Rule 1. You WILL be embarrassed. This guide only seeks minimization of said embarrassment. Treat the sniggering and the jibes with acceptance and you’ll go a long way. Treat your team to dinner following your disastrous contribution and you’ll go a longer way.
Rule 2. Badminton doubles is not a ‘team sport’. If you sit back and try acting inconspicuous while your teammate scurries across court, chances are that your teammate is now your ex-teammate. Also ex-friend.
Rule 3. As my friend Yingling says, this is the Golden Rule. “Act like you are running behind the ball when you’re actually doing your best to dodge it”. She’s a pro and has perfected it down to an art form. The only time she touched the ball over 30 minutes of ‘football’ was when she was daydreaming on the field and the ball bounced off her as she yelped in fear. Yingling, I bow to thee.
Rule 4: (Alternative to Strategy 3) Football, if you’re a novice, isn’t really football. It’s ‘Massage Therapy’. Since your feet turn to jelly as soon as you get within two feet of the ball, kicking it is clearly not the strategy to employ. Which is why you follow my favourite line from football commentary- “get as many bodies behind the ball as possible”. If the opposing team is anywhere close to scoring a goal, just stand in the way of the ball. The ball usually ends up hitting you at various parts of your body that aren’t your foot and you get your free massage!
Note 1: Do NOT stand waiting for the ball to come flying to your head. Headers aren’t as cool as they look when it’s your head that’s on the line. Also keep spectacles out the way.
Note 2: Try ensure that your body doesn’t become a buffer off which the ball bounces right to the opposing team’s players. Somehow that tends to happen all the time.
Note 3: Yes, Rule 3 is a much better idea than Rule 4, especially when the opposing team sends balls shooting like cannonballs.
Rule 5: Basketball. Otherwise called ‘Running-and-Chasing Ball’.
The basket’s too high. The ball’s too heavy. When you bounce it, it refuses to return into your hand. And everyone around you is at least half a foot taller. Go fish.
If all your captain tells you in his pep talk is to “try make yourself useful, ok?”, go sit outside court. Trust me, that is where you will be the most useful (else follow Rule 3). If, however, you are stuck with a more encouraging captain, pick the weakest person on the opposing team and run behind him as he runs away from you. If you run close enough (and if you’re a girl the referee will forgive you your indiscretions), he will be so busy avoiding you he can’t get to the ball. Send him a friendly wave in front of his face. Again, if you’re a girl, he won’t smack you back. And remember to avoid said player for the rest of your life.
Happy Playing!
April 9, 2011 at 9:29 pm
What have you been playing?! Is this like a weekly thing or a daily thing or a one time thing? Do you enjoy it? I’m far too self conscious now to play — I can’t seem to stop thinking about “what people will say.”
April 9, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Haha, nothing! We had to play a 30-minute football game as warmup on Friday, and it was actually ok because so many of us didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
April 12, 2011 at 5:05 am
Rule for cricket: ask to field at long on.
A few minutes later,
Captain: That ball went straight to long on, where were you?
Amateur cricketer: Long gone.
April 13, 2011 at 3:12 am
Continued,
Captain: How dare you play baaton wali basketball with me! (Sharma & Singh, 2010) You shall be punished! Go stand in front of the batsman at silly point.
Amateur cricketer: But captain, I’ll do better in the outfield. If you put me at silly point, all I’ll do is cower or maybe even extra cower.
References:
Sharma, A. & Singh, R. (2010). Ainvayi Ainvayi. Band Baaja Baarat.
April 13, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Hehe, took me a while to get the ‘References’ reference.