Badminton in the Backyard: The Simple Game That Gives Back Your Energy and Your Evening

Why This Game, More Than Others, Belongs in the Garden

There exists a moment, in the late afternoon of summer, when the heat finally gives its permission to breathe. In Italy, we call it “l’ora della racchetta” — the hour of the racket. And it is not by chance that, for many families, this hour belongs to badminton. Not football, which asks too much space and too many knees. Not tennis, which pretends a court and a net that costs like a small holiday. Badminton asks almost nothing: two rackets, a shuttlecock, a stretch of grass. And it gives back much more than what one invests in it.

What I have observed in twenty years of playing with my children, my neighbours, and later my grandchildren, is this: badminton in the backyard is not simply a game. It is a small ritual of movement that keeps the body honest. The legs run, the arm extends, the eyes follow the white flight of the shuttlecock against the sky. And the heart, without one noticing, works with a beautiful regularity.

What One Needs to Begin (And What One Does Not Need)

The beauty of this game is in its poverty of requirements. I have seen people complicate things enormously, buying professional nets and court markings, when the truth is much simpler.

What is necessary:

• Two or four rackets of medium weight (around 85–95 grams, not the heavy ones of the supermarkets that tire the wrist after ten minutes)
• Three or four shuttlecocks in nylon (the feather ones break too quickly on the grass)
• A space of at least 5 metres by 10, free from low branches
• A net, or in absence of a net, a rope tied between two chairs at height of 1,55 metres

What is not necessary:

• A perfectly flat surface (slight unevenness makes the game more funny, not less)
• Specific shoes (a good pair of trainers with grip is sufficient)
• Official rules (but more on this later)

The net one can find for little money, but I confess that for many years we played without it, simply imagining the line. And the game was not less beautiful for this.

The Body Thanks You: What Happens Inside When You Play

Here I wish to speak with the seriousness that the subject deserves, because too many persons reduce badminton to “hitting the feathered thing back and forth.” In truth, what happens in the body during thirty minutes of casual play is a small miracle of coordination.

The heart elevates its rhythm to a zone that the doctors call moderate aerobic activity — between 60 and 75 percent of the maximum frequency. The legs make continuous small movements: forward, lateral, backward. The shoulder rotates in a way that keeps the joint mobile and lubricated. The eyes exercise their capacity of tracking, which after the forty years begins to become lazy if one does not stimulate it.

And the blood vessels? This is the part that interests me most. The arteries and the veins, during this type of gentle but constant movement, dilate and contract with a rhythm that keeps them elastic. It is like a massage from the inside. I have always been attentive to this aspect, above all after the fifty, when the circulation asks a little more of care. In the periods in which I felt the legs heavy, or the mornings in which the pressure was not perfectly in order, I have sustained my vascular wellbeing also with a natural integrator, Cardiobalance, which I found through the site cardiobalance.biz I do not say this to make publicity — I say it because in the logic of taking care of oneself, the movement and the nourishment of the vessels walk together, like the two legs of the same body.

Rules for the Backyard: Few, Flexible, Made for Enjoying

The official rules of badminton are written for the indoor courts, for the athletes, for the precision. In the backyard, I propose to simplify them in this way:

• The service is done from below, without obligation of diagonal
• The shuttlecock that touches the net but passes over is valid (the “let” does not exist here)
• If the shuttlecock falls on the grass and one is not sure if it was inside or outside, the point is repeated. No arguments. The evening is too short for arguments.
• One plays to 15 points, not 21, because the children lose patience and the grandparents lose the breath
• In four players, one rotates the positions every 5 points, so that nobody stays always in the sun

These are the rules of my garden, and they have functioned for three generations. Each family should write its own.

For Whom This Game Is Particularly Indicated

I want to be precise here, because I have seen too many articles that say “sport is good for everyone” without distinguishing. Badminton in the backyard is especially precious for:

• Persons over fifty who need movement without impact on the joints. The shuttlecock is light, the racket is light, the running is short. The knees do not suffer as in the tennis or the jogging.
• Children from six years who must develop the coordination eye-hand. The shuttlecock falls slowly, and this gives time to the small ones to react.
• Who works seated all the day and arrives to the evening with the shoulders closed and the circulation slow. Twenty minutes of lateral movements and overhead strokes open the thorax like a window in spring.
• Who recovers from a period of inactivity and does not want to feel immediately the violence of the gymnasium.

For the persons who have a history of circulation problems or vascular fragility, I recommend always to speak with the own doctor before beginning any activity, and to consider if an integration for the support of the vessels can be useful alongside the movement. The body is a system, and one should treat it as such.

The Practical Errors to Avoid (Learned on My Skin)

After so many years, I have collected a list of errors that repeat themselves always:

1. To play in the wind. The shuttlecock weighs five grams. Even a light breeze makes it unplayable. Choose the hours of calm, or position the court between walls or hedges that cut the air.
2. To hit too hard. In the backyard, the game is not a competition of power. The one who hits softly and places the shuttlecock in the angle wins the point and saves the shoulder.
3. To play on wet grass. Not for the game, but for the ankles. One slip is sufficient to lose a month of evenings.
4. To forget the water. It seems obvious, but the moderate effort in the summer heat dehydrates without that one perceives it. A bottle for each player, in the shade.

Making It a Habit, Not an Event

The true secret is not the intensity but the regularity. Three times at the week, even only twenty minutes, transform the body in the space of a month. The breath becomes longer. The sleep arrives more easily. The legs, in the morning, are less stiff.

I have seen my neighbour, a man of sixty-three years, begin with five minutes and arrive to play a full hour with his wife. He told me, after two months: “I do not feel the years in the same way.” And this, more than any medical term, explains what the movement does for the vessels, for the heart, for the spirit.

The backyard becomes, in this way, a small place of health. Not a gymnasium, not a clinic. Simply a square of grass where the body remembers that it was made for moving, and the evening remembers that it was made for being shared.

Take the rackets. Call someone. The shuttlecock does not wait, but the light of September, at least, is still generous.