Life lessons from Badminton

 I’ve been an avid player for fourteen years, and I absolutely love this sport.

Badminton is one of the major sources of happiness in my life. Because of the amount I have learned from it, I will explain them in more detail below:

Apart from being high-speed aerobic exercise, badminton holds a deep meaning in my life. I’ve learned the lessons of discipline, adaptability, hard work, constantly trying to improve my game, fair play and sportsmanship, strategy and tactics, understanding the phycology of the opponent, living in the moment, and most importantly enjoying the sport.

1. The first value of discipline was built because of the desire to mastering the sport. Before badminton I use only to play computer games, I was overweight and lazy. The reason I started playing was that all the pretty girls use to play badminton at my school and I wanted to be friends with them. But later on, badminton became more important than girls. Badminton became more important than computer games. It changed my life for the better as I wanted to be better at this sport. I started doing better academically too. Discipline is a virtue which comes with commitment. I fully committed myself to this sport, improving my self and becoming the best badminton player in my class was my drive. Every evening for three years, I use to go to badminton court without fail. It was a place to socialise and exercise, but it became a meditation for me—a meditation in self-improvement.
2. Hard work was the second virtue I developed. I wasn’t naturally very good at badminton; probably I sucked at it in the beginning, even the girls in my class use to defeat me. And some guys were so ahead of me that I thought it would take years till I get to their level if I even can be as good as them. But I kept at it. I made it a commitment and loved to challenge myself by playing games with people better than me and losing a lot of matches in the beginning. I didn’t have good stamina, so I started running. For a very sedentary child, running was the hardest thing for me. I started with 100 meters a day, then 200 m, then 300m and in a couple of months I was running an entire golf course of 14km parameter. I learned that doing hard things are required to level up in your game, and those are the investment you have to make for improvement.
3. Adaptability, like many beginners, I didn’t have a good backhand. I tried for years, and it didn’t improve, then I picked up squash as a secondary racket game, and because of the free-range motion of squash racket, I became good at backhands. Today my signature move is a backhand drop across the court. Adaptability only comes from trying new things and learning from different styles to improve your core game.
4. Constant improvement - I had to constantly find new ways and tricks to improve my game as when your game becomes set, the opponents can easily understand your weak point and exploit your weaknesses. Thus this sport requires constant learning and improvement, and this was also a transferable skill that I could apply in other parts of my life.
5. Fair play - My biggest pet peeve is people who don’t play fairly; they cheat or lie to win some unfair points. I abhor those players. I would give my opponent the benefit of the doubt when I’m not sure about a point and will always stay fair while giving back a point. The game is only fun as long as there’s fair competition.
6. Strategy and tactics - Badminton is a mind game as much as it is a physical sport. You need to scare and shock your opponent and always keep them guessing by changing tactics. You also need to read your opponent and figure out their weak points and exploit them to win. Suppose a player is slow and can’t run much you make them run, or players who are very good with smashes so you play them on the net with drops. Your strategy should adopt to the opponent you’re playing against
7. Reading the opponent - It is important to read the opponent to win, you can do that even before the game during warm-up. If a player is using too much force and showing off during warm-up that doesn’t mean they would be good in the actual match as well, people show off to intimate you, but during the game, it’s useful to be analytical and cool minded to win over the long run.
8. Living in the moment - Living in the moment is quite important with any sport there are remarkable victories when a player has come over a huge point difference to ultimately win the match, they could only do it because they were not thinking about the score, but about making each shot their best shot rather than thinking about the overall point think about what best, you can do int he moment.
9. Enjoy the sport- It requires consistency to master a sport and consistency can only be achieved if you are ready to practice a sport over a long time for months or years. It’s paramount to enjoy the process. Ultimately it’s about the journey and not the destination, so enjoy your time on the court and have fun with this sport; you should make fun your prime objective while playing and everything else will follow.