The shuttlecock is hurtling towards you. Fast. You have to make a split-second decision that decides whether you lose or win. With one quick breath, you leap into action. You jump up and raise your arm and swing. With a THWACK your racquet hits the shuttlecock. Your feet hit the ground, and you look up as the shuttlecock spirals towards your opponent. With a panicked look on their face, they try to hit back, but with their limited options, they fail. The shuttlecock hits the ground. For a second everything is quiet. Then the referee looks up and declares the winner. You have just won the badminton game for the night.
Badminton, even if it is a challenging sport, can be really fun. It is usually played with a lightweight racquet and a shuttlecock. In the olden days, a small cork was used instead of the shuttlecock with a hemisphere, and 16 geese feathers were attached to it. But nowadays, the shuttles are generally made from synthetic materials, which is allowed by the Badminton World Federation, or BWF for short. A net is present in the middle of the court, and the player has to be able to hit the shuttle over the net to be able to play.
Badminton can be played in singles and doubles, meaning that either a single person or two people on both courts can play. Badminton is generally played indoors, but with the right conditions and place, it can be played as an outdoor sport too.
The rules of badminton are pretty simple. There is a toss at the start of the game that determines who will be the first server. Both the players start the game at the right side of their courts. As the game continues, the side from which the players serve changes.
If the score you have is an even number, you start at the right side of the court, and if you have an odd number you serve at the left. The opponent is always supposed to be diagonal to you when serving. If your opponent hits the shuttle at you, and you fail to hit back, making the shuttle fall on your court, you lose a point. Hitting outside your opponent’s court or touching the net with your racket are ways to lose your points too.
The game then continues up to a certain number of points. Usually, in men’s games, the score goes up to 15 points, while in women’s games, the score goes to 11 points in the traditional scoring system, although, in modern badminton, the game can be played up to 21 points as the BWF says. The player that reaches that certain point first wins.
Badminton is a great sport to play for either fun or if you want to get more fit. Lee Chong Wei, a famous Badminton player, once said, “If we dare to win, we should also dare to lose.”
The challenges in this game are always very daunting and often risky. In this quote, Wei sums up one very important point of badminton very well. As he says, “Some risks are worth taking even if a lot is at stake.” Badminton teaches a lot of things, and one of the most important ones is to never give up a good chance when we get one, and always be willing to take risks in life.
This game will surely make you experience a lot of heart-pumping fun while also helping you get fit! It challenges you and pushes you to your best while also enjoying the game!
-Dona B.
I like your story because of the amount of information you put into your independent writing piece. Even if badminton is a hard and challenging sport, people challenge themselves and improve, and as you said it could be very fun. Lee Chong Wei says, “If we dare to win, we should also dare to lose,” It says a lot about badminton and how good sportsmanship it has. I love all the quotes that you put into your document. Overall it’s a great story and it makes badminton look good, and I would try out badminton too.
ReplyDeleteThrough reading Dona’s piece, I realized tennis is very similar to badminton. A quote I liked from this essay was, “with a THWACK your racquet hits the shuttlecock.” I like how she added onomatopoeia in her introduction; the “THWACK” helps me visualize the game of badminton very clearly and engages the reader effectively.
ReplyDeleteI believe the message the author is attempting to project is to never give up and take risks no matter how hard or challenging one thing must be. I admire how she had included various amounts of varied sentence structure, it really helped me understand and get a better grasp on what you’re trying to say. An example is “ But nowadays, the shuttles are generally made from synthetic materials, which is allowed by the Badminton World Federation, or WBF for short.”
ReplyDeleteI like how you described what badminton is and how you explained it. You explained the central idea clearly which hits me with curiosity! Even though I didn’t know what it was, you made me think about it, like: “When and where is it played? When was it made? What were some challenges they had?” I also found it interesting, because this sport was very related to tennis.
ReplyDeleteThere was a similar rule: “The rules of badminton are pretty simple. There is a toss at the start of the game that determines who will be the first server. Both the players start the game on the right side of their courts. As the game continues, the side from which the players serve changes.”
This makes me engaged and I want to play badminton myself!
I think the message is that you should never give up. I liked that Dona used sensory language to hook us. “With one quick breath, you leap into action. You jump up and raise your arm and swing.”
ReplyDeleteDona, I really liked your piece.
ReplyDelete"With one quick breath, you leap into action. You jump up and raise your arm and swing. With a THWACK your racquet hits the shuttlecock." This sentence helped me visualize myself playing badminton.
I liked your paragraph alignment, and how engaged you kept me throughout reading. Now I want to try badminton! Great job!