I’d Rather Be Playing Badminton

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Katya Rucker: I'm standing in an elementary school gym in Bedford, Massachusetts, where five badminton courts are set up: three in the back, two in the front. It's a pick-up game that happens every Tuesday at 7:00 PM. There's no league, no tournament, no lit-up scoreboard. Everyone is just here to play.

[00:00:28] You're listening to [00:00:30] I'd Rather Be, a podcast about the hobbies and passions that make our lives fuller and richer. I'm your host, Katya Rucker. We have two guests joining the show today. First, we're going to hear from Andrew Rhodes, one of the highly devoted badminton players in this gym. So much so that he volunteered to be the one who shows up first to set up the nets and get all the equipment out.

[00:00:54] And later we'll hear from a guest who works for the Badminton World Federation, Ian Wright, as their [00:01:00] Director of Development. I wanted to know why badminton has declined in popularity in the US despite being the second most popular sport in the world, right behind soccer. Ian has some fascinating insights to share.

[00:01:13] And he'll also talk about the BWF’s goals for the future of their sport. But first, let's get back to Andrew and his path to falling in love with badminton. We recorded our conversation in an empty classroom, near the gym before the other players began to arrive. [00:01:30] 

[00:01:30] Andrew Rhodes: Is it okay if we sit in here? [response: oh yeah, absolutely]  Okay. Great. Thanks. Great support from the school here.

[00:01:34] Katya Rucker: Andrew started playing badminton the way many Americans do: in his backyard. He bought what he described as his first terrible $20 badminton set from Sears, which consisted of a net, some plastic birdies, otherwise known as shuttlecocks, and a couple rackets, which are similar to tennis rackets, but with a much smaller head and longer skinnier handle.

[00:01:55] Andrew told me that the first thing he liked about the sport was getting to smash the birdie as [00:02:00] hard as he wanted, without it going too far. 

[00:02:02] Andrew Rhodes: Where it started for me was, the terrible quality sets eventually break when you use them that way. And so eventually the bird separates into two pieces and the little rubber bit disappears in the bushes.

[00:02:13] And so I fixed that one year by just ordering some highly rated shuttlecocks from Amazon, and they turned out to be, accidentally, real ones from proper indoor badminton, but they were also so much better, like the way they flew, they were very consistent, and were more fun to play with. And [00:02:30] that's sort of how it started for me.

[00:02:31] Katya Rucker: When Andrew says it's how it started for him, he's talking about real indoor badminton, because unlike tennis, competitive badminton is exclusively played indoors where air currents cannot disrupt the flight of the shuttlecock. And, more on the physics of shuttlecocks later. As in every episode of I'd Rather Be, I find I can learn a lot about a hobby by learning about the people who are most passionate about it.

[00:02:56] So I asked Andrew, what about himself -- his personality, his [00:03:00] identity -- makes badminton such a perfect sport for him. 

[00:03:04] Andrew Rhodes: I would say I'm pretty atypical across the board. So none of these are gonna resonate with mainstream people. Um, I think of myself as not at all athletic and I sort of, I survived, you know, mandatory physical education until I didn't have to do it anymore.

[00:03:22] Um, and was probably somewhat traumatized by that. And so, I'm disappointed now that I found this so late that I just feel like I've wasted a couple [00:03:30] of decades I could have been doing this. Um, cause I, I have, do have some dexterity to it and I'm lucky to  not have to eat well and still end up not being heavy and things like that, so I sorta have the right body type for this kind of sport, I think. 

[00:03:45] Katya Rucker: Andrew is just under six feet tall and lanky, but it's his wingspan more than his height that seems to give him an advantage in badminton. He says he always noticed it was hard to find shirts with the right length sleeves. And then his opponents started telling him [00:04:00] he was able to reach shots they didn't think he could reach. Andrew also seems to appreciate the subtle nuances of the game. Like, the fact that a lot of power from a hit comes from the wrist rather than the arm, and the unique flight pattern of the birdie. Here's what he said when I asked him what he has come to love about the game now that he's been playing it for about four years.

[00:04:21] Andrew Rhodes: I've been thinking about that since we talked a couple of days ago. Um, I think initially it was because it was a fun thing to do and it was [00:04:30] physically rewarding to sort of smash a thing and not have to like, lose it. Um, when I started playing more, not knowing the proper game at all, it was more about, I had some aptitude for it, I think.

[00:04:44] So it was fun to play my friend and we were both getting better, but I was sort of, you know, keeping up with him or better than him at times. Uh, so I guess I enjoyed that competitive part to it. Um, and it was, we were starting to look around. We had heard about - there were some programs and I was just talking [00:05:00] at work and I would credit my friend and then officemate, Allison, for sort of pushing me to come and check out the indoor program. And that's where I discovered this whole world of people playing a serious sport. Uh, I got past the intimidation of that and, and found I could get better. And now I'm sort of hooked on trying to improve my game, and that's sort of what I like about the game.

[00:05:25] What I like about the community is that there’s now like a whole bunch [00:05:30] of people that I wouldn't have anything to talk about or any reason to interact with them. And often there's even a language barrier, but we can play a little badminton and, and understand each other. And I really like that about it too. It’s very diverse.

[00:05:43] Katya Rucker: I've noticed this with other hobbies too, that sometimes it seems the hobby is the only thing people have in common with one another. And yet that shared interest is enough to spark new friendships and acquaintances. Here in Bedford for two and a half hours every Tuesday night, [00:06:00] everyone comes together to get totally immersed in the game.

[00:06:03] And while Andrew is mostly self-taught in badminton, he's picked up quite a bit from watching coaches work with everyone from beginners to elite athletes in tournaments. 

[00:06:11] Andrew Rhodes: They start with things like picking up the birdie off the floor with the racket, which just builds in the weight of the racket, the weight of the bird, how you have to be gentle and move carefully and so forth.

[00:06:22] Whereas I started with: smash something as hard as you can and try to bring it down, which is backwards. And then, very basic things like [00:06:30] here's the service motion, now let’s do this a hundred times and every time we meet we’re going to do it a hundred times. 

[00:06:34] Katya Rucker: Later that night, I picked up a racket and tried hitting the birdie back and forth with Andrew. And he's right. It's instantly gratifying to smash it over the net, knowing it isn't going to go very far. It's surprisingly easy to get the hang of the basics of badminton, at least when your opponent is both good and going easy on you. Andrew's the one who told me that badminton might soon surpass soccer as the world's [00:07:00] most popular sport thanks to its growth in Indonesia, China, and South Korea. My impression is that badminton is somewhat misunderstood in the US because so many Americans think of it as a casual backyard game and not the high-speed, high-intensity indoor sport it's designed to be. Ian Wright from the Badminton World Federation tells me a little about the heyday of badminton in the US. 

[00:07:24] Ian Wright: In the 50s and 60s, there were American players winning the top tournaments in the world. [00:07:30] You know, there's a real, there's a real history of the game there. And even pre-war, there was a big craze for badminton, even in Hollywood. All the actors were playing badminton, everyone was playing it.

[00:07:42] Katya Rucker: Ian tells me about one champion American badminton player, Hugh Forgie, who he had the chance to meet a few years before Forgie’s death in 1993. Forgie was both a professional player and an entertainer who contributed to badminton’s popularity. He pulled stunts like playing badminton in the Holiday on Ice [00:08:00] show, and he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show five times playing badminton in clown and Santa costumes. Ian's understanding of why badminton ultimately declined in popularity in the US came from his conversations with Forgie and other elite US players.

[00:08:15] Ian Wright: My theory from talking to all these people and obviously I'm passing on their theory, uh, is the home of badminton really in the sort of 40s, 50s, 60s, was the athletics [00:08:30] clubs, uh, YMCAs in particular. And of course this little sport called basketball came along and wiped them out of those facilities.

[00:08:39] So the natural habitat of badminton, if you like, was taken away really by basketball. And I think it struggled in terms of facilities after that, and probably became less popular at that point. 

[00:08:52] Katya Rucker: Compounding this loss of badminton's natural habitat to basketball, another likely reason for the sports decline is a [00:09:00] lack of success for US badminton players in international competitions in the last 50 or so years.

[00:09:06] The United States has never won an Olympic medal in badminton. And that's true for only four other sports: handball, trampoline, table tennis, and rhythmic gymnastics. But the BWF has actually started to see a resurgence of badminton in the US in recent years. 

[00:09:22] Ian Wright: I think today it's really interesting because what you've got now is a real, uh, in terms of participation US badminton is really really high, [00:09:31] but it's not very structured. There are lots of first, second generation Asian families who immigrated to the US who have opened up badminton facilities and run them as secondary businesses. And, uh, these centers, they're all full -- west coast, east coast -- not so much down the middle of the US, but on the west coast and on the east coast, there's a massive participation in badminton at the moment.

[00:09:55] Katya Rucker: Ian believes that for the sport to grow more quickly and produce truly competitive [00:10:00] American players, badminton needs to get onto the NCAA college program so that the most talented high school athletes can win scholarships and get the level of coaching they need to compete internationally.

[00:10:11] Badminton becoming an NCAA sport would be the catalyst for more structured and accessible badminton programs at the K-12 level, meaning passionate players, like Andrew would likely be exposed to the sport much earlier. To further dispel badminton’s reputation as a casual backyard game. Andrew give me a sense of just [00:10:30] how fast paced and physically demanding the real indoor game can be.

[00:10:33] Andrew Rhodes: The second fastest thing in sports is a golf ball being hit by a very hard hitting golf player, but that number is uh, I think it was -- the current record in badminton is 465 kilometers per hour. I think the golf ball was, um, I think it was 280, 290, something in that ballpark.

[00:10:56] Katya Rucker: I looked this up - top golf ball speeds peak around [00:11:00] 340 kilometers per hour. But that's still well out of reach of the top birdie speed. 

[00:11:05] Andrew Rhodes: So, fast, and faster than football, soccer, you know all those things, fastest pitch and all that. But yes, the bird slows down rapidly. It still means the game is very quick because it doesn't go very far either. So like compared to tennis, the tennis ball, you know, top servers serve 130 miles an hour, but the tennis court is much, much longer than a badminton court. [00:11:30] 

[00:11:30] Katya Rucker: A badminton court is a little over half the length of a tennis court. So what I'm hearing Andrew say is that in tennis, you have double the distance to hit a projectile going half the speed of the badminton birdie.

[00:11:42] Of course, the birdie is designed to slow down as it flies. And we'll talk more about that in a minute, but Andrew's comparison of badminton to tennis helps aluminate for me, just how intense an indoor badminton game can be. 

[00:11:54] Andrew Rhodes: I read some article, which I was trying to find today and didn't, but I found some similar ones that [00:12:00] do like comparisons of tennis versus badminton, and one of the things they do in studies like that, and there've been a few, is time like how much of the time spent during the game is the sort of play actually going on, um, which is very short, like a rally apparently lasts on the order of 10 seconds typically. Um, but it's sort of comparable for tennis and badminton. Um, but the amount of time spent not in play is much higher for tennis. So even though their matches are [00:12:30] longer, the amount of time in play is similar.

[00:12:33] Um, and then they also often get into like how much running you do. So even though it's the smallest court for badminton, some of the comparisons, like one of them, they just picked some Wimbledon  match and they picked some badminton world level match, and then they compared them, they did stats, and they found that badminton match was two hours shorter, but they ran twice as far.

[00:12:51] Katya Rucker: Wow. I would never have thought you run farther in badminton than tennis. 

[00:12:55] Andrew Rhodes: And you know, you're only running a couple of meters at a time, but you're doing it constantly. 

[00:12:59] Katya Rucker: Yeah. [00:13:00] Yeah. So suffice to say that endurance becomes important if you want to be able to make it through a competitive game of badminton. It's tempting to compare tennis and badminton since both are racket sports involving a net and similarly shaped courts, but the badminton net is much higher at 60 inches compared with just 36 inches high for the tennis net, and scoring is also very different. Badminton is more like volleyball in that you play to 21, a point is scored on every serve, you must win by two or [00:13:30] the first to 30 points wins, and badminton matches are always best out of three of these 21-point games. But beyond scoring and the height of the nets, the most drastic difference between tennis and badminton comes down to the things being hit, because a birdie is nothing like a tennis ball. 

[00:13:47] Andrew Rhodes: What’s really unusual about it is how much it slows down. So it's very draggy on purpose. Um, and so it's basically a small round cork that's like a half of a ball [00:14:00] and there's 16 feathers in it. Normally, all of the tournaments are feathers and traditionally use feathers, and feathers fly differently than plastic ones. So far, there's never been a synthetic one made that flies like the feathers do.

[00:14:14] There is some, um, movement towards more durable shuttles. There are arguments about sustainability. I think the source of the feathers is actually not that big a deal because they come as a by-product of meat production. Um, [00:14:30] the premium ones are geese, the cheaper ones are duck. So there's 16 of those and they're sort of arranged in a crown-like, a cone-like shape and stitched together and glued. And it's a very labor intensive process. 

[00:14:42] Katya Rucker: In the highest grade shuttles, the feathers need to be so uniform that they can only come from the left-wing of a goose, as only these feathers have the right curves and contours to spin and fly consistently at higher levels of play. And as you've heard throughout the episode, the terms shuttlecocks, shuttles, [00:15:00] birdies, and birds are used interchangeably to describe this cone-shaped projectile, but the official name for it is the shuttlecock, and the shuttlecock has been around for thousands of years, originating in China in games where the goal was to keep the shuttle from hitting the ground. Badminton was invented only about 160 years ago. And today, it's played in either singles or doubles with extremely light rackets that weigh about 90 grams or three ounces. And it's the light weight of both the racket and [00:15:30] the shuttle, combined with the shuttle's aerodynamic cone shape and the density of the cork at the tip that make it fly so fast.

[00:15:38] And even though it has the drag of the feathers, it can still be going at 80% of its original speed when it gets to the opponent's racket. 

[00:15:45] Andrew Rhodes: So it can come off the racket really fast, faster than any other racket sport. And as soon as you get past beginner, the speed is, is dictating everything because there isn't time to move to where the shuttle is, unless you are already in the right position or in the right body [00:16:00] position so you can reach it with your racket.

[00:16:01] Katya Rucker: Our final word about shuttles was kind of a random contribution from. I had come across a fun fact about where the largest shuttlecock in the world could be found. …In Kansas City, at the art museum, it’s 18 feet tall? 

[00:16:13] Andrew Rhodes: Oh, I saw that once, not in person, somebody sent me a link to it. 

[00:16:18] Katya Rucker: Is that something you would include on your bucket list?

[00:16:23] Andrew Rhodes: Ah, it's so out of character for what a shuttle is, which is so light. 

[00:16:28] Katya Rucker: You know you're talking to a badminton [00:16:30] purist when they're unfazed by the largest artistic monument to their sport simply because it goes against the essence of what the shuttlecock is. So thanks to Andrew, I had a much better understanding of the pace of the game and the way the shuttle behaves when smashed or lobbed over the net.

[00:16:47] I also wanted to get Ian's perspective on some of the unique benefits of playing badminton over other sports.  

[00:16:55] Ian Wright: Year I mean, and obviously we've done a lot of research, uh, around the sports of badminton and there are many [00:17:00] health benefits. Uh, many of which people don't really understand, or we haven't been able to promote well enough, but for example, uh, there's a worldwide…I kate to use the word pandemic of, uh, youth, youth myopia through screens.

[00:17:20] Katya Rucker: Myopia, in case you haven't heard the term is another word for near-sightedness, which is exacerbated when our eyes spend a lot of time focusing on near objects like [00:17:30] phone screens.

[00:17:31] Ian Wright: And uh, you know, this is getting worse and worse. Glasses sales are one of the highest rising things in the world, you know, uh, we see it all over Asia now.

[00:17:40] Um, what badminton does is because the shuttle goes up above the eyeline and comes down again and it forces the eyes to move, uh, to work in a different way and to use the muscles of the eye in a different way. And actually it's, it's a very good [00:18:00] preventative measure for youth myopia and actually some forms of myopia in general.

[00:18:06] So for example, badminton has been adopted by the Russian army for that very reason. So the Russian army -- it's actually on their training curriculum now that they play badminton because it's good for their eyesight. 

[00:18:18] Katya Rucker: As someone who wears glasses, I found this pretty compelling. That my eyesight could actually get better just by playing badminton.

[00:18:26] Ian also told me about a study conducted in the UK where the BWF’s [00:18:30] school program, Shuttle Time, was compared with the UKs national sports curriculum for five to 11 year olds. The researchers were surprised to find that badminton was found to be much more effective in developing core physical education markers in children than the UK national curriculum.

[00:18:47] These are markers such as catching, throwing, and agility. The Shuttle Time program was launched in 2012 and is now being implemented in 142 countries, including the US. It's one of the [00:19:00] biggest sports participation programs in the world for the five to 15-year-old age group. And it includes free resources, training and equipment for teachers and schools.

[00:19:09] And due in part to its global success, the BWF realized early on that it needed to create an entirely new version of the game of badminton. 

[00:19:19] Ian Wright: Shuttle Time was designed to introduce badminton to less developed and developing nations. The fact is now, most developed nations have picked it up as well, but, um, in these [00:19:30] places, indoor sports facilities for schools, uh, in Africa, Central and South America, there's not so many indoor sports facilities.

[00:19:39] So we're introducing Shuttle Time, but they're not getting the best experience of it. So the idea was, could we come up with a shuttle that was more effective in an outdoor situation that gave a better experience of our sport? 

[00:19:51] Katya Rucker: So coming full circle here, the outdoor version of badminton that most Americans are used to is a version where the shuttle is highly susceptible [00:20:00] to weather conditions, as mild as a slight breeze.

[00:20:03] But, once badminton began to take off in schools, in developing countries where indoor sports facilities didn't exist, the BWF decided to take the huge step of designing an entirely new shuttle that would be far superior to those knock-off plastic ones that Andrew experienced when he first began to play outdoors.

[00:20:22] Ian Wright: And, uh, it took -- you can't see my office from here, but -- sitting behind me, we've got [00:20:30] 70-plus prototypes of the AirShuttle. Uh, one step forward, sometimes five or six steps backwards. It's the most frustrating project I think I’ve ever done. It took over five years, but we came up with a design that actually is better.

[00:20:45] Of course it's affected by wind because we wanted to keep the shape, the shuttle shape. Uh, but it works a lot better outdoors and it gives a better experience. 

[00:20:54] Katya Rucker: Ian sent me a really cool picture of these prototypes all set up next to one another. And you [00:21:00] can take a look for yourself on the I'dRatherBePodcast Instagram.

[00:21:03] The differences between many of them are extremely subtle. The name of this new version of the game is AirBadminton. And as he had mentioned, the shuttle is called an AirShuttle. Part of what made the design of the new shuttle so challenging was finding the perfect balance of a shuttle that was a little heavier to be more resistant to wind, but not so heavy that it would act more like a tennis ball being hit back and forth over the net.

[00:21:26] Ian Wright: And we wanted to try and keep the characteristics of the game and the [00:21:30] characteristics of the game are: you can hit the shuttle up or you can hit the shuttle down. Uh, and you use space, so you want to move your opponents around. And that was the biggest complication -- we could have easily gone to a product where we could have had a volley game and called it AirBadminton, but really, people wouldn't even be getting the same sort of health kick and benefits from the sport by standing there and just hitting in a shuttle backwards and forwards.

[00:21:55] So it was getting that compromise between the weight of the shuttle [00:22:00] and the ability to use different trajectories if you like. And that was really, that was really tough. That was the, that was the biggest challenge.

[00:22:08] Katya Rucker: The BWF launched AirBadminton and the new AirShuttle in May, 2019. And while Ian described this as possibly the worst launch date in the history of sport, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic that followed shortly after, he tells me that sales of the new shuttle have been high, since people have been looking for more outdoor sports options. [00:22:30] So that was a bit of a silver lining. Ian tells me that the BWF has two primary goals for this new version of their sport.

[00:22:37] Ian Wright: There’s a strand around participation and improving people's image of the game outdoors. And there's a strand that we think we've got a really interesting strand towards a competitive version of the sport outdoors, which is AirBadminton. We hope to be in the World Beach Games for next year, uh, already. Uh, and we’re in a lot of the regional beach [00:23:00] games, and we're going into the, uh, World University Games, the Universiade. So we're already pushing for some of these multi-sports events to get into them so that we can present ourselves really as a potential serious outdoor sport at the top end.

[00:23:15] Katya Rucker: Both Ian and Andrew tell me that the most serious or elite badminton athletes are still firmly planted in the indoor badminton camp, and haven't expressed much interest in trying AirBadminton.

[00:23:28] Ian Wright: Feedback from players who've actually [00:23:30] played it, on the whole, it’s very positive. Feedback from players who haven't played it -- they’re quite skeptical, but I think all sports are conservative by their very nature. So our goal is to get everybody to try it. So we're running some things where we're getting our top players doing some promotional video for it, and to do that, we've got them playing it and actually they’re going, oh, actually this is okay.

[00:23:51] Katya Rucker: Andrew counts himself as a badminton fan who is always open to trying something new. So now, all he needs to do is convince some of his fellow pickup players to [00:24:00] venture back outside with him. And who knows, maybe AirBadminton will soon become one of the newest Olympic sports. As Andrew and I reached the end of our conversation, these were some of the tips he had for anyone interested in learning more, or even trying badminton out for the first time.

[00:24:16] Andrew Rhodes: There’s plenty of stuff to check out on YouTube to get a sense of what the real game kind of looks like. Um, there's also, you can spectate the world level of play -- BWF has a great free YouTube channel that covers theirs, fantastic, far better than what you [00:24:30] get like if you tried to watch a little bit of the Olympic coverage, you know, it's, it's so like, beginner level with the Olympic coverage, that you never actually hear anything interesting, so you can get a sense of it that way.

[00:24:41] Um, it's super easy to find a program in your town and check it out. Uh, the only thing you really need to do is sort of be enthusiastic and have a a good pair of shoes. 

[00:24:52] Katya Rucker: Yeah, I read that there are badminton shoes.

[00:24:54] Andrew Rhodes: There are, basketball shoes are fine. You basically need a rubber soled shoe [00:25:00] so that you don’t slip.

[00:25:02] Katya Rucker: Enthusiasm and rubber soled shoes. The winning combination for a game of pickup badminton.

[00:25:09] My final question for Andrew was, has badminton taught you any broader life lessons?

[00:25:17] Andrew Rhodes: Hmm. Well, maybe that something you might never have thought you would do, uh, because somebody pushed you a little bit to go and try it might turn out to be a big part of your life. [00:25:30] 

[00:25:31] Katya Rucker: And now that badminton has become a big part of his life, Andrew is willing to say no to other things, to make sure he's able to devote as much time as he can to it. The first step was just getting a little outside his comfort zone. And once he did that, his only regret was not discovering badminton sooner.

[00:25:48] I want to thank Andrew for sharing his love of badminton here on the I'd Rather Be podcast. And of course, for giving me the chance to hit the birdie back and forth with him in the gym. And a huge thanks to Ian Wright [00:26:00] from the Badminton World Federation for giving us a rare window into what goes on behind the scenes of the governing body for the second most popular sport in the world. If you're enjoying I'd Rather Be, the best way you can help the show grow is by sharing it with one or two friends, because personal recommendations are how most people discover new podcasts. Next week's episode is about a hobby that offers plenty of room to push the limits of creative expression.

[00:26:27] Guest for Next Episode: There's kind of a freedom of expression there. [00:26:30] So you can do a lot of formulaic pieces, but you can also do weird stuff, you know, like you can do whatever you want. 

[00:25:31] Katya Rucker: I'd Rather Be Embroidering comes out Tuesday, January 11th. I'd Rather Be was hosted, produced and edited by me, Katya Rucker. Show notes and the full transcript for this episode can be found at idratherbepodcast.com.

[00:26:51] You can stay up to date about the show by following I'dRatherBePodcast on Instagram. Have a great week. And thanks for listening.