We Got 5th Place!!

We got 5th place! Out of 16 teams!!! Sure 1-3 would have been best, but I’m actually really psyched and a little relieved. I was afraid that we would do so much worse. I’m the kind of person who gets…
Read more
An American Girl Learning Badminton in China
We got 5th place! Out of 16 teams!!! Sure 1-3 would have been best, but I’m actually really psyched and a little relieved. I was afraid that we would do so much worse. I’m the kind of person who gets…
Read more
This blog is pretty new, and I don’t do anything to advertise it, but people are slowly beginning to find it. And not just people, but women! Foreign women living in China who also play badminton! (See the comments on…
Read more
On Tuesday I have class with my coach. We do it in the morning, so no one else bothers us. There are no other players, and the only other people there are Lao Shushu, the old uncle who lives at…
Read more
Next weekend I have my first badminton competition (that I didn’t organize)! Woot! Woot! Ironically, one of the foreign teachers told me about it, not my badminton friends. He had a local friend who told him of the local “international…
Read more
So let’s talk tension…string tension. I’ve skirted the issue in the past, but the tension of your racket affects your game play a lot. The strings are strung at whatever “poundage” is best for you. Pro’s use the most tension…
Read more
Xiao Bing! Too Slow! Xiao Bing! Wrist higher! Xiao Bing! Body Lower! Xiao Bing! Too fast! Xiao Bing! Smash it! Xiao Bing! Hit it to the empty areas! Xiao Bing! Don’t smash it, hit it lightly over the net! (Xiao…
Read more
It’s kinda funny because in my foreigner badminton group, everyone swears in their native language. I mean, swears just kinda pop out when you least expect it and they roll off the tongue so naturally you don’t have time to…
Read more
Because I’ve been playing everyday until around 11pm I miss the last bus home. So my coach has taken to driving me home. The first week we started this tradition, I hated it. Like I said in my other post,…
Read more
So, a whopping five days after the typhoon struck, my coaches gym finally got electricity! It was even more amazing because his was the only building in the entire block to get it. But I wasn’t complaining. But I would…
Read more
Xiamen just lived through Super Typhoon Meranti, the biggest storm of the year this far and one of the biggest storms to hit Xiamen in decades. Needless to say it made a slight dent in my training schedule. Like a…
Read more