Mavis 500 - they're actually ok

[twobeer]

I was only defending the accusation that PP are less skilled. Pros use feather and therefore feather is great too is another falsed logic. As u (and I) have point out that to each of their domain. A truly skilled player should be able play proficiently and adapt quickly to ANY EQUIPS.

Aplying your flawed logic Lin Dan would beat Federer in Tennis (it's just a matter of quickly "adapt" to the changed equipment). Or the reverse.. Nadal would beat Taufik in badminton, after some "quick" adaption..

If we change the equipment to a high degree we will change the skillset required and it will in essence becaome a new game...

The real question to me is if a mavis 500 is a minor change that does not change the skillset requirements to excel, and my conclusion is that the game changes drastically if these "ballistc" flat-trajectory type of shuttles are used.. For me it is a game similar to badminon, but not really the same game..

I do not look down on players who enjoy playing with these plastic shuttles, any more than i look down on players playing squash or Tennis.. If they are having fun it is all good...

But If anyone ask me I have to express my honest opinion that these shuttles have a less ideal flight path and is not even close to the "real thing"...

If u look at racket threads, replies to newbies asking for best racket recommendation were all saying it is not the rackets, it is player's skill. Why can't this be said for shuttle? If both side of the court uses only one type of shuttle for competition, isn't the winner has the most skills, not on equips differences?

You are failing to se the bigger picture... I don't think anyone here suggest a newbieshould by 5 9000X, string it with Nanogy 98 @ 33lbs, buy SHB-200s and play exclusively with AS-50 ....

We do however suggest the player to buy proper badminton shoes, a full graphite racket, prefferably not a fake, and decent shuttles, when starting of..

Suggestiong Mavis 300 for beginners, is to me like suggesting a steel-racket, or saying it works ok with running shoes...

We PP never bashes FP, unfortunately, some FP is too rigid to admit their narrow range of playability of shuttles.

Like Tpaak You are making the misstake of not separting the Players from the shuttle debate..

/Twobeer

[Oldhand]

Being a holiday, I woke up late... and, sigh, someone's been at it again!
Umpteen posts have been deleted

[Athelete1234]

I prefer twobeer's take.... it's important to play with good shuttles, but heck, playing badminton at all and promoting it as a sport is what's the most important, even if it's school tournaments who can only afford to use plastic birds.

[malayali]

I wonder who that might be?
How many times has this topic been discussed?
The question is, how can we solve this? I like MATT's idea of having a face-off.

Being a holiday, I woke up late... and, sigh, someone's been at it again!
Umpteen posts have been deleted

[Pete LSD]

One my right, we have Matt and taneepak who represent feather. On the left, we have cooler and ? who represent plastic . . .

We need a time, date and place. Feather and plastic will be provided. The first match will use feather while the second one will use plastic. No show by one side will be an admission of defeat.

I wonder who that might be?
How many times has this topic been discussed?
The question is, how can we solve this? I like MATT's idea of having a face-off.

[cooler]

One my right, we have Matt and taneepak who represent feather. On the left, we have cooler and ? who represent plastic . . .

We need a time, date and place. Feather and plastic will be provided. The first match will use feather while the second one will use plastic. No show by one side will be an admission of defeat.

have to be on neutral ground. If held in van., matt will win by default. How about we alternate feather and mavis between point?

[taneepak]

Frankly, I am of the opinion that an average feathers player will be able to play better against an average plastic player in a game using plastic. I have noticed that players who play plastics lack power when compared with feathers players, mainly due to their lack of skill in using leverage. Plastics players use a much higher rate of energy-to-power than feathers players. Most of them have poor timing coordination re shoulder, elbow, and wrist, whick kills off any leverage, hence a lack of penetrating power. A feathers player will outsmash a plastic player using a plastic bird, because a feathers player uses leverage more efficiently. Also plastic players have serious problems with handling very high clears.
My opinion about the declining standing of North American players is a basic one. Instead of starting the kids on feathers first, they are using plastics. Now we know young kids can pick up skills easily. As they grow older learning is just not as fast or as easy. The best skills come from playing with feathers, not plastics, and the best time to 'seed' such skills is when they are young. Only after they have been thoroughly 'schooled' on skills from feathers can they then venture into plastics, if the need arises, because then they will still have the skills.

[jseto]

Look, sorry to join in, but im a "kid" as you call it in North America. Heres my two cents

The fact is, is that our schools, community centres and gyms (wherever we play) are publiclly funded. My high school, doesnt even have enough money to pay for buses for students further away to come to our school. Our school board, would much rather focus its money on the quality of the education such as newer text books, and so on. When presented with the option of whether to buy a tube of feather birdies which will cost tens of thousands to provide to all schools, or to buy nylon birdies which will last years at a school, the school board would obviously choose the nylon birdie. Heres the situation at my school. I live is possible a very upper middle class of my city, and our school is cosistenly ranked one of the top in our country in terms of the quality of education. In fact, i live in an extremly high populated asain community, from which badminton has become a very popular. If you go into my school right now and look at the birdies, they are damaged plastic birdies which i guess would've been at my school for at least 2 years.
In an ideal world, everyone who plays badminton will enjoy the crispness and the feel of a feather birdie, but thats not possible simply for the fact that they are expensive. Nothing more.
Now, you can say that our young players in North America wont progress because they use nylon, and so on. But, thats absurd. I know that in every single badminton club around my area, they all use feather. For the childeren who are serious about this sport, they learn with the feather.

Yea, (this is a perspective coming from a high school student on the senior badminton team in North America)

[taneepak]

jseto, schools and shool children in Asia are by many magnitudes poorer than those in Canada and the US. Yet none of them ever use nylon shuttles.They get by with discarded feathers shuttles supplemented by cheap new feathers shuttles. I am sure the per capita income of an average North American is at least 20 times that of an average Indonesian. I think only plastics being affordable may be false economy. First, use what is proper, not what is deemed cheaper but not proper, to build a good foundation. A foundation built on 100% 'purity' is more solid than one built on a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Every coach here keeps up to 600 to 1,000 or more discarded feathers to drill their students. In some badminton clubs here you find many coaches salvaging used and discarded feathers shuttles to be used for their own coaching sessions. Recycling feathers can help.

[twobeer]

jseto, schools and shool children in Asia are by many magnitudes poorer than those in Canada and the US. Yet none of them ever use nylon shuttles.They get by with discarded feathers shuttles supplemented by cheap new feathers shuttles. I am sure the per capita income of an average North American is at least 20 times that of an average Indonesian. I think only plastics being affordable may be false economy. First, use what is proper, not what is deemed cheaper but not proper, to build a good foundation. A foundation built on 100% 'purity' is more solid than one built on a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Every coach here keeps up to 600 to 1,000 or more discarded feathers to drill their students. In some badminton clubs here you find many coaches salvaging used and discarded feathers shuttles to be used for their own coaching sessions. Recycling feathers can help.

Once again it is the chicken and egg thing. Indonesia is VERY succesfull in the sport of badminton and has a great history of champions. If you ask the average indonesian kid, he probably knows who Taufik Hidayat is, and is exposed with the competetive sport of badminton in newspapers, tv and so on.. This leads to a greater understanding of the sport and "positions" the sport as something to have as a goal to excel in..

This is world apart from US, where kids are not exposed much at all in the media with high-level badminton as a sport.. Heck I bet there is more Nascar expore or WWF from the media to the kids in US :-( ..

So a much smaller percentage is knowlegable enough to even recognize the difference..

I think a board of directors at a school in Indonesia has a totally different image of the game than the average school board members of a school in US.. I think that factor should not be diminished as well,apart from economics..

I am sure that If Badminton where as pouplar as a competetive sport in US, as it is in Indonesia, that we would se much less use of plastics, as i don't think economy is the major limiting factor for US, in this regard :-)

I also doubt that many of US current top players where "fed a diet" of plastic as kids.. Howard Bach came to US when he was 2 years old (from Vietnam), soemthing teels me h got started on feathers early...

/twobeer

P.S. I hope in a future US will learn from the great nations of China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Denmark etc. What a great media sport badminton is, and how exciting it is as a spectator sport.. (and I could also substitue US here with Sweden :-) ) D.S

[taneepak]

In Hong Kong, schools have one or more PE teachers who are responsible for sports. A PE teacher will be assigned to look after say badminton. He or she and the school will then look for a coach, usually a former Hong Kong player, after competitive bidding from a selected list of coaches. The winning bid by a qualified coach will have to provide courts at times and locations specified by the school, and also all the required feather shuttles enough for the number of students who have opted for badminton training. The kids pay a nominal sum (about US$25 for 13 2-hrs session) with the rest subsidized by the school. This arrangement is ideal as it will eliminate loss or theft of shuttles if the school were to buy and store them.
All schools in Hong Kong have similar arrangement. They also have inter-school competitions.
The coach will identify talent and report this to the PE teacher.
Some of the better students may want to have more specialized coaching, in which case the coach (usually an ex-Hong Kong player) will charge the students full prices to cover for court rental and shuttlecocks. Each student will be individually assessed periodically and a report will be given to the student's parents. Some 6 months ago at the urging of my neighbour, I introduced an ex-Hong Kong singles player in his mid-thirties to coach my neighbour's young son on a one-to-one basis. After a few months I was astonished to hear from my neighbour that her son got a poor rating and assessment from the coach. She said that the coach was being very frank to say her son just doesn't have the athletic coordination, reflexes, and fluidity for badminton. However, he is still continuing with the lessons.

[Pete LSD]

That's quite common in Richmond, British Columbia, as well. The high school don't receive enough funding and the kids get to go door-to-door to ask for donations.

Look, sorry to join in, but im a "kid" as you call it in North America. Heres my two cents

The fact is, is that our schools, community centres and gyms (wherever we play) are publiclly funded. My high school, doesnt even have enough money to pay for buses for students further away to come to our school. Our school board, would much rather focus its money on the quality of the education such as newer text books, and so on. When presented with the option of whether to buy a tube of feather birdies which will cost tens of thousands to provide to all schools, or to buy nylon birdies which will last years at a school, the school board would obviously choose the nylon birdie. Heres the situation at my school. I live is possible a very upper middle class of my city, and our school is cosistenly ranked one of the top in our country in terms of the quality of education. In fact, i live in an extremly high populated asain community, from which badminton has become a very popular. If you go into my school right now and look at the birdies, they are damaged plastic birdies which i guess would've been at my school for at least 2 years.
In an ideal world, everyone who plays badminton will enjoy the crispness and the feel of a feather birdie, but thats not possible simply for the fact that they are expensive. Nothing more.
Now, you can say that our young players in North America wont progress because they use nylon, and so on. But, thats absurd. I know that in every single badminton club around my area, they all use feather. For the childeren who are serious about this sport, they learn with the feather.

Yea, (this is a perspective coming from a high school student on the senior badminton team in North America)

[cooler]

jseto, schools and shool children in Asia are by many magnitudes poorer than those in Canada and the US. Yet none of them ever use nylon shuttles.They get by with discarded feathers shuttles supplemented by cheap new feathers shuttles. I am sure the per capita income of an average North American is at least 20 times that of an average Indonesian. I think only plastics being affordable may be false economy. First, use what is proper, not what is deemed cheaper but not proper, to build a good foundation. A foundation built on 100% 'purity' is more solid than one built on a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Every coach here keeps up to 600 to 1,000 or more discarded feathers to drill their students. In some badminton clubs here you find many coaches salvaging used and discarded feathers shuttles to be used for their own coaching sessions. Recycling feathers can help.

ur blur blur blur.

- in north america (NA) and Europe (EU), they have the freedom to choose to buy both type of shuttles which are readily available. How often do u see plastic shuttles in asia's store shelf?
- asia coaches are brought up in feather, they look less skilled if they start training in plastic. Tradition/custom doesn't prove superiority.
- have u proven to us that training with wore out feather shuttle is better than practicing with a much better condition mavis? Asia coaches re-use feather because it is cheaper to re-use something already paid for than buying mavis just for training. Plus, why force student to train under 2 different medium?
- most badminton players here in NA is still asian. Where i live, clubs that use mavis are 90% asian immigrants. Why did they switch to mavis instead of continue to use feather? U mean they don't understand economics? These asian immigrants have experienced both feather and plastic playing before in their life, 90% of them accepted plastic now. Asians are asian, dont tell me asian in china, INA, MAS know more about economics than asians in NA and EU

[Pete LSD]

That's not what my coach said in HK in 2002.

ur blur blur blur.

- in north america (NA) and Europe (EU), they have the freedom to choose to buy both type of shuttles which are readily available. How often do u see plastic shuttles in asia's store shelf?
- asia coaches are brought up in feather, they look less skilled if they start training in plastic. Tradition/custom doesn't prove superiority.
- have u proven to us that training with wore out feather shuttle is better than practicing with a much better condition mavis? Asia coaches re-use feather because it is cheaper to re-use something already paid for than buying mavis just for training. Plus, why force student to train under 2 different medium?
- most badminton players here in NA is still asian. Where i live, clubs that use mavis are 90% asian immigrants. Why did they switch to mavis instead of continue to use feather? U mean they don't understand economics? These asian immigrants have experienced both feather and plastic playing before in their life, 90% of them accepted plastic now. Asians are asian, dont tell me asian in china, INA, MAS know more about economics than asians in NA and EU

[cooler]

ur blur blur blur.

- in north america (NA) and Europe (EU), they have the freedom to choose to buy both type of shuttles which are readily available. How often do u see plastic shuttles in asia's store shelf?
- asia coaches are brought up in feather, they look less skilled if they start training in plastic. Tradition/custom doesn't prove superiority.
- have u proven to us that training with wore out feather shuttle is better than practicing with a much better condition mavis? Asia coaches re-use feather because it is cheaper to re-use something already paid for than buying mavis just for training. Plus, why force student to train under 2 different medium?- most badminton players here in NA is still asian. Where i live, clubs that use mavis are 90% asian immigrants. Why did they switch to mavis instead of continue to use feather? U mean they don't understand economics? These asian immigrants have experienced both feather and plastic playing before in their life, 90% of them accepted plastic now. Asians are asian, dont tell me asian in china, INA, MAS know more about economics than asians in NA and EU

That's not what my coach said in HK in 2002.

u forgot my Plus part

[trickflick]

btw, since i am one of these "inferior" badminton players taneepak mentions about who grew up in a milieu of plastics, let me just say that nobody I know including me ONLY uses plastics. also, some of my friends probably wouldn't continue playing badminton if it wasn't for plastics since they, being high school students, do not have the budget for only buying these "superior" feathers which they wreck so easily. sometimes, we just want to escape the pressures of the arduous AP and IB exams and do something else; we would bang around a nylon birdie for fun
however we all keep a personal feather birdie collection that we use every now and then and the use of nylons alone does not denounce us as poor players!! (there's more factors as to why we suck)

[trickflick]

also, both sides make good points
however this conflict mimics the struggles between the leftists and the rightists of politics. there will never be a middle road!!

i say we just leave it as such and go on our separate ways..
instead of tediously blathering on and on about such a trivial matter until hell freezes over, we should all just go out and enjoy the game, plastics or not! time is way too short for this nonsense