u/BlueBirdie018

Hey folks

I’ve been going to a few social pick up and play sessions at a local gym. it has been great fun so far, but there was one thing that kinda bothers me. I am very much a beginner. been playing for four weeks. there are a lot of veteran players who played competitively in their youth and are still really good.

but at some of the sessions, there is this tendency that people of a more advanced level only play with each other and avoid newbies when mixing up players on court. they’ve sometimes said they were sitting out due to injury to avoid being paired with some of us beginners, only to go on immediately after when a more experienced player was looking for a partner.

And some of them also throw games when playing with a beginner to make those games end quicker. Some players who are usually very strong and quick on court look like they’re not making an effort when paired with a beginner. Like some of them just stand still on the spot and hit shots straight into the net every time, or just give very weak serves. And it’s not like they’re going easy against their opponent: the opponent was someone they usually played with or against in doubles matchups.

I’m really not sure how to deal with this. I tried speaking to this person and they just denied it, saying they’re just playing normally and we’re losing because of me. And I spoke to some of the other beginners who also noticed this behaviour; one of them said that they felt like these veterans play these games and throw them so we can be done in five minutes and then they can say they have played with us when being accused of not mixing up partners.

Some of the players in the middle of the experience range and some of the more experienced players who don’t behave this way just said ‘this is a social session, it’s for a mix of levels, it’s not segregated by level’ but didn‘t actually say anything about the behaviour from those specific veterans who kinda don’t stick to the etiquette of a social session.

these sessions are entirely unstructured and down to who shows up. There’s no moderation or facilitation. And barring other players at the session intervening, I’m not really sure what else to do. Like it’s obvious this goes against the etiquette of a social session; but how do you enforce that etiquette?

Context: the gym I’m part of has a badminton ‘exercise class’ which is an informal pick up and play social session. There is a ‘coach’ who is there to help out and brings some equipment. but sometimes the coach doesn’t show and the rest of the class just self organise. usually we play doubles, and if we don’t have a multiple of 4 one pair plays singles, and we mix it up each game. sometimes the coach gives us 1-on-1 coaching time if the group is small enough. usual social badminton session stuff.

on two occasions, I encountered what I can only describe as shuttlecock snobbery: one day when the coach wasn’t there, we used our own equipment. I had some own brand shuttlecocks from Decathlon that I started playing with. they were rated ‘intermediate level’ and ‘medium speed‘. but one guy refused to play with those if they weren’t Yonex. when he swapped into the group of four, he insisted we swap out the shuttle, and we spent ten minutes waiting for this guy to go to back to the changing room and get the shuttle from his locker. he didn’t think to bring it with him because we normally have equipment provided. anyway, he insisted he only played with medium speed Mavis 600s or better. so I returned the shuttles I bought and exchanged them for Yonex ones.

the second time, the coach brought a whole set of shuttles. there were some new Mavis 10s mixed in with a couple old Mavis 300s. they were all medium speed, blue ring. There was one person who basically claimed a shuttle, and when groups swapped over between courts and partners changed, this person ended up with me in a group of four. we had a Mavis 10. I served the shuttle to them and they caught it and refused to play. they then went and interrupted someone else’s game and asked to swap for the one Mavis 300 we had out in the session.

am I overreacting here or is this level of hair splitting over shuttlecocks a bit dickish? Interrupting others’ game to ask for the shuttle, delaying the start of a game to get a shuttle, and then only really swapping one shuttle out, so expecting other people to play with the worse shuttles. like I get insisting on shuttle quality and consistency when competing or something, but in the lowest stakes pickup and play social sessions with mostly senior citizens and students, it makes no sense to be this persnickety.

I met up with a friend who talked to me about a recent break up they went through and then the new person they started dating. And then they said ‘how’s your dating life going?’ which is a clunky way of phrasing it for sure.

obviously I don’t like being asked this question because my answer isn’t the straightforward one allos expect. but then I said to them ‘so this is complicated‘ and told them about being ace, how that means I fundamentally rethink what relationships mean and why they matter, etc.

and we ended up having a really lovely chat. they were genuinely asking to get to know me better and appreciated how insightful I was. and they said they find amatonormativity difficult and they’ve found themselves in relationships where even though they’re not ace their experiences don’t always line up with conventional relationships.

so yeah, positive experience talking about this.

I was at a social session at a club today. I was really struggling to hit returns and smashes. I am only three weeks in. so one person took me aside and said he’d coach me. he used to play competitively and coach. he took me to a vacant court and fed to me so I could practice.

then other players came in and he said ‘do you mind if instead of a game we just did rallies for five minutes? I’m trying to coach them on how to hit round the head shots.’

and the others just joined in with helping me practice instead of going into a game straight away. And then we played a game later but only to 15 points instead of 21 (controversial, I know!). And everyone was so encouraging. It made me feel less shit for struggling and making so many mistakes.

I’ve been to social sessions where people have been very snobbish. Like you’d literally see them refuse to pair up with beginners or a group of four who would only play with themselves. But these people who skipped a game to help me practice without me even asking was really lovely. It’s gestures like this that make me want to stay in a club.

I’m a beginner and I’ve played a few times at social settings where we played doubles. One thing I’m struggling with is just learning how to hit and move. I recognised my footwork is awry as I tend to lunge with the opposite leg instead of the racquet leg as one would in squash. Also I keep mishitting a lot of my shots, usually getting the shuttle by the rim or stem and not the head, or just getting the timing of my swing wrong and missing entirely.

some of the experienced players in the social sessions gave me pointers here and there. but I didn’t really get time to consolidate it and I feel like it hasn’t set in yet. and playing doubles it feels like I’m not improving on my fundamentals.

im on the look out for coached sessions. and some people from the social sessions were thinking of booking a court in a community centre with the four of us and doing drills.

does anyone have suggestions for drills we can do? Things we can do to practice these basics alongside the social badminton games?

Hey everyone,

I‘m 33NB and I’m looking to make more friends with fellow aces along a similar age with aligned values, and someone to survive this late-capitalist dystopian hellscape with by imagining what better worlds we could live in. It’d be nice to chat and see how we can make the world around us better, bit by bit.

I’d like to live in a world without borders, prisons, and police, a world where we can find ways of dealing with harm without replicating a cycle of violence and expulsion. I’d also like to just live to see that world, and not have us burn down the planet or just tear everything apart through conflict.

I guess what I’m looking for is co-conspirators to make the ideal world we want more real! I feel like being neurodivergent and queer means this agonising feeling of being at odds with the world as it is, because of which we need to reimagine the world into one where we belong.

Apart from that, I’m into nerdy stuff like board games, D&D, I also play badminton, and I love cooking. And being very AuDHD, I’ve got several hobbies I kinda suck at but cycle through very rapidly. But they still bring me immense joy and insight into the world. Also I volunteer at a mental health NGO that was really helpful to me ages ago when I needed them.

So if you’d like to chat, drop a reply or send me a DM. It’d be great to talk to other folks!