An American Girl Learning Badminton in China
I have more than 30 blog posts I wrote but never published for some reason or another. Some are half written or just have keywords, some are finished but circumstances changed so I didn’t feel right publishing them, some are…
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You may have heard of the 10,000 hour theory that Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his book Outliers. It is the idea that anyone can become a master in any discipline as long as they put in 10,000 hours. Gladwell got…
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My coach and I haven’t started training yet, but we are back to playing and he has taken to playing with me so he can yell at me the whole time. Between being sick and the Chinese New Year holiday…
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As an English speaker who is living and training badminton in China I realize I have a bit of a unique niche. China is the gold star in the badminton world but unless you live here (and speak Chinese) it…
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It took forever for my coach to finally order them, but we got our new club shirts with our own logo designed by my coach! Our shirts are “in the style” of a Victor shirt and the China national team…
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I was playing the other night and this guy, who I never met, walks in and sees me. “Long Xiao Bing!” he calls out in a booming voice. I was in the middle of hitting with a guy but I…
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So in my Monday back-to-back coaching session it finally happened. My coaches disagreed. After our training, my second coach, Han, showed up and he and my coach chat for a bit (they are friends). Then my coach busied himself and…
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Now, I talk a lot about my coach and how great he is, but actually I don’t have just one coach, I have a few. And these days, my coaches are trying to do everything in the power to kill…
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A lot of badminton stuff has been going on these days, but in the midst of competitions and meeting badminton legends, I’m still keeping up my training. I’m pretty solid on the basics now, so my training has now changed…
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So, the big competition, the first one my group entered together is over. And…… We lost. We had two teams and each had two men’s doubles and one mixed doubles partnership. My team had two mixed doubles teams sign up…
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