I stopped playing doubles, club level badminton when I was around 20 or 21 and started again now at 29/30. 1) It hurts Your body doesn't forget the motions so if you're not keeping in shape it's going to be painful. You're gonna want to do motions you physically can't do so I was sore to the point of my legs giving out on me sometimes when I got home after a long session. 2) You don't lose much if any skill I started in September and now it's May. It only took a couple of months going once or twice a week for about 2 hours to be drastically better than I was years ago. I think aging also helped to some extent with focusing on my game. When I think back to how I was when I was 20 I used to get too hyped up and had a hard time focusing/strategizing. I'm much calmer now and I also don't get nervous like how I used to when facing a strong opponent. It's amazing how much the mental game matters. I see it now when I stand right at the service line when receiving a serve, my racket high in the air to intercept shots. Some opponents do bad serves because I stress them out by being so close.
Very good points in your entertaining post. The importance of a mature mind cannot be underestimated. It's one of those things that make you look back to your youth and say, "If only what I knew then what I know now". (That goes for matters of money and love, as well as sports). The great thing about your case is that you are still ridiculously young! So once you get limber and strong again, nothing will hurt anymore, and you will be the whole package! Have fun!
Twist: he took up golf in the meanwhile... Rip wallet Sent from my Lenovo TAB 2 A10-70F using Tapatalk
Well to be fair badminton isn't that expensive of a sport. If you train all the time and compete then any sport will get pricey but I paid like $30 on sale for a Nanoray 10 (lower end racquet) and our club fees are like $150CDN for three nights a week September to June. If you use durable strings, you can avoid restringing a bit too (I use BG65ti). That said, you do get sucked into it and I ended up getting a Bravesword 12 but you can do well in badminton with little money. That's kind of the nice thing about it. It's peanuts compared to my other hobbies (or Golf as someone else said). Yeah I see even the pros can lose the mental game when there's a bad call or something. I know 30 isn't very old. I see other people posting about getting back into it after 10 years but now they're like 45. That must be rough on the body. But also, especially for doubles, I see a lot of older people playing and still doing well so it's a great sport for that reason.
Sorry for hijacking your thread. > our club fees are like $150CDN for three nights a week September to June. You mean for 10 months? That is very cheap. I paid USD $500 for a year I'm already using BG65, cheapest and thickest offered by the shop. And I try not to smash so many times. Still I need to restring 1-2 times a month (at only 22-24 lbs; I once tried 20# but didn't seem to help with longevity). Birdies cost $1000 a year (Aeroplane Black, ~$22 a tube, a tube a week). Yea, quite a few who don't contribute, and I'm already avoiding them. And that's not counting grips, broken rackets (I mostly get sub $100 ones), energy food, transportation. I figured if I pick up another hobby, say board games (great social, but I hate sitting), or swimming (similar membership cost, poor social), they would be a lot cheaper... But for now, I haven't found a way to fix my addiction...
One thing about badminton is that you can play till you're like as old as one of those old uncles you see on the courts... so you've picked the right sport...
Our club uses plastic shuttles so that probably helps with costs. We rent out a high school gym those nights and we have 12 to 15 courts depending on the night. So yes, it is very cheap. My rackets are all BG65ti at 22lbs and I had 1 set of strings break last week after using that racket for about a month and a half. amazon.ca sells bulk packs of Gamma supreme grips for $65CDN. 60 grips. I can live with about $1 per grip. I change them about once every week and a half or two. And so far I've avoided breaking any rackets.
