about 50 km/h as fast; after playing badminton for some time, the speed limit could increase to 100 km/h; with additional training, the speed limit could increase further. For most amateur, the upper limit of shuttle speed is about 200 km/h. In order to access higher shuttle speeds (e.g., 250 km/h or higher), we will need to seek help from professional players. The ability to generate higher shuttle speeds is actually one of the biggest differences between professional and amateur players. It requires intensive training in many aspects to generate high shuttle speeds or return shuttles with high speeds. 5.10 About Playing Badminton Alone Although badminton is usually played with an opponent (in singles), it is possible to go playing badminton or training alone. Many techniques, such as footwork, service shots, net shots, and so on, can be learned by playing alone. Sometimes, training alone works even better than with a partner, because one could concentrate more the technique itself instead of other irrelevant matters (e.g., the partner s time schedule, skills, feelings, etc.). When training alone, one just needs a pair of badminton shoes, a favorite racket, a bunch of shuttle, and a badminton court The court, the racket, the shuttles, and the player form an entire world. One can practice one technique at a time or a few techniques at the same time. The lack of a partner can be compensated by using multiple shuttles, meaning one can hit a few shuttles at one location and then move on to the next location. Usually it takes thousands of repetitions to master one technique. When training, one should aim at improvement and perfection, in terms of shuttle accuracy, consistency, speed, and so on. One could also consider playing with an imaginary opponent who is stronger than any player seen in real life, being able to play shots at any speed to any location and skilled at shots planning, experience, psychology, and any other aspects. After playing with the imaginary opponent for some time, one may clearly see the improvement of his/her skills when he/she goes to play with some real opponents. While playing alone, one does not necessarily feel lonely if he/she is really passionate about badminton and concentrated on those techniques. Playing badminton alone allows a player to be closest to the core of the badminton world (some-

5.11. ABOUT FUN 99 thing existed in the player s mind although hard to put into words, just like love or passion). This situation appears to apply to many other fields as well. In addition, there seems to be moments in every person s life when one prefers or chooses to be alone. It is those moments that allow one to think deeply about the important things in life and achieve true improvement or insights. 5.11 About Fun It seems to be true that almost all people are aware of things that they do not like, but very few can identify things that they really like. In fact, the author realizes what he is doing now writing About Fun is apparently not so fun. As one s journey into the badminton world goes further and further, one would likely ask him/herself questions like Is badminton really fun? or Do I really feel happy when playing badminton? There are no easy or concrete answers to these questions. Overall, badminton should be fun, especially for those who are really into it. The fun has little to do with beating someone, because there are so many badminton players in the world and one will easily get lost if he/she follows this direction; the fun is related primarily to improvement. Initially, one feels badminton to be fun because it is entirely new and one knows almost nothing about it. As one gains more experience, the fun comes mainly from two aspects: (1) the gradual improvement of one s badminton skills and (2) the fact that one can teach others the skills he/she has acquired and help them improve. Striving for self-improvement and helping others to improve are probably the most important sources of fun and happiness in the badminton world.

100 CHAPTER 5. SOME MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION