Kinds of Play

The game I chose to learn about was badminton. If you are familiar with either tennis or volleyball, this game is very similar to each. They all have the same basic goal: you must hit the object over the net and make it land on your opponent's court without them getting to it. The setup however slightly differed. I would say it combines tennis and volleyball in the aspect that the court is set up like tennis, and you can play singles or doubles, but the net is up high like in volleyball, and the ball cannot hit the ground even once.  The players have these long rackets and they must take turns hitting what is known as the "shuttlecock" back and forth. As mentioned earlier, their goal is to hit it on the court of their opponent where it hits the ground before they can get to it. If it does, the player gains a point. The game goes on until one player gets to 21 points, then they win. 

Badminton comprises of three different kinds of play. The first, and most obvious kind, is competitive play. The entire game is competitive as the goal is to be the first player to reach 21 points. There will be a winner, and there will be a loser. This game can even use the concept of yomi. This is the Japanese concept of analyzing your opponent and trying to figure out what their next move might be. Because there are no specific "plays" in badminton, you may think this is impossible. However, just like in tennis, a skilled player will be able to read the body language and direction of their opponent and be able to guess where they are aiming to hit the shuttlecock next. This brings me to the next kind of play that badminton follows. Skill-based play. Now this game does not need to be skill based in order to enjoy it. People who are not necessarily trained or even good at the game can still have fun. However, to follow the competitive play kind, and if you wanted to professionally play the sport, you would have to be pretty skilled in order to play competitively. The third kind of play for badminton is cooperative play. The game can be played either with singles or doubles. So if you were to play doubles, you would have to cooperate with your teammate to win the game.