Wednesday, February 25, 2009-“Jon vs. Badminton… Badminton-1, Jon-0”

I had my first experience with badminton a couple of days ago.  It was a far cry from my glory days back at 5212 Belleview (childhood home).  Me and my two siblings would set up the badminton set in the yard and it would take much longer to set up than it would keep us entertained by playing.  We got out the shuttlecocks and raquets and we would hit the birdie back and forth to eachother, seeing how high we could hit it… then we would probably see a basketball lying in the distance and pick that up, look at the badminton set and the basketball, contemplate for 2 to 3 seconds which one we would rather play, and then Stephen would steal the ball from my sister and we would spend the next 20 minutes trying to steal the ball back.  In our mind, this was more entertaining than putting the badminton set back in the box, this still holds true (who wants to put the game back in the box?).  Little did I know that I would be waging full-scale war in Catarman on the badminton court nearly 20 years later (just kidding, the game is very friendly). 

One of the guys from the Coffee Hub was, well, at the Coffee Hub earlier in the day and I had expressed interest in playing that night… so he happily offered and I met them at the court (right next to Coffee Hub) after dinner.  I should have been paying more attention when I noticed that they guys were stretching before we played.  I thought, “It’s badminton, why would I need to stretch?”  I should have taken the necessary precautions.  Now two days later, my legs are extremely sore and I cannot bend over and touch my toes (I’m actually not claiming that I could ever do that, but you get the idea).  I warmed up with Milian (one of the Coffee Hub workers), she was telling me about prior visitors and occasionally “smashing” the birdie right back at me.  A smash is the equivalent of an “overhead” in tennis, but due to the close proximity of badminton, it is much more intimidating (Andy, I know exactly what you are thinking right now, so hold it).  The guys showed up for the real match (Milian told me that she does not play actual matches, so she would leave for the match) and we started.  I thought I got the hang of the game in the warm-up, but I was far from it.  I think I was the cause of 90% of the lost points, but it was all in good fun and I had a great time.  I did get better towards the end, but still have quite a ways to go.  I am looking forward to playing again and I can see why they love to play the game.  It is a great exercise (even though, at first, you may not think it would be) but more importantly it is a great time hanging out with friends.  That being said, I am going to try to stretch out for a minute before I try anything drastic.