As many of you know, badminton is a sport; it is played by men, women and children, in pairs or individually, both for competition and for fun. Badminton is a good sport to take up for the physical aspect of DofE as it’s fun and good exercise. Badminton is played with a racquet, and instead of a ball, like tennis or squash, it’s played with a shuttlecock which can be made of plastic or feathers. The feathers of a shuttlecock traditionally come from the wings of geese.
At school there is a club dedicated to badminton which you can attend to both improve your skills and play competitively. The club is run after school on Tuesdays and at lunchtime on Thursdays. I attended the club at the end of the last school year, but it was so much fun that I decided to go when it started again this year!
Now I’m also training for competitions . There are a lot of advantages of playing badminton. It not only improves your stamina but also helps in team spirit and confidence.
The rules of badminton are that you play singles (one player on each side) or doubles (2 people on each side) and you have to hit the shuttle until the other team can’t take the shot. The team that can’t bring the shuttle back loses the point and the team that hits wins it.
Badminton was originated in India in a version called Poona. The sport was played more than 2,000 years ago in Greece, China and India, but the British game was born in Gloucestershire in 1873, when the Duke of Beaufort introduced the sport at his country estate, Badminton, from which the game now derives its name. The sport is a lot more intense than tennis and is one of the most popular sports in the world.
Shreeya Kalakala
