This is my final reflection on Badminton and a lot has happened since the end of season 2. I have participated in a badminton competition, boosted my technique and acquired new skills. However, there were a few challenges in the process but none that were too overbearing.

Badminton is a challenging sport as success highly depends on a player’s consistency and ability to remain calm. For me, remaining calm was always a big issue as my palms get sweaty, my heart races and I make irrational decisions, whether it is swinging too late/early or missing the shuttle entirely. I sometimes think that I place too much pressure on myself which adversely affects my performance. The risks that I took during this activity was attempting to try more challenging but rewarding techniques during matches. To overcome the challenge of being too nervous, I simply took deep breaths and reminded myself that it was just a game. To approach a challenge like this in the future, I would do more practice during warm-ups to build up my confidence and refresh my techniques before a match. The new skill that I have developed in this activity was agility and teamwork. I felt that my doubles games have improved as I am able to better communicate and coordinate with my team mate. I can measure improvement in this activity by receiving feedback or praise from people that I play against and keeping a mental note of how many games I have won or lost. Building confidence and reducing anxiety is essential in other areas of life such as professional interviews, workplace presentations, etc.

I showed perseverance, commitment and resistance in this activity by showing up to the vast majority of sessions and giving my best performance during every minute of it. Even during the standard 10-lap run at the beginning, I would still try to keep pace and complete it even if my stomach starts cramping or I get a stitch. I maintain my motivation for this activity as several of my friends do it and the camradery and banter keeps me motivated for each session. Others help me stay committed to this activity by convincing me of the benefits of attending such as playing against them, chatting and a chance to relax. I think that my commitment has allowed me to gain more experience and better identify areas of weakness and growth. Some things that affected my commitment was the sheer number of tests and assignments that I had to complete which did lead me to skipping one session of Badminton when I had to study for a Biology test.