before COVID-19 badminton was a integral part of my schedule, I would hardly miss a class but then as COVID struck, I had to part ways with it, and because of that I was unable to practice badminton and so I had totally lost my game, And that’s why I had to put myself back into it as the classes reopened after lockdown.
Although it felt awesome Overall joining badminton again wasn’t a flawless journey, I was totally not at all near my pace and skills before COVID, none of my shots felt powerful and perfectly hit, so this taught me that I had a lot to work on. In order to get to where I was before, I created a plan for 30 days. first few days I would just play normal badminton with other players to at least hit my shots with a little bit of power and timing and also to get my agility back.
After the first 5 days of playing casually, I would begin my real stretch by working on key shots of badminton, like the drop shot, net to net, smash, and toss. I chose this 4 for my practice as these were the ones which I was struggling with, tossing required a lot of power and skill to hit the shuttle hard enough at a perfect angle so that it didn’t go too high or too low and at the same time to would go all the way to the back of the other court. I practiced tossing for 5 to 6 days.
I was doing 2 of those 4 techniques every alternate day so if I did Tossing and drop today, then I would do smash and net tomorrow, I did it like this for around 12 days so I could give 30 mins for 6 days to each technique. For drop I had to hit it slow enough and at a perfect angle so it didn’t go too far into the opponent’s court and so that it won’t be high enough that the opponent anticipate and tap it into my court. For smash I would have to first hit the shuttle hard on to the wall to get the power I need for it and only then I could do it in the court. I would have to hit the shuttle extremely powerfully so that the opponent doesn’t have time to react and also at a steep angle so that it doesn’t go out of the court. and at last for net I would have to hit it slow enough that the shuttle stays just near the net in the opponent’s court.
The chosen LO’s also link perfectly with this activity. LO -1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth, this LO counts and is connected to this CAS experience as there I identified which shots are my strength and by doing that I could develop the areas I was weak in. LO -2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process, this LO connects too as here I demonstrated the challenges, at first my shuttle barely reached the mid court but after some practice I was able to play way better which clears the developing new skills part of the LO. LO -3 Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience, This LO connects to almost each one of my my CAS experiences as here I had to plan the timings of my classes and also for my practice while also maintaining pace in other CAS projects and studies. LO -4 Show Commitment To Perseverance In CAS Experiences. I was committed to find my game back after such high Perseverance of playing daily without any major breaks.
In the end after 17 days of practice, I started playing casually again to see if I caught up to where I was, and I was pretty surprised to see that I was pretty close to my previous performance but still I could do better, in all it was a fun experience to practice a sport that I love and I am pretty satisfied to where I got in the end, if I got a chance to do this again I would surely make a better plan and try to practice more strokes and techniques to get even better than before.
