Badminton for all! (Badminton - General)

Member Name: tigger1978

Product:	Badminton - General
Date:	18/05/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great for hand eye coordination, fitness and team spirit

Disadvantages: not so great for your knees!

I have now been playing badminton for about 25 years. It is a great game which keeps you fit. It is however quite strenuous on certain areas of the body. Many badminton players get knee injuries, sprained or twisted ankles, and tennis elbow, just to mention a few.
When I was in my teens I trained and played at county level, but then at Uni I stopped playing for a while - only playing in tournaments now and then with my father, both of my sisters and brother also play.
It really is a great game, I play ladies doubles and mixed and do not often play singles... this is mainly because at club nights there is not much time to play singles due to the amount of people - also you need to have a much higher level of fitness to compete in singles.

How to play...
In recent years the scoring for badminton has been changed - mainly down to reasons to do with television.

The Court:
The lines of the court work for doubles works as follows: the court uses all of the outside lines in the normal game, but during a serve the inner tramline at the back is the end of the court... - so if a serve lands in the back tram lines on a serve then it is considered as out, but as soon as the serve has been returned all of the outside tramlines are used.

Winning Points:
You can win a point at any time in the game now - not only on your serve which was the traditionally the only time when you could win points.
To win a point you need to get the shuttle to land on the floor within the court area on your opponents side, or you need them to hit the shuttle out of court on your side (and for you not to hit it back), or into the net.

Scoring:
The person starting stands in the right had square and serves to the square diagonally opposite. If the side that served win the rally then they get 1 point, her and her partner then swap sides and she serves from the left square to the opponent who is diagonally opposite. If the side serving win the rally again they get another point and continue to swap sides and serve until they lose a rally (or serve out or in the net). When they lose a rally the other team get 1 point and the person standing in the left square starts serving, and follows the same pattern.

Winning:
The first team to reach 21 points wins.. - however similar to squash if the opponents reach 20 before you reach 21 then you need to play extra points - you need to win by 2 clear points so if the score is 21 to 20 you will then need to reach 22 to 20. This goes up to 30 points i think and then it is whoever reaches 30 first.

Tournaments:
There are many tournaments at different levels in the UK, however badminton is a much bigger sport in Belgium, - there are many more players, and the type of player varies more - in the UK there are often older people at the clubs.

I frequently travel to Belgium to play in weekend long tournaments. Badminton is very big in Belgium; they have the tournaments split into A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 and D categories. A is the international players and D is more for the social players. I usually play C1, occasionally B2. There are not often the A class players at the smaller tournaments.

When you win tournaments at a certain level you are expected then to play in the next level up. - This is taken very seriously by the Belgians as their aim is to move up the levels.

If you wish to play tournaments in Belgium then there is plenty on the internet regarding these... if you cannot find anything useful then feel free to contact me and I will try and point you in the right direction!

To sum up...
Badminton is a great team sport, with various leagues and social clubs it is open to all levels of player, however if you want to play in a league club then more often than not you will need to have a reached a good level before you are able to join the club... - some people think this comes across as bitchy, however, there are more social clubs available for beginners.

Summary: play your way fit