Old cocks remembered

More Olympics :-)

(And incidentally - first post to be written on my desktop - well, I'm sitting at it so why not !)

One of the sports I grew up with was badminton, which I was pretty talented at. Note - that's not the same as saying I was "good" at it. You see, as the shuttlecock was coming towards me I'd have 3 or 4 possible shots in my head. The talent for shotmaking that I had always recognised the safe shots that would keep me in the rally but the show off element (yes, it's there) of my personality always, Always, chose the most spectacular.

So I'd get a reputation for being a good player because of the nutty shots I'd attempt and often pull off but wouldn't win the games that I should have because I wasn't boring enough to play percentages.

That's one element of sport - taking chances is good but sometimes it's better to stay low risk in order to survive long enough to pull out the spectacular. That's boring though.

Cricket brings that out - my batting can best be described as boring. Technique flaws with my feet and left arm mean I'm not often whacking the ball back over the bowler's head but hanging in there to nudge singles around and thump boundaries square of the wicket with timing. Teams need that, the more boring players will survive to hold the innings together against bowlers who could demolish a side full of spectacular but unlucky batsmen.

Anyway. Badminton.

I just finished enjoying watching Brit Girl Susan Egelstaff take on the Japanese Sayaka Sato. I'm getting better these days at watching technique deliberately with a view to learning from it. (I always watched technique but wasn't so good at learning from it). Notes from watching the girls :

The badminton technique I had would have stood up pretty well. I had all the shots they were playing plus a couple more that they didn't. I reckon with practice to eliminate the errors, groove technique and promote fitness, I could have been competing at a pretty high level. I'd have had to control the urge to play the silly spectacular shots but I did have the technique and agility to keep up.

It's as fast a game as I remember.

Fitness really tells. Our Brit girl is just coming back after surgery and the lack of conditioning (can't blame her) told in increasing errors towards the end of the game. Well fought but the errors cost the game. Badminton is a game of very small margins ...

I have 2 shots that I didn't see in the game :

Pirouette shot. Love this one. It's where instead of arching your back to forehand overhead something behind you, you start to turn and backhand it back over the net. With supple wrists, you can still do pretty much what you want with it, hitting to any of the 4 corners. However, it's not a percentage shot because it sends all your momentum into a turn which is difficult to recover from. Unless, you do a full 360 degree pirouette to face the right way again :-) Looks great when it works and doesn't cost much time.

Tennis forehand. Tennis shots don't tend to work well in badminton because the net is pretty high. However ... Consider that a shuttlecock is designed to slow down drastically after being hit. If you can get it over the net quickly before it slows, it'll effectively drop straight down. So my flat forehand was designed as a quick reaction rally killer, to get the shuttle back over the net quickly and into a place that would be difficult to get back.

So how come I've never really competed with the badminton ? There's a few reasons :

I injured my back when I was 17 (cricket - same injury as now), which cut into the flexibility I had available.
Badminton is how I dismantled my shoulder - and that injury cuts badly into the range of badminton shots I had available.
I found it to be "good fun".

That last reason sounds strange ... Unless you consider that I was preferring to put my time into practicing for Cricket as my serious sport. Cricket and Badminton share some technique elements ... but not enough. But it's really that I preferred to think of badminton as relaxing fun with cricket being the one I'd try and excel at.

Possibly the wrong choice ? Nah. I don't regret it at all. Taking something too seriously can take all the fun out of it.

Just watching the end of the 3 day eventing - the Brits got silver in the team but it's looking grim in the individual. Equestrianism is another where I touched the sport early on but didn't take it too far : Cricket had priority (I could see how much of my sister's time the horses took) and I preferred motor racing. Mind you, there is a kind of thrill in standing beside or sitting on top of an animal with as much power as a horse.

Horses have personality too. And personality goes a long way.

The 3 day event just finished, with the result changing with the last fence putting the Swedish rider into second. I have to say, it's AWESOME to watch a sport where men and women compete on completely even level terms.

And I'll leave it there :-) Big grats to all the medallists today, still hoping we get the first Brit gold soon.