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Badminton is a sport played with racquet and a shuttlecock. The game is played in a court. Opposite teams or players stay in the courts and hit the shuttlecock over the net. The court is more of a rectangular area which is divided into two halves. The standard length of a badminton court is 13.4 meters. The game can be played either between two players only or between the team of two players. The former version is called singles and the latter one is called doubles. The doubles court is somewhat bigger in width. It is 6.1 meters wide whereas the singles court is 5.2 meters wide. The net is set 1.55 meters high in average but is somewhat raised at the edges of the court.

The shuttlecock is made up of feathers of birds and is somewhat cone shaped. Generally the game of badminton is played such that the team or the player first scoring the 21 points wins the game. A point is scored when the opponent fails to return the shuttlecock to the opposite court or hits the shuttlecock out of the court. Initially the two players in a single game stand at the diagonally opposite position in the courts and the serve done must be below the waist height. Previous versions of badminton had the system of awarding points to a player only while they won a serve but now the rules have changed and point is awarded regardless of the serve like in table tennis. The first player or team to score 21 wins. In the situation of 20-each the game goes on until a side gets a two points lead. This rule is applicable for the scores under 30. If none of the player could take a two point lead then the first side to reach 30 points wins.

If you are a sportsperson or want to be a sportsperson, you must do some set of things regularly to succeed. First and foremost, you must love what you do. This helps you psychologically and will also help you to succeed in it. Then you must do proper training required for the sport with adequate discipline. If you want to succeed in any sport you must train yourself mentally and physically. You must take proper diet; do physical exercises with perseverance and full effort. Always stick to a training schedule of plan and go with it. The training will help you build the needed stamina, skill, speed and power etc needed in your sport. Always do sport specific training. Another thing is to take proper and balanced diet.

Playing sport is a toilsome job that takes a lot out of your body. So always supplement your body with nutritious food and always drink adequate amount of water. This will prepare you physically and mentally too. Another thing worth mentioning is that you must always practice and train under a qualified coach or trainer. Doing this will help you hone your skills, identify your strength and pinpoint your weak points. The trainer will help you with setting goals and achieving it. Always take advantage of technology to measure your progress. The audio-visual aids and images may help you learn the fine technique involved in the sport that goes neglected by the naked eye. See videos of the professionals playing the game and try to catch the special aspects of their game and how they plan the things. Planning is also one of the pre-requisite to succeed. Then you must make yourself mentally fit and ready for anything that comes in the sport. Develop confidence and self-belief. And always play in true sportsman spirit.

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Many of us play different kinds of sports and often get injured in the course of playing. Some injuries are unavoidable and result purely due to accidents but some can be prevented using exact measures while playing sports. The most important thing while playing sports is to be in proper physical condition to play the sport. You must have adequate physical training and the stamina level that the particular sport asks for. The physical condition can be improved using specific training and exercises designed for that sport. Secondly, to avoid injuries you must know the rules and regulations of the game pretty well. You can just hover in the arena if you don’t know the rules; it will get you hurt very easily.

Especially in the sports that include body contact such as wrestling or rugby etc. you must know when and where to attack and how to defend or block the opponent’s moves. You must know the rules and abide by them. Apart from this, wearing the protective gears that game has to offer is a very smart way to avoid injuries. You must always take advantage of helmet to protect your head, pads to protect your bones and joints or any type of protective gear that rules of the sport permits. Use creams to avoid cracks and sunburns if the weather is hostile. To avoid injuries a sportsperson must always warm up by doing specific exercises. This involves stretching and mental exercises. Never play a sport when you are in physical pain because it may enhance the pain or may result in more severe injury. Adequate rest is also a part of strategy because high physical effort is involved in sports, so the body needs adequate rest before it can re-perform. Rest makes you feel rejuvenated and gets rid of fatigue.

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Keeping yourself motivated throughout the year is a tough job when you’re a sportsperson. The daily training and exercises, bad weather, toilsome schedule and sometimes health problems may rip apart your mental fitness and motivation. So, it is important to find motivation from every source possible. There are some basic ways to keep you motivated. Firstly, as a sportsperson you must set some goals for yourself that are specific. You must always strive for objective goals which are clearly defined in terms of what and when to achieve. And these goals must be measurable by one way or the other. This means your goal mustn’t be vaguely stated without time limits or specifics. And after setting up goals, your success should and must be measured periodically to list your progress. Also your goals set must be flexible enough so that some considerable changes don’t affect your progress and in turn your motivation. The things don’t always go according to the plans.

You might suffer an injury or you may have to engage in some other urgent work. Even in such conditions, your goals must be flexible enough so that they can be postponed or adjusted without much difficulty. Those goals also must be based on an action plan rather than merely on a thought plan. Also your goals as a sportsperson must be realistic i.e. neither too diminishing nor too overwhelming. You must take into consideration your ability, experience and resources before setting your goal so that you don’t end up with frustration. But that doesn’t mean that you set a too easy goal because this would neither give you the sense of accomplishment nor the motivation. And always keep in mind that your goal is time based. You can’t waste your time procrastinating. You must follow the timeline you have set for your goal. Achievement of goals give your motivation and confidence both.

In any sports, among the two sides involved in a game one wins and other loses. This is natural and law of sports. Both winning and losing must be taken as a part of the game rather than making it the matter of pride. Every game has a set of rules and each side involved in the game must always abide by the rules of the game and must play according to the instruction provided by the match officials and referees. This is termed as true sportsman spirit and fair play. Winning indeed is a good and proud feeling especially when it involves the team of two different countries or region and serious professionalism is involved. But playing the game fairly is always above the result. You can’t make a good impression of a win if you didn’t play with sportsman spirit.

A sportsman spirit is to play game fairly with teamwork and full dedication to the game and its rules and regulations. You must maintain a behavior of honor, respect and friendship with your opponent. You mustn’t make any hostile remark. Racism and regionalism must not interfere in the game. This is true virtue of a sportsperson. Playing sports in a fair manner encourages mutual support and understanding. Showing bad signs and behaviors in a team or to your opponent does not do favor to your reputation. You may get fined or punished for such behavior and it affects your credentials. Governing body of each sport gives a fair play award to a particular team each season to encourage and honor the effort of the team towards sportsman spirit and fair play. A player with true sportsmanship will always be remembered for his virtues in addition to the contribution he made towards the game. In order to keep the game alive and going for long periods, fair play and sportsmanship should be promoted over the intention of mere winning.