A Week’s Badminton Training

I thought I’d share a typical week of how much I play and what kind of play/training I do. Last week I took pictures (almost) everyday so you can see. While every week changes a little, all the elements of a typical week are here. Lately I’ve been taking off the weekends and playing everyday from monday through friday.

Monday

My coach started a new group and we tend to train/play on mondays, wednesdays and fridays. It’s a small group, but everyone is a higher level and most are students at the universities. As I’m one of the gang, they have to play with me, so it’s guaranteed to be a really tough night of game play.

Sometimes we also practice with each other. One of the students is my coaches assistant, and my coach will also help us. We do things like practice smashes, front of the net stuff etc. We get about 10-15 birdies each and we cycle through whoever wants to train.

As it’s, like, all young fit guys and me, I’m a bit shy but I still take my turn in training even if my little baby smashes are so weak compared to theirs. Playing, and training with these guys is super fun, and I learn a lot even if I feel intimated.

Tuesday

Because most people don’t play as much as crazy me, Tuesday night at my coaches place is a bit of a letdown. There are usually fewer people and not as high a level, as all the experts came the night before.

So I go and play with whoever is there, but once a month I go back to my old group to say hi and show off how much better I’ve gotten, haha.

This week my friend was wearing a shirt he made himself with the logo from the Becky Cup! It’s super cool and I’m glad he likes it so much. (He also made a cellphone case with the same pic.)

Wednesday

Last week my coach and I finally re-started our training. So we meet in the morning from 10-12. This was a particularly brutal training as we focused entirely on two things: foot work and hitting it from the back of the court to the back of the court.

Footwork came first, which meant I had to run back and forth touching the two side lines with my feet in a very specific way. It sounds easy but my coach was brutal as every little body part had to be exactly precise and in the right spot making the right movement. Back and forth, back and forth.

He finally told me I could finish after 10 more, but the 10 had to be absolutely perfect. It took me more than 60 goes before I got 10 consecutive ones correct. It was brutal. After that I was knackered, but he made me do back of the court to back of the court hitting and I just had no strength left in me, but he wouldn’t allow me to slack, and insisted I get it right.

Thursday

With a very sore gluteus maximus (my ass) I went back to play with everyone. A couple of girls who are a little higher level than me also came so I got to play a lot of mixed doubles. It was good and challenging. Honestly, it’s rare to have women play, much less higher level women, so I took advantage of it.

I took my first break after about an hour and a half, and I sat down for about 10 minutes. When I stood up to go back and play my ass muscles were so tight I could barely move. My remaining games were miserable because of my tight muscles and I left about 30 minutes later. I was just done.

Friday

With a very sore ass I went back to play determined to not take a break, lest my ass muscles freeze up again. My friend Azhi (former doubles partner) also came to my coaches court to play. Usually by Friday I’m most tired as I’ve worked, and played badminton, all week.

So I told Azhi we could take it easy and only play for 2 hours. Who was I kidding? We didn’t leave until 11pm, four hours later, with everyone else.

Sometimes things get a little silly and we play a little mini tournament. This week the losers had to line up and let the winners hit their asses with birdies. Heh, heh, heh. (Although this “punishment” is more symbolic than anything. It’s quite hard for most people to hit an ass with accuracy and speed so most just went over the net, while a few kinda brushed gently along their legs. No asses were actually hit.)

So that’s a typical week in Becky’s badminton world. I never know who I’m gonna play with, or how many people are gonna show up, but I know I’ll get to play with someone (advantages of being the bosses pet student.)