Badminton Perception

[Michael Banks]

Take a look at this Australian article on badminton -

http://www.bendbulletin.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=8161

and this from the US

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5174-2002Nov4.html

No wonder badminton is a Mickey Mouse sport for those who don't play.

[oli]

They havent got a clue have they? they may laugh at badminton, but who cares we laugh at them, theyre american!

[Michael Banks]

Now now Oliver, I know a lot of very nice Americans ;o)

We all accept that badminton is a backyard sport for many countries but it gets quite funny when certain journalists try and show knowledge of a sport they clearly know very little about.

We need someone like David Brent - The Office, to do a world motivational tour exhibiting the finer points of badminton. I'm sure it would work.

[Grover]

More from those crazy yanks:

Badminton isn't for slowpokes
By CLARE NOONAN
November 16, 2002

Erase from your mind that picture of batting a birdie over a too-tall net in the back yard. Badminton, an Olympic sport since 1992, deserves some respect.

"It requires excellent footwork and anticipation and athleticism," says Shawn Black, who teaches badminton at Modesto Junior College. "It is absolutely a sport."

Maybe it's an image problem.

"These people are thinking backyard version, Mom and Dad and Joey and Kathy kind of whacking it around," says Black.

Or maybe it's hard to get serious when the target is called a birdie. Officially known as a shuttlecock, it can be made of synthetic material or of 16 goose feathers attached to a cork base covered with leather.

And man, can that birdie fly.

It reaches 200 mph at the highest level of competition, Black points out.

Games go to 15 points, except for women's singles, which go to 11. Points are only awarded when serving. But the workout is applied equally on both sides of the 5-foot-high net.

"It's nothing like I thought it would be," says Denny Drake, at the end of class in the MJC gym. "It's faster than you think it is."

The small court - 17 feet by 44 feet, or 20 feet by 44 feet for doubles - is part of the reason for the speed, says Dave Ashleigh, who also teaches badminton at MJC.

"It's two to three steps up and back," he says. "It's almost anaerobic if you're playing hard. You can just work up a sweat so quickly."

David Nop and Alex Dang know what he means.

The junior college students are a bit winded after a match.

"Looks can be deceiving," Nop says of the game. He took badminton for the P.E. units he needed, thinking, "Oh, this is gonna be nothing."

What he found was the game wore him out.

Dang says he likes badminton so much he's going to try out for the team when he transfers to San Jose State.

Ashleigh, best known for teaching water polo and swimming at MJC for almost 30 years, is used to hearing badminton dissed.

When he taught it years ago in the old MJC gym, class was just before basketball practice and players would want to play him. He'd accept with a challenge: "Fifteen points for a Coke."

The result was his class rolls swelled. Players signed up so they could get better.

"They got tired of buying Cokes," Ashleigh says with a smile.

It's easy to underestimate badminton, and yet there's plenty of strategy involved, Black and Ashleigh say.

It's similar to tennis, in that hand-eye coordination is required, says Black, who is also an assistant tennis coach at MJC. And the object also is to hit the birdie where your opponent isn't.

But there the similarity ends.

A badminton racket is much smaller and lighter than its tennis counterpart.

And as Black explains, "A birdie and tennis ball are drastically different in the way they travel through the air." A birdie travels very fast but slows quickly, whereas a tennis ball travels at the same speed.

"There are tons of whiffs the first couple of classes," says Black. "They don't understand how the birdie drops so quickly."

Good badminton players make deep clears, sending the birdie high and driving their opponent back, says Black. "It's much more difficult in the timing to pick up and return."

Badminton isn't as popular as it was in the 1970s to mid-'80s, says Dan Cloppas, executive director of USA Badminton, despite a Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association survey that found one million Americans played it 25 times last year.

It's no longer a collegiate sport, and his organization is working to bring the sport back, by introducing it into elementary school districts, he says.

Starting with youngsters is a good idea, says Steve Kearney.

He played badminton for the University of California at Los Angeles from 1976-77 and was team leader for the Americans at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

"Elite is always our focus," he says, "but to get elite, you have to have that diamond in the rough.

"This sport is small enough where the kid who doesn't have a chance in baseball or basketball, and who is reasonably coordinated, could have a shot."

Badminton may be experiencing a mini-revival at MJC, Black says. When he started teaching it three semesters ago, he had eight students. Now he's got 21 and 18 of those are holdovers from the semester before.

They're students like Drake, who is enrolling in the five-week session that starts today.

"I love it; this is probably the best class I've ever had," he says.

"I haven't sweat this much in a long time."

[Grover]

I like this one -

Article about Lake Havasu Sportsmen’s Club: “We don’t have a bunch of camouflage wackos out here,” he said “What we have are normal people having fun and enjoying a safe afternoon.

Another member, Jack Stadler, said that shooting is the number one safety sport in the world, claiming fewer injuries worldwide than any other participant sport, including chess, tiddly winks and badminton. Stadler has been a gun and archery instructor for 30 years, and also teaches a concealed weapons course.

--

Funny until you realise that the dangers of badminton are being talked about in the same breath as chess and tiddly winks.

[rachyuk]

Can they come up with something other than 'a birdie'? Sounds more like a golfing term!

More words for the 'shuttle' please...