Hi badminton ladies and gentlemen , I'm posting this because its been a week later and it still bothers and makes me upset . Well not upsetting to crying or anything , just to bad I had to experience such bad sportsmanship .. I dropped into this well established club since the mid 30's a couple of weeks ago. During the end of the evening their were these two men in their mid 40's playing singles. They started swearing at their own bad playing or shots. At first it wasn't to loud or often , but later they got so loud and then started throwing their rackets.. Now these guys were pretty good players, probably A or provincial level. Like these tantrums are going to improve your game,NOT.. Players couple courts down couldn't stand it or concentrate they were saying when they got off the court.. Ive been playing badminton for around twenty eight years or so and dropped in clubs all over Canada , couple clubs in the US San Diego and Paris France a couple times , and never ever seen such ignorant childish behaviour .. Like I've seen players yelling when their smashing as I do, but never swearing out loud. I'll swear under my breath once in awhile but never out loud disturbing other players.. I was taught it was a gentleman's game back in the late eighties . LoL i wanted to see if anybody else has seen this kind of bad behaviour or sportsmanship ? Thanks for reading and play hard.. Wayne
Wow grown men swearing and throwing their racquets?.:. Never heard of it .. Thank you for sharing with us!
This is Canada? Canadians are known for their politeness. The guys even say "Hi" when passing strangers in toilets (unless there are other reasons for that - whoops!) Generally don't see racquet throwing or swearing. I have seen swearing amongst high school kids - a word via the teacher seems to have had a calming effect.
Every country, every sport, every age-group and every talent-level has its fair share of jerks. (C'est la vie. Soyez prêt; ils sont partout.)
Just met one fella in my group did that 2 days ago. As Long they don't do any harm to anyone, just IGNORE them.
Mark, How often do you see such behaviour at county level or above matches and tournaments? I noticed the thread starter didnt have the UK on the list of places he has visited.
In our neck of the woods, it's pretty civilized - you can give somebody an utter tonking and the worst you'll see is them swearing under their breath. Some teams - the "privileged" ones - are decidedly childish, though.
bad behavior, yes but bad sportsmanship, I think we need to see the situation. As long they don't do it to distract and intimidate the opponents, I think it's fine. It's just the "throw your frustation" thing.
Mixed feelings on this one. I am prone to it on my bad days, especially if i do something stupid, usually along the lines of trying to end a point quickly and commit a stupid unforced error by going for a low percentage winner. I've tried to eradicate this behavior, and largely succeeded to the point where its an extreme rarity to swear loudly. I think this is due to having found a club which has a fairly gentlemanly ethos, but also is not judgemental. When i was at a former club, and got a bad rep, even when i was trying to rein it in, people would go out of their way to try and wind me up by all kinds of gamesmanship, and the fact i had a bad rep made me fair game: if i got in a dispute in a competitive game i would be seen to be in the wrong regardless of the situation. My current club is really good. The guys are very good players and almost no egos which is a complete rarity. I feel a lot freer to just enjoy playing, and to give back a little in helping the younger guys. There are all kinds of poisonous behaviour found at a club, i think someone who gets annoyed with themself is at the low end of the bad behaviour bracket. As far as gamesmanship goes, getting angry at oneself is usually a self destructive behaviour. It was in my case. Nowadays i just try and laugh at myself if i am playing like a retard, let's be honest, its gonna happen from time to time. As an aside, behaviour codes are something of an externally imposed thing. Cricket is a gentleman's game, but sledging is (a quite hilarious) part of the game, there's almost an expectation to be as inventively foul-mouthed as possible. If you consistently sledged your opponents on a badminton court, and called them every name under the sun, you'd get kicked out of any club. I think with cricket it's 'banter with an edge' and a distraction technique. With badminton, the gamesmanship stuff tends to be a lot more subtle.
Was this at the RA? If the game is really serious or competitive, i usually swear to myself but not extremely loud lol I always talk to myself on court though
Me too. I swear at myself all the time. Most it's frustration at myself when I make the same mistake multiple times.
It is def bad behavior. But not too uncommon. You see it on all levels of play. From beginner to pro. From hobby-players to first league players. I usually swear or shout out loud (i.e. the whole hall will hear it!) once or twice in a match when I play really bad. This includes really impolite language. But it is always clearly directed to myself! I would never shout at my opponent. For me it helps to let out the emotions. I would def play worse if I tried to stay calm. It's like "let it all out, then focus again". Is it bad sportmansship? No. Is it good behavior? No! Do I care? No.
Two out of three is a fail.. That should tell YOU something , be more kind and considerate to your fellow players . It's just a game a beautiful game that should be played with patience and politeness . You practice then two things then your game will have less faults .
i feel the same like |Footwork| sometimes i cannot hold back and must be pretty loud...i must say i DO care and i dont like it at all...but there are moments it has to be some ppl might say (and do tell me) "it doesnt help you..stay calm..." blablabla blablabla...i think they have a different kind of temperament and dont understand how frustrated we "hot-tempered" guys are... the worst thing that can happen is if i am already angry while playing and trying to contain myself and from outside somebody is calling "stay calm!" --> i absolutely explode then lol (innerly) oftentimes i do play better after swearing out loud..like a new beginning but as i said..i dont like to be loud and i try to be loud as seldom as possible
Competitive play has a big portion of inherent aggression. Only a few players are able to play their best and stay calm all the time (like Setiawan or so...). Most players need that (positive) aggression to perform at their best. Especially in doubles games, that's a big part of the game. And sometimes, when things go wrong, this positive energy turns into some kind of negative aggression which must come out of me at some point. I'm not overly negative or shout all of the time. Most of the times I get loud on court, it's in a positive way, like shouting after a good rally or something. I def need this empowering emotions to perform the best I can. If you don't call me a gentleman because of this, well, I can live with that! I'm a fair sportsman, I never cheat on linecalls or something. I respect my opponents and accept if they play better than me and congratulate open-hearted if they beat me. But if I had to play without emotions, I would prefer stop playing. It's emotions that makes us human, it's this fire that makes me want to play competitive sports!