All in the mind: Athletes on the power of mindfulness in badminton

Mads Christophersen takes a slow breath, looks down at his shoe, and serves the shuttle.

A slew of high-paced badminton rallies follow. This pattern is repeated over six matches until Christophersen reaches the final of the tournament.

The Orleans Masters in 2021 was the best result the Danish badminton player has achieved thus far in his career and a turning point in how he approached the game. While the runner-up finish was a surprising result for Christopherson, what surprised him even more is that he could not remember most of the rallies that he played there – a stark contrast to previous tournaments where he spent the matches analysing every shot, so much so that he could not see the bigger picture and kept losing.

The solution that Christophersen came up with to start winning had nothing to do with improving his already solid technique. It was as simple as looking at his foot.

"I was evaluating a lot when I played, and it was not good because I was not in the moment at all when I played. I could remember every rally during the whole match," Christophersen said. "And then I did this exercise where I was thinking, 'OK, look down on your shoe and then serve', because if you're thinking, 'OK, look down on the shoe', you're not thinking about anything else.

“I had four or five weeks to try (it) at practice and the first tournament I played after that I was in the final of the biggest tournament I have ever played," he continued. "It clearly did something right away because I felt that I could do a lot of the things that my colleagues and my opponents are doing, but I couldn't put it together because my mind was not in the present, but then suddenly it was.

"I had felt it before, but I just knew it as being in the zone. I didn't know that you could actually practise to be in the zone and to get there faster. That's what I'm trying to do now."

Getting in the zone is one of the key goals for elite badminton players. At this high level where athletes are closely matched in terms of their technical skills and physical level, being fully locked in mentally can be the factor that separates a win from a loss. Olympics.com spoke to a handful of international players about the importance of mindfulness, the strategies they use to get mentally stronger, and the benefits it can have off the court.

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Mental strength: The deciding factor in a game of equals

Gregory Mairs knows not all shots are equal in badminton. While they look the same on a scoreboard, each one has a different psychological value.

"I did one shot and I felt like that counted for more than one point because of the psychological impact it can have on the course of the match," Mairs said. "It's such an important part of badminton, that confidence, dealing with nerves in the match. Maybe you lose a few points in a row, how that can impact your confidence or the strategies you're employing."

The British badminton player hosts the YouTube channel "Badminton Insight" with his wife and mixed doubles partner Jenny Mairs. With more than 500,000 followers, the vlog is a mix of behind-the-scenes of top badminton competitions and tutorials on various aspects of playing badminton, such as footwork, stretching and shots.

One topic that the channel has not explored in depth, so far, is mental strength. As Mairs explained, it is not because this topic is not important. Rather, it is because progress is hard to measure, which can be discouraging.

"It's not something we're used to explaining easily," Mairs said. "A lot of people can think, 'Oh, yeah, I need to work on the mental side', but it's not easy and it's not tangible to actually see the results because you might still have a close match and you might lose and think, 'Oh, it's not improved'. Whereas physicality, technique, that's where everyone thinks, 'Yeah, we can see the results of the practice'. Definitely not enough people practise the mental side, so it's tricky trying to find a way to make that side of the game appealing (to YouTube viewers)."

While the benefits of being more mindful are hard to track, Gregory and Jenny Mairs know first-hand that mental strength is crucial for being successful in their sport.

"If you're looking from pair one to 30, they've got very small differences in terms of their technical skill and their physicalities," Jenny Mairs said. "But where a lot of the difference is, is their mental strength and how they can deal with certain scenarios. It's fascinating. You're always learning, always trying to get better at not just the technique and the tactics, but also the mental side."

USA's Allison Lee agreed: "We all have very similar skill sets, but when it's 20-all, that's where the mental comes in because it's just very important times to focus."

Meditation break with the world's top shuttlers

Gregory and Jenny Mairs are planning to start releasing videos on the mental side of badminton in the next year or two, including how to deal with pressure during matches.

Always in the spotlight, Indian superstar PV Sindhu faces more pressure than most when she comes onto the court. Taking time off for herself is one of the things that has helped the two-time Olympic medallist manage the pressure. Meditation is another of her secrets.

"To keep myself calm, I do stuff, meditate at times, take some time off, be myself," Sindhu said. “Sometimes there won't be time, so I make time in the morning or evening. It depends. Whenever I have time, I do it. It's not like 10 minutes or five minutes, nothing like that. But even though there's no time, even if it's for five, 10 minutes, I make sure I do it.”

Christophersen also tries to meditate on a daily basis. It is not an elaborate or time-consuming activity – usually five to 10 minutes while sitting on the floor, walking or taking a bus. The Danish player can even turn book reading into a meditation session.

"Sometimes if you're sitting down and you're reading, you actually have to concentrate for five to 10 minutes because otherwise you can't remember what you have read," he said. "It's also a kind of meditation and I can use that also as meditation."

While he tries to make his meditation as simple as possible, Christophersen noted that these sessions are more difficult than they may seem.

"It sounds easy, but the hard thing is actually to detect when you have a thought that is not about the breathing," Christophersen said. "You can train your focus and your concentration by doing it because it's also important if I get a negative thought in there that I can detect it quite fast and just think, 'OK, now I have this negative thought. It's OK. It's normal, but I should be in the moment' because if you are in the moment, you're not thinking about what's positive or what's negative. You're actually not thinking so much. You are just reacting. It's a whole philosophy for me."

It is easy to get discouraged when thoughts flood the mind during a meditation session, as they inevitably do for most people. Christophersen, however, prefers to look at the stray thoughts from a different perspective.

"You should actually be happy when your thoughts are going somewhere," he said. "You detect them and you say, 'Oh, I got a thought there', then you should count it like a point. Because if you do that, you're getting happy about your thoughts going somewhere, so you're not like hitting yourself in the hip that you're not able to think about the breathing."

Rather than about clearing the mind completely, for Christophersen a successful meditation is about how fast he can detect when a thought is coming, stashing it away and returning to a calming breathing pattern.

"If you get really super fast at that, I can use it when I'm playing, because then, "Quick, I got a thought! It's OK, but I should think about this instead'," said Christopherson who credits meditation with helping him feel more present during matches.

"It's not easy and it's something I have tried to work on and am still working on because it can always be better. It's just to stay present, stay in the moment because if you do that you can react so much faster instead of if you're thinking about the rally that's just been played and stuff. You're not really in the moment so you are not totally ready. It's about staying in the moment all the time."

Inhale, exhale, change the mood

Another thing that helps Christophersen stay in the moment is being mindful of his breathing.

"I try to focus on my breathing because when I say to myself, 'OK, inhale, exhale', then I'm not thinking about anything else than my breathing and then I either serve or do a receive'," he said. "That's what I'm trying to do because then I can come back to the present and stay in the moment."

Christopherson has also discovered that he can use breathing to trick his mind. If he breathes quickly, it will make him feel more stress and adrenaline, as if he had just done cardio exercises, while breathing slowly can help him to relax. He uses a combination of both during a match, depending on whether he needs to feel more energised for returning fast shuttles or calm to make net shots.

The badminton player realised how powerful breathing can be at the tournament in Orleans where he was so focused, he could not remember his rallies afterwards.

"I couldn't remember the rallies because I hadn't evaluated the rallies. I was just in the moment," Christopherson said. "And the funny thing was also that after the matches I had so much more energy. Sometimes if you have evaluated a whole match, your brain can be really exhausted. But when I learned this, it was much better so I had more energy for the next matches and that was also important."

Since Christopherson re-watches all of his matches, learning to be more present came with an additional perk.

"It's more fun to watch now because now it's like you haven't seen the movie already," he said with a laugh. "It was funny to watch the matches after because I was like, 'What? Was I leading that much?'"

Mindfulness benefits beyond the court

In addition to more interesting post-match viewing, being more mindful on the court can stretch beyond badminton success.

Gregory Mairs noticed this from observing his students. Many of those he coaches play only two to three times per week and have no ambitions to become the “absolute best badminton players in the world”.

"They always get nervous at tournaments and I say to them, 'Badminton is such a good vehicle to get used to how you deal with nerves'," Mairs said. "If you've got loads of people watching you play on that court and you're nervous, in the grand scheme of things, these people watching you are your friends. When you've got loads of people standing in front of you and you're trying to give a presentation at university or you're trying to do an interview for a job, that matters way more so use badminton as a vehicle for the rest of your life."

While Gregory and Jenny Mairs are trying to become the absolute best badminton players and are eager to reap the rewards of mindfulness on the court, they are also happy about the positive influence it has had on other aspects of their lives.

"We both passed our driving test first time," Gregory Mairs said of how their mental strength in badminton has transitioned off the court. "And we both got degrees."