Fun

What is exactly fun in badminton? This question probably also connects to another question “Why play badminton?”. “Why” can be too serious to discuss and it can be another article. Let’s focus on “Fun” this time.

In my opinion and experience, there are several key aspects where a badminton player feels fun in this sport.

1. Winning
2. Exercise-generated dopamine (or habit)
3. Sense of progress
4. Social connection

If you feel there are other reasons why badminton is fun, feel free to leave a comment.

Winning

As long as badminton is a competitive sport, winning is always an unignorable aspect in this sport. Yes, winning feels good. It brings you the feeling of achievement and superiority in some ways. Maybe it also brings you the feeling of satisfaction or proof toward your skills and skill level. This is probably the same in all any other competitive sports, no matter it’s tennis or golf or ice hockey.

However, as most of us already know very clearly, it’s not a long-term thing.

No one can keep winning, except the world number one, I guess.

If you keep winning in some groups, and one day you feel it not enough. You try to play in another group, then you realize the players there are much better. You start to lose some of the time. If you keep winning in most of the groups you are attending, then you start to play in official tournaments. You get your class from D to C and C to B and B to A or even to V in Finland. Sooner or later, you realize you start to lose most of the time. Yeah, sooner or later. That’s the wall that basically every competitive badminton player will crush into ultimately.

A side talk is the point system of official tournament in Finland (or maybe anywhere in the world). It’s like a game that psychologically attracts people to continue and repeat the process of winning and collecting ranking points. Ranking points are something very concrete. Points are like achievement or superiority that drives you to continue. I personally would describe it an “addictive” system. Besides, from another view angle, it’s more or less “Social Comparison”. You know you have this amount of ranking points and that person has that many ranking points. This is social comparison. Same in the gym. You see that person is lifting up 45kg and you are lifting 30kg. When you feel something in your mind, this is social comparison. Same in the society. You see that person has a job title “Director” and you are a “Specialist”. This is social comparison. With the ranking points in badminton, it is probably just the great media for social comparison.

In the real world, I have observed multiple players who are pretty advanced in their skills and never played in official tournaments before. Then at one time point they started to play in official tournaments and start to get ranking points. They start to participate in official tournaments almost EVERY WEEK. All the way until they start to lose most of the matches. It usually takes 6 months to 2 years to realize that there is a huge wall in front of you. Anyone can easily realize that it doesn’t worth doing badminton 7 days a week just to get some wins to get to next class (and be beaten up like shit there). Some people ended up in B class, some ended in A class or higher. After that, they divided into 2 groups: one is to stop playing in official tournament ever again, and the other is to play in a few official tournaments per year only, not every week, not every month and not focusing on winning or ranking points anymore. In both groups, the desire for winning and ranking points end. (of course there can be few exceptions)

Why do I talk about this? It’s quite important for us to understand that while winning is an unignorable part of badminton, it’s not gonna be the reason to make you continue and enjoy this sport for many years or decades (in most cases). The wall comes sooner or later, and then the option is either quitting badminton or to find other fun in badminton.

Exercise-generated dopamine (or habit)

This is easy to understand, so I’ll keep it short. Whenever you do some physical exercise, dopamine (or some other hormones) is generated in your brain/body which makes you feel good. Of course in a healthy way.

This is mostly the same or similar in other sports. As long as the sports make you sweat and breath more and raise heart rate, then more or less you get some dopamine. Sometimes we feel fun because of dopamine.

And similar to basically all other sports, physical exercise usually becomes part of our routine and part of our habit. We continue jogging, biking, swimming, tennis, squash or badminton with this reason that is the same to many other sports.

Sense of progress

Personally, I think this is one big part of fun in badminton, if not the biggest.

Badminton is a delicate sport. It contains quite a big variation in term of skill sets: footwork, distance and timing, generation of power: body, arm, forearm and fingers, rotation of racket: grip and analysis of game: shot selection. Let’s have a look at volleyball and basketball to see how different they can be.

I played volleyball for 5 years in the college. With full respect to volleyball sport, I still have to say, it doesn’t take many years to get most of the skills you need. Maybe just in 2 years, then you can serve, receive serve, lift the ball and do attack to a good level in most of the games in the groups around. In my very narrow mind, after playing 2 years of volleyball, everything you need is to “jump higher”, and that’s it. If you don’t jump higher, your progress in volleyball in the next 5 or 10 years is highly limited.

I also played basketball for 3 years in the school. Basketball is a very interesting sport. It’s a sport that highly demands physical strength: run fast and jump high. It’s also a very creative sport, especially in offense. You can cut in and shoot. You can cut in and lay up. You can cut in and pass. You can pass and cut in. You can jump and shoot. You can jump back and shoot. You can jump and shoot with a later timing. You can jump and shoot with an earlier timing. You can jump and hook shoot. You can fake shoot. You can fake shoot twice before you shoot. I think with all these mentioned, it may still only count no more than 1% of all offense pattern variations. In term of sense of progress, basketball is a great sport! However, it requires much more physical strength to get visible progress, comparing to badminton.

Then, back to badminton, sense of progress is probably the most fun part of it. If you try to search your memory, when was the most fun moment when you played badminton? Isn’t it the time you play an a-bit difficult shot and you made it happen and got the point in the game? You wasn’t able to do that shot, but you wanted to try. And you made it, during a game! Or isn’t it the time when the rally continues longer than usual, no one makes mistakes but everyone tries their best to make the shot difficult for the opponents, the time that everyone, including yourself, is making a-bit difficult shots happen without mistakes?

This explains why it’s not fun at all to play with too-good or too-low-level players. Because when you play with too-good players, you don’t even get a chance to try your best to do a good shot. You don’t feel you can earn a point no matter what and how you try. There is no chance to feel any sense of progress. Similar way when you play with too-low-level players. You get the point so easily without any effort, without trying your best. There is no chance to feel any sense of progress. In my own language, I call it “competitiveness” of badminton, requiring even-level players in a game, and ultimately it’s the foundation of the sense of progress. This is the first thing why sense of progress brings fun in badminton.

The second thing why sense of progress brings fun in badminton is, the variation and skill sets are large enough to take time to learn and feel the sense of progress gradually. There are Serve, Drive, Lift, Net Shot, Drop, Clear and Smash shots in badminton. Then there are variations of them: short serve, drive serve, flick serve, short drive, slice drop, reverse slice drop, stop drop, high lift, flat lift, power smash, slice smash, sticky smash, high clear, punch clear, singles net shot, doubles net shot, cross court net shot, plus forehand and backhand. To master all these shots and techniques, it takes time to practice and get the feeling of distance and timing more precise. It takes time to modify and change the way how you move your body parts. It takes time to try and change and improve. And it takes time to get consistency. By doing these for an year, for 3 years, for 10 years, badminton brings you sense of progress all the time.

The third thing in sense of progress is the analytical mindset in badminton games. you can also say it as “Reading the game”. You don’t see this that much in volleyball, golf or climbing, but it happens frequently in basketball or soccer. It’s about creating a situation and choosing a specific action from multiple options to make it easy to get the point(s). It may not happen often in singles in badminton, but it happens frequently in doubles, especially when your level gets higher. Mix doubles probably require the most analytical skills since there are more various situations: man vs woman, man vs man, woman vs man and woman vs woman. Then you start to realize there are some “patterns” in double games, even just like playing chess. When you are able to read the game, analyze the game and do better decision in shot selection, you feel the sense of progress. (of course, you need to be able to do various shots first, so that you get the chance to choose)

Some sports can bring you long-term and visible sense of progress but some can’t. Badminton probably is one of those that can.

For many people, winning is not necessary to continue badminton, but the sense of progress is necessary to continue badminton.

Social connection

You can’t play badminton alone. You need at least one more or 3 more people to play badminton. It’s quite difficult to play badminton completely without any conversation. So it more or less creates some opportunity for social interactions.

In some cases, it feels easy and good (or safer) to play with some people and to talk to some people during badminton activities, so some people may come to play badminton to play with those specific people. In some other cases, deeper connections develop beyond badminton. People who know each other from badminton can do other activities together.

When you become friends, and you play badminton together, it brings more fun to you and others.

Conclusion

Have you realized? The fact and truth is most people can easily maximize their fun in badminton. There is no requirement of being an advanced player. There is no requirement of powerful physical strength or higher jumps. There is no requirement of “keep winning”. Basically a bit sweat, being able to try your best shots and a bit conversation are all the things you need to maximize your fun in badminton.