I had recently started to play 'Indoor' badminton. Before that I had been playing it just as some timepass game in an open space before our apartment building. But then one day my newly became friend Prasad introduced me to this indoor game where I could see some beauty of this play. The actual view of the court, the players forced me to think of playing the game myself. So with the help of Prasad, I managed to join a group playing there in the evening. Then I purchased my new Yonex racket. and then playing badminton became part of my alternate day's schedule. I was doing jogging during that time to put off the extra kgs that I had collected ( thanks to the computer field that I was working in ). But I found badminton making me equally sweat, rather more than the jogging and to add that it was exciting as well at the same time. ( Though jogging was also a rejuvenating exercise for me, it never had that spice of the badminton sport. It was sort of monotonous. )
I am a kind of person who just throws himself into the game. Whichever sport it may be; once I like it, I will try hard to give my best. That is what I was doing with this game as well. I used to run hard, try to pick every shot hit by the opponent. I started to watch the strong players, their shots, the way they smash, drop, toss the shuttle, the way they moved.. everything and tried to do it myself. Gradually my smashes were becoming stronger. But my stepping... that was not getting improved that much. Something was always missing... but still I had progressed compared to where I started from!
Warm up is a very necessary activity before you start to play the game. It involves some rhythmic activities like 5 - 10 minutes of jogging / skipping; then some stretching and then you do some tossing of shuttle to get all your muscles ready for the real game.
But in our case, since we only had got 30 minutes' time slot stolen between two one hour official time slots in the morning; we often used to do that tossing and all stuff just as a formality and I used to attack right from the first serve, using my full power. ( I like the smash shot the most :) )
Realising that I don't do much stretching, I started to do the stretches and 'Surya-Namaskar' in the home before I leave for the game.
That day ( I guess 31st may 2010 ) was just one of them, when I wake up late. Aai & Baba had been on their 'Chaar-Dhaam toor' for 15 days. I prepared myself in haste, did some warm up exercises and left for the badminton court.
There on badminton court, we started our usual play and I started with all smashes and the drop shots. I was having a score of 15 - 10. I wanted to win the game and that too with a big difference. Aniruddha, my oponent tossed the shuttle in the left side corner. I reached it with the fast back stepping, tossed the shuttle back and OHHHH---AAAHhh AAhhh aaai gaaa something snapped right in my left leg. I could here a sound, of the same kind...which we here when we cross our fingers into each other and stretch them to do some yawing.... I fell on the ground crying out loudly holding my knee there ... in the acute pain!!
10 minutes gone in the same situation, then I could get some control over the pain then got up and left the court with the help of my partner. Got some pain killers and a cream... called Prasad .... got into his car and went to home. Laid there for that day, keeping the knee on a pillow. There was acute pain with some swelling. I was not knowing what was that broken leg or just a muscle sprain. Since I was able to move the leg, I concluded it to myself that it must be a muscle sprain and decided to take some rest and applied some muscle relaxing cream.
