My passion about badminton ...

Discussion in 'Introduction' started by Ivan Law, Oct 3, 2016.

  1. Ivan Law

    Ivan Law New Member

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    My passion about badminton – I recalled my first touch of badminton when I was in Primary 4, playing in an open area without a standard net but we ‘built’ manually (and blocked the road) for the whole summer holiday. While I played more often during the first few years in secondary school, but I did only occasionally in high school and university (the education system in HK brings a lot of stress and tension). After graduation, I came across a private badminton team with only 4 people from the beginning which has grown as large as 2X people. We have more than 8 teammates playing regularly every Sat (and I am usually the first one who arrives at the court at 7am) for 7 consecutive years (except a few months in 2014 due to my muscle injury).

    My gear – Most players focus on the racket but I strongly believe that badminton shoes play the most important role fundamentally. Right shoes will neither enhance our skills nor get us extra scores but they do protect us through keeping our balance. Most importantly, in case I don't wear the right shoes, my physical body (not my mind) dare not smash in full power because it requires a good balance after smashing or stepping a big step. It definitely has a significant impact on my performance. I wear Yonex SHB-02 which I am fully satisfied with it. For rackets, a few years ago, I changed to use Yonex – VT80 (I had wanted to buy the Peter Gade Limited Edition). VT80 remains the heaviest racket among the latest Yonex rackets but I manage to drive it after using Nano Speed 9900 in the previous years. NS9900 is extremely light but fragile. I bought it 3 times and broke the same area (head) 3 times. Its material cannot cover string tension over 25lbs. My usual string is BG-99 with tension of 26lbs (I tried 30lbs – its smash ‘sound’ was so nice yet it was easily broken).

    My favorite badminton player – Taufik Hidayat. Years ago, when I watched a sports TV program (there was no YouTube at that time), I was amazed by this Indonesian badminton player. Not only with his badminton skills smooth in every single movement, but he is strong in smash with excellent gesture of backhand. I cannot find another word apart from “beautiful” to describe his overall performance. From Lin Dan’s autobiography, you may find that he spent some chapters to describe his opponents including Taufik, LCW and Peter Gade but it covers Taufik more in length (even more than LCW). I was surprised that Lin was afraid of competing with Taufik before 2004. Despite Lin won a lot of big titles from 2000-2004, his lack of confidence in beating Taufik puzzled him. However he also mentioned Taufik was no longer winning games against him after 2006. I personally believe that Taufik was distracted by his marriage and his daughter. In fact, he had already won all big titles (including Olympic) during his golden years (Lin Dan won all big titles continuously, TWICE!). Other players that I recently like include Chen Long, Viktor Axelsen, Jan O Jorgensen and Kento Momota. My mobile phone is storing recent badminton matches among these guys and also some of HD Taufik’s previous matches.
     

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