How serious are you when it comes to badminton? The average player I see says they are serious but what does that mean? Does that mean you play every week and or twice or 3 times a week or more? Do you just play games? Games and you practice your skills and work on your fitness, speed and agility? Do you work with a coach and keep a log of your training and things you have come to realize .Do you play tournaments and make notes on your oppositions strengths and weaknesses? Have you done any mental preparation and have a warm up and cool down procedure that you follow for matches? Do you videotape your matches to find areas you need to work on and areas where you can exploit your opponent? Have you had a skill assessment done by a coach? Do you practice your footwork and focus on proper mechanics and racquet preparation? Do you have proper swing stroke technique? Do you have a training partner who is as serious as you are? These and other questions are the sort of things that determine just how serious you are. It isn’t the $300 racquet or the fancy track suits and bags.Don’t get me wrong it is nice to have all that stuff but that is not what wins games. I just want to make sure that members (newbies) know that it takes a lot more than just playing games to get to the top. Badminton is truly a thinking game and always has the ability to challenge you .The question I ask is are you serious and up for the challenge? ;)

I comes and goes in waves with me.

When in japan, I tend to concentrate on skills and drills. I remember a couple of times where i've went 30-35 hours of court time without a single game. Just foot work, tactics, drills etc. That type of stuff is great for fitness. I'm always in my best shape during times like that. I usually play around 16-20 hours a week in Japan.
While in Canada I play around 10 hours a week and things slack off a bit. My ratio of footwork/drills to game time drops to 30/70. But after a time of that it's nice to get back into a serious training mode.

I never take physical notes on my opposition, but i'll take metal notes and watch their games.
I've never video taped my games, but it might be a fun thing to do.

As for what it takes to get to the top, maybe the best advice is leave your family in your mid teens to play badminton full time under a national program.

but not many people do that, and that's fine. I'm not serious compared to that, and I don't know anyone that is. So what I want members (newbies) to know is that it doesn't matter how serious you are. Play for fun.

I know that fun is important to and I hope nobody misunderstands the intention of the thread.My intention is just that it takes alot of commitment to get good and these are some of the methods you need to take if you are going to get there.I agree fun is a part of the formula I hope nobody loses sight of.Anyways I just hope it is food for thought. :) Have FUN

i am dead serious and extremley competitive when i play badminton. i play to win and i will not play against someone who doesn't know how to play or can't hit the bird.


(wow, i think that sounded very mean)

i'm probably under the category of extremely NOT serious....

i hardly play tournaments anymore, i hardly train anymore... hell... i hardly play anymore....

but i still do enjoy playing once in a while....

i think its possible to find a good balance between serious and fun, perhaps during rallys and just practice you can joke around and try trick shots but just make sure you respect yourself, your partner and your opponents when you play for real even if its just a game. thats how i have always done it :)

I'm pretty serious about it... I think of new strategies when I'm dozing off, about to go to sleep or even in class lol. I usually think about my opponents and try to remember their techniques, shots, and style of play. I try to remember how I was playing and situations where the open parts of the court would be so that I will remember to hit it there. You can call be crazy or just serious about the game lol.

i'm probably under the category of extremely NOT serious....

i hardly play tournaments anymore, i hardly train anymore... hell... i hardly play anymore....

but i still do enjoy playing once in a while....
Same here and its a terrible feeling. Too much work and no play. Hopefully I can be mroe serious about the game later this year. I still have the enthusiasm to learn and improve.

Used to be serious.. but now just casual hard games. Too much work and travelling does takes its toll. But at least once a while i can go for gym to work on my fitness.

My dosage of "seriousness" is perfectly correlated to the score differential between me and my opponent (I think its spurious ;) ).

NB: spurious, because "seriousness" determines "score diff", but conversely "score diff" also determines "seriousness".