How to be a good single player?

How to Enjoy Singles?

Author: Joy Kitzmiller Being good at doubles does not mean that you can play singles--everyone knows that. Less obvious is the fact that most good singles players are clueless on the doubles court. The strategies and teamwork of doubles are highly difficult and require years of game-playing. However, if you are already a doubles specialist, as most Northwest players are, then learning to play singles is the easy part and can only enhance your doubles game and limited court time. Part of the enjoyment of any sport is achieving flow, which is the happy medium between anxiety and boredom. We occasionally experience this in a doubles game of players of comparable ability. Unfortunately, the range of abilities in badminton is infinitely broad and the pieces of the game that one can perfect are so varied that close competition rarely occurs. As a singles enthusiast, I can say that flow occurs most often in singles, because it is much easier to find two closely matched players than it is to find four! Also, you can play your game without messing up an incompetent partner, in your mind. What it takes to play the event ? Front to back court movement: The lines I am really more of a tennis player or I prefer doubles really mean I am best at the side-to-side movement that is natural for humans such as myself. I admit it. Moving blindly backward and then forward like one of the three musketeers is not natural and it initially feels icky. I think the butterfly stroke feels icky, too. If all sports only required movements that were innate, everyone would have a gold medal. You have to train your body to adhere to basic footwork principles for badminton, just as you must move your arms like Barbie for swimming. All it takes to get from the net to the back is a jump and a twist. With correct body positioning, most shots are only two steps away. The ease with which we observe international caliber players move is hard-earned. Just as in ballet, moving smoothly requires powerful muscles and a lifetime of special exercises. However, the most dramatic results in your game will occur in only a few weeks of training. Things to do: Shadow drills: Moving between two corners again and again without the shuttle. Someone needs to show you the proper footwork for each two-corner combination. Do not kill yourself. Do it slowly. Since it's more than you've ever done before, it will work for your game. Incidentally, there are 15 different combinations, including the sidelines. Do a little every day. Half-Court Singles : Using either the singles line or the doubles line and the middle, this allows you to discover what it's like to have a long rally. Your movement is restricted to only front-back retrieval, and it requires you to figure out ways to use the length of the court to beat an opponent. Agility exercises : Jumping rope has always been beneficial to badminton players, but for me it can be tedious. Therefore I like to do sets of exercises that contain the jumping and badminton-related foot and leg movements, so that I can constantly change the routine. This includes lunges, alternating ballet third-positions while jumping, cross-overs, high-knees, skipping like Dorothy when she's off to see the wizard, etc. A crisp, consistent clear, a devastating drop, and loving the rally: Since everyone you know is a doubles specialist, unless you can vary the pace of the shot and hit it within five inches of the sideline, smashing in singles can be disastrous. Now that you move like a dream, you want to challenge others to do the same. We singles players do not fight to the death, we fight to the pain. In order to move your opponent to the far reaches of the court, you must consistently clear and lift to the back line and drop and redrop tightly to net. You will soon notice your opponent's lack of footwork training, because he or she will constantly be out of position and unable to recover. At that point to will always float over to your opponent's desperate shot and place it cruelly just out of reach of his flailing racket with a maddening lack of emotion. Things to do: Warm-up: Begin every badminton session with five minutes of solid clears, trying to incorporate footwork. This may sound easy, but many people do not hit only clears in a five-minute warm-up. Build up to ten minutes. Eventually, you can include cross- and open court clears. Warm-up: Play drop-lift games. Player A can only life and Player B can only drop. Player A serves always and the winner of the rally wins the point. Lifts must fall between the two back lines and drops must fall between the net and the service line. Although a little distracting, four players can be on the court. Even eight people can do this if you are using only half-court. Warm-up: Play net games. After a low doubles serve, the rest of the rally is played between the two service lines. Flow and Focus...Singles is a mental game Since retiring from serious competition and three to six hours per day of training, I have experienced a lot of self-imposed stress that I cannot seem to shake. I recently started to play singles again whenever possible and my stress level has gone down. I like to think about playing even when I am not playing, and on the court, it is the only time that I am free to think of nothing but the task at hand. Because it requires (underline) complete attention, it forces you to shut everything out. I remember my ballet teacher yelling out the question, What is ballet? to which we first-graders responded, Discipline! in unison, lisps and all. Although everything requires discipline, it's far easier to have discipline when you have obsession. Flow and focus are interdependent. You cannot achieve flow if you are not focused, and it is difficult to focus when there is no flow. To experience flow, do not challenge Geoff Stensland to a game of singles--he will make you anxious. Nor should you challenge your boyfriend to a game in order to prove yourself and beat him to a pulp. This will bore you. Play people near your level that are willing to play seriously. Here you will have some success and your ability to focus will improve with every game. Once you've experienced the headiness of true flow, there is no turning back. At this point, some obsession with singles will be inevitable, focus will become clearer and flow will occur with more frequency and ease. These things are essential to loving singles and craving the discipline it requires. Warning The only problem with the doubles-specialist-to-singles-player-extraordinaire transition is the unavoidable disappointment that comes with a bad practice. This might be caused by lack of opponents, a plateau in your improvement rate, or unpleasant personalities at the gym. We singles players must persevere, still, in order to experience again what we had at the last good practice. These are only a few of my thoughts on my favorite event. Badminton is a complicated game, so of course there is much more to know than what is in this short article. Perhaps I will write another for a future newsletter to delve further into the makings of a singles player. (Washington State Badminton Association Newsletter, Summer 1996. Pg. 1-4) (sumber: badmintonplanet.com)

Peralatan & Lapangan - Badminton

Lapangan Lapangan bulutangkis dapat dibuat dengan mudah, di mana saja, sejauh tersedia ruangan seluas kira-kira 12 X 20 meter. Di tempat terbuka tentu saja diupayakan agar gangguan angin tidak terlalu besar, sedangkan bila di ruang tertutup, atap bangunannya sebisa mungkin di atas delapan meter agar shuttlecock yang tengah dimainkan tidak sampai terganggu. Di Indonesia, di kampung-kampung lapangan bulutangkis banyak didirikan di atas tanah, semen cor, atau aspal. Namun, di gedung olahraga biasanya sudah berupa semen yang dilapisi vinyl atau kayu lantai. Di lapangan yang diakui secara internasional digunakan karpet yang terbuat dari karet keras, namun elastis. Lapangan bulutangkis ber-ukuran 610 X 1340 cm, yang dibagi dalam bidang-bidang, masingmasing dua sisi berlawaan. Ada garis tunggal, ada garis ganda, ada ruang yang memberi jarak antara pelaku dan penerima servis. Net Di tengah-tengah lapangan ada net yang tingginya 155 cm. Net merupakan pembatas berupa jaring yang membentang antara dua bidang permainan yang diikatkan pada tiang. Tiang itu haruslah kukuh, sehingga net yang dibentangkan tidak akan turun bila ditarik kencang agar lurus. Tinggi net di tengah-tengah lapangan, haruslah 152 cm dari permukaan lapangan. Shuttlecock Shuttlecock yang di Indonesia lazim disebut kok, biasanya terbuat dari bulu angsa buatan abrik, umumnya sudah memiliki standar yang ditentukan IBF. Berat kok sekitar 5,67 gram. Bulu angsa yang menancap di gabus yang dibungkus kulit berwarna putih berjumlah antara 14-16 buah, dan diikat dua tali agar tidak mudah lepas. Jenis inilah yang selalu dipakai untuk kejuaraan resmi. Di luar negeri banyak pula digunakan kok dari karet, baik untuk gabus maupun bulunya. Bentuk, ukuran, dan besarnya harus sama dengan kok yang terbuat dari bulu angsa, namun umumnya kok plastik hanya dipakai untuk latihan saja. Kok yang bagus adalah kalau dipukul dengan raket dengan tangan di bawah pinggang meluncur dengan lurus, tanpa gerakan ke arah kiri atau kanan saat mengundara. Para pemain tingkat internasional sering mencoba kok dengan memukul ke ruang di balik netnya. Bila dipukul dengan tangan mengayun dari bawah, kok yang baik akan mencapai kira-kira di tempat yang sama dengan pelaku servis. Raket Raket pada masa lalu, sampai tahun 1970-an, masih dikenal raket yang baik gagang maupun kepala (daunnya) terbuat dari kayu, sekarang umumnya dibuat dari bahan grafit, meskipun masih ada yang dibuat dari bahan aluminium atau besi ringan. Bentuknya cuma beraneka macam, tetapi yang nge-trend sampai dengan tahun 2002 adalah yang umumnya dipakai pemain pelatnas. Semakin mahal harganya maka semakin enteng dan kuat raket itu. Raket ini memiliki jaring yang dibuat dari senar (string), berupa tali plastik sintetis. Senar yang baik adalah senar yang bisa dipasang sekencangkencangnya tetapi tidak mudah putus, agar raket dapat memantulkan kok yang dipukul dengan kencang atau cepat. Raket ini biasanya dibungkus dalam tas raket yang dapat memuat sampai kirakira enam buah raket. Sepatu dan Pakaian Seperti atlet lain pada umumnya, setiap pemain bulutangkis memiliki perlengkapan utama dan tambahan ketika tampil di sebuah permainan atau pertandingan. Baju, celana, sepatu tergolong asesori utama, sedang ikat tangan, ikat kepala, pengaman lutut bisa disebut tambahan. Sepatu bulutangkis haruslah enteng, namun menggigit bila dipakai di lapangan agar pemain dapat bergerak, balk maju maupun mundur tanpa terpeleset. Karet sol yang menggigit dibutuhkan karena frekuensi gerakan maju dan mundur di bulutangkis berlangsung tinggi, dalam tempo cepat. Sepatu bulutangkis umumnya berwarna putih dengan garis-garis yang warnanya bervariasi. Kaus kaki tidak wajib namun sebaiknya memiliki daya serap keringat yang tinggi dan agak tebal supaya empuk dan mengurangi kemungkinan terjadinya iritasi kulit akibat pergesekan kulit dengan sepatu. Celana pendek atau kaus bulutangkis sebenarnya bebas, tetapi di tingkat internasional banyak dipakai jenis kaus yang sejuk dan mampu menyerap keringat dengan cepat. Terkadang pemain menggunakan kaus tangan, pengikat kepala, atau penjaga lutut, balk untuk keperluan esensial maupun sekedar untuk menambah ramai penampilan. Peraturan Pertandingan Secara sederhana, permainan bulutangkis adalah upaya untuk memasukkan kok ke bidang permainan lawan, tanpa kok itu tidak bisa dikembalikan. Ada berbagai cara melakukannya, seperti memasukkan kok ke bidang yang tidak terjaga lawan, atau memasukkan kok dengan cepat, sehingga tidak sempat dikuasai atau dikejar lawan. Sebelum pertandingan kedua pemain menjalani undian yang dilakukan wasit, biasanya dengan tos menggunakan mata uang logam. Pemenang boleh memilih lapangan dan melakukan servis pertama kali. Untuk ganda, setelah undian hanya satu orang yang melakukan servis dan begitu gaga! mendapat angka, maka servis pun berpindah ke lawan. Angka diperoleh si pelaku servis, sehingga bila dia gagal, servis berpindah, tidak menggunakan rally point seperti di tenis meja atau bola voli. Bila kok tidak bisa dikembalikan lawan, dia akan mendapat angka. Dalam melakukan servis, prinsip yang harus dipegang adalah kepala raket tidak boleh Iebih tinggi dari pinggang, kok dalam keadaan dipegang, dan kaki tidak bergerak mendahului gerakan memukul kok. Sedang penerima servis mengalami fault bila bergerak sebelum lawan melakukan servis. Bola kok juga menjadi mati bila terpukul dua kali, gagal melewati net, mendarat di luar garis, raket melewati atas net atau menyentuh net, kaki melewati batas garis bidang. Sumber: "PEDOMAN PRAKTIS BERMAIN BULUTANGKIS", Oleh: PB PBSI www.bulutangkis.com