Badminton
PERSONAL SUSTAINABILITY
I have been playing badminton for over 6 years with over 2 years of training. Having to drop it when I moved to my middle school, I became motivated to pick it up again in high school. Despite occasionally playing in the past years, I still found it hard to do baseline shots, especially lobbing as I often over or underestimate the back line. It still took me several weeks to get used to the moves and the court again.
Smashes have always been my biggest weakness as I did not have enough arm strength to achieve the fast moves. Once, during ExEd time, I brought this up to the group. The co-year leader then decided to spend the ExEd time to train me the move, starting from how to properly grip the racquet to how to flick my wrist and where to exert force. I repeatedly practiced – the techniques of my co-year started to become clearer to me as I got to pragmatically work on it. By the end of the month, my skill in smashing had evidently improved as I began to intuitively include the moves in games against my friends. Starting from smashes, I moved onto learning or refining other techniques such as backhand serve or front court net, working with the ExEd leader throughout the year.
In terms of games, I personally enjoy playing doubles rather than singles as singles are more physically demanding, resulting in merely a small number of games before I became too tired. Doubles, on the other hand, require more tactics and speed. I also had to communicate with my partners and work in understanding their gestures and styles in order to be more effective as a team. All of those made doubles more fun and preferable for me.