Chan's Personal Blog

This summer, I started playing badminton again. Silicon Valley is a pretty good place to enjoy the sport as there's a critical mass of demand for the game (ie lots of asians). I read one article that in the Bay Area, there are at least 9 badminton clubs. To illustrate the difference, I don't think there's a single badminton club in Victoria (at least one where you could drop-in any day of the week). It's kind of funny though, the badminton courts are usually crowded with plenty of asians, and occasionally there's white people. I think I feel at home j/k.

While growing up, badminton didn't really seem to be a serious sport in gym. I'm pretty sure some of the coaches actively dismissed it as a real sport. In either case, badminton players here seem pretty dang serious. Anyway, I'm getting pretty good at doubles these days, and starting to win more games. These last six months, I've learned to pickup birdies with my racket, starting to develop some notion of a backhand return, and my net defense is much improved.

In either case, please enjoy this video of an Olympic badminton player smashing a birdie into a watermelon. I would not like to be blocking a shot from this guy: