Double my efforts.. Triple..

Went to play badminton in Megah today with some friends... played singles with 1 boy... Now looking at his strokes and footwork I am quite sure I could have beaten him easily. The last time I played with him it was pretty easy, but today it was like I had so much trouble. First off I was down 2-12. Definitely not a good way to start. I made so many unforced errors! Kept smashing & dropping into the net + lobbing half court. Reminds me of MSSD this year...

I don't know what happened to me lately. If you ask my old coach, he will tell you that unforced error is something I rarely ever do in a game, especially not in tournaments. But of late it seems to be creeping in... perhaps it started a long time ago, just that I never really bothered about it until today. Today it hit me.. I beat that guy 23-21, but the score could easily have been way lower. Of course I can blame it on my lack of warm up(reached there at 11am, was asked by coach to play with him in about 5 mins), but no.. even later when I played doubles I smashed into the net more than usual.

So I've decided to take my training seriously. Been slacking off too long now. Have to double/triple my effort(if I even gave any). I just imagined if my old coach saw the way I played today he'd be ashamed to tell anyone that he was the one that made me who I am in 1 year of training. Arrgh.

I've not been using all the strokes/skills that I was taught before too. What happened to my spinning nets, slice-smashes, slice-drops, and all? Now I seem to stick to the usual drops and lobs alone. Once in a while an attacking lob, but thats about it.

Gotta do something about it. If I join Selangor Close this year(hopefully its on) I don't want to embarrass myself in front of my old coach(who will surely be there).

But now training only 4 times a month very hard to polish up my strokes. Last time training on court 3 times a week(about 3 hours training each time, and another 3 days in the gym) made life much easier when I wanted to learn/polish up strokes. So if we use Math, 1.5 weeks of last time is equivalent to my amount of training now(12 times a month on court compared to 4 times a month on court). Stopped my gym because wanted to start squash and had transportation problem there after the bus service stopped... Now stopped squash cause of transport problems too. Haiz.

Nonetheless I'll do my best during training.. from now on. No more backside shots and fooling around! Slacked off too long now.. practically wasted about 1 year in Megah doing nothing... I've got a good coach there, may as well try to use her. But for the month of May I don't know how much I can actually give because it's the exam period, with only 5 hours of sleep per night. We'll see though.

Take care,
Joanne