Memorial Weekend Campout

Thanks to everyone who came to the campout at Bintang Sunnyvale. Hope you guys had as much fun playing the games as Coach and I had watching you guys play! ^_^ Ryan has uploaded the photos he took. You can find them here:

http://s215.photobucket.com/albums/cc254/bintangpix/SleepOver08

Guest password is the name of our club. Enjoy!

May Team Ranking

Mark your calendars. The May team ranking will be on Saturday, 5/10, from 12pm-2pm! Practice hard and good luck to all.

April Updates

Sorry I haven't updated in a while! Life has been so hectic at Bintang lately, with the grand opening of Campbell end of March and then team ranking this past weekend...it just never stops!

As Coach mentioned yesterday, team ranking will now be once a month. The format will actually change a bit, so everyone can potentially move up two spots or move down two spots. So remember to practice hard every day!!! The date for the May ranking will be decided by this weekend. Also, we plan to have a little fun event towards the end of May. Details TBA.

Here are upcoming April events:

4/12-4/13: 2008 Spring USBDF @ OCBC
4/26-4/27: 2008 Spring Davis Open @ UC Davis

The nice, sunny weather is great, but it also means conditioning and double jumps until your body breaks! ^_^

Team Ranking

...team ranking is coming up soon! Keep practicing so you are ready!!! ^_^

JITT & Spring USBDF Junior Int'l

The entry form deadline for JITT and Spring USBDF Junior Int'l tournament are coming up soon! Please review the entry forms and turn them in ASAP.

JITT - only for those who are qualified
http://www.ocbadmintonclub.com/pdf/2008JITT.pdf
Please fill in and return to Stella/Coach by Thursday (2/28)

Spring USBDF Junior Int'l Tournament
http://www.ocbadmintonclub.com/media/2008USBDFSpringJrIntl.pdf
Please fill in and return to Stella/Coach by Sunday (3/2)

Upcoming Events

Here is a list of upcoming events:

3/29 & 3/30 - team ranking! DO NOT miss out on this. @ Bintang Sunnyvale
4/11 - 4/14 - USBDF Spring Jr International and JITT @ OCBC
4/26 - 4/27 - Davis Spring Open @ UC Davis

Qualifications and details of the events above will be emailed out.

Update from Ryan Ngo

Hopefully everyone still remembers Ryan Ngo!!! He should be back in a few months...hopefully he'll be super crazy and rock the tournaments when he comes back. Here is an update from him:

Hello EveryoneIve uploaded new pictures of all the boys that are in my training center of the city. Those are all the coachs that teach the boys. A few of the sites i walked past and just noticed that were interesting.Just to let you all know i am now at the Nanjing Sports Institute. Its a School for sports and they have academics here as well. Its every professional sport china is into. basketball, badminton, soccer, gymnastics, tennis, swimming, track and field... thats al i know of for now. Theres a cafateria and all that too. Im currently staying in a dorm. bymyself. but there is an extra bed so it looks like i may have a room-mate or something.Trainign here is a little mroe tough and more conditioning. than my last place. but good thing i put myself into good shape before i left.I wake up 5am Get to the trainign center 510- stretch and warm up till 530 than its conditioning till 730. than after that i have my breakfast and just relax till 200-700 training. in between i plan to do a little of conditioning myself. caiuse all the other guys here are incredibly strong and fast so i plan to run the hills around here. Its all uphill this training center so thats good. The Courts are either yonex/kason mats. and the lights ill take pictures of those they are hard to explain.Girls and Boys training in differant gyms.Just in case some of you dont remember here is the link to the pictures: http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh128/Ryan_Ngo/China%20trip
guest password is bintang

Spring 2008 Bay Area Open

Congratulations to everyone on the team who played the 2008 Bay Area Open held last weekend (Feb 15-17)! All of you put on outstanding performance and displayed excellent sportsmanship and willpower. The Bintang Team had an almost CLEAN SWEEP in singles across all the flights, reflecting our team's breadth and depth!!!

Thomas Blanchet WON the "A" level, Men's Singles Championship in a very intense and exciting game, with many people watching! It got more and more intense towards the end of the third match and Coach almost had a heart attack. ^_^

Son Nguyen WON the "B" level, Men's Singles Championship, also in a very intense finals game against one of his long time on-court rivals. Not only did Son display great skill, he put on a very entertaining show, with his crazy flips and dives!!!

Dominick Lim WON the "C" level, Men's Singles Championship, over teammate Kendrick Uong. Both of them had to fight teammates Brent Dano and Francis Yao in semi's to play the finals. In the "C" level men's singles, we took first to fourth place, beating out opponents from all over! The two best matches in this category were Kendrick taking out the #1 seed in quarterfinals and Brent taking out an ex-Bintang player in first round!

Connie Hwang WON the "B" level, Women's Singles Championship. BWS was round robin format and Connie beat all of her opponents in straight sets. Not too hard there.

Phoebe Lin WON the "D" level, Women's Singles Championship. She had to fight hard in the finals match but won in straight sets. (Too bad Catherine was sick. Otherwise, the two of them would probably have met in finals.)

Congratulations also goes out to the rest of the winners from our team. Charlie Yang took 2nd in "D" level Men's Singles. Christine Yang took 2nd in "Under 12" level of Girl's Singles. Chetan Potu won consolation finals in "D" level Men's Singles.

A big hand goes out to all of you! Keep up the hard work and great dedication. We are very, very proud.

Happy Birthday, Coach Phu!

We wish Coach Phu a very happy birthday! One year older he is, but still more immature than the youngest junior we have on the team. ^_^ We wish him many more years of fun and excitement coaching all of us.

P.S. Thanks to everyone for your best wishes and for coming to surprise him! I will post pics soon.

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a very happy Chinese New Year! ^_^

Here is an update from Ryan in China:

Hey Everyone,

You should all know im perfectly fine here. im Alive and very well. The training here is very intensive and at the same time really entertaining. The Kids here are very hard workers. They practically train all day and night. They train with great spirt and everytime they hit a smash, they let out a loud roar. well they yell SOOO liek dominick. If u dont know what that sounds like you can ask dominick to do it for you now.

Even the girls yell. Especially when they clear and SMASH. If you all look at my pictures ive posted up The two girls are 9 and 10. and They are here to train professionally.. They live at the training center and train everyday for about 4 hours and condition and jump rope on their own for fun. Right outside where they sleep and eat.

And the guys. The two Shortest guys are always 9 and 10. And they are just as dedicated as the girls. Right after a 4 hour training session they work out for an extra 30 minutes and Run for an extra 30.

Everyone here has a short resemblence of you guys back home. I guess thats why most peolpe say all Asians look alike huh. Haha... It makes me miss you all back home alot. I hope you are all training hard . cause im bragging about you all ALOT here. Saying you all train hard and how our slogan is Never give Up NEver Surrender.

These next two weeks. Since its New years here Or Spring fesitval everyone is on break. So all the professional players are coming back to help train the kids and play alot. Ive gotten to play a few and its very fun. Its fun cause i get to play my heart out with no regrets.

http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh128/Ryan_Ngo/China%20trip/

Heres the link to my pictures and the guestpassword is bintang

I hope you all are training hard and make me proud at BAO im hopeing for some great results another D C And maybe a B win for me please.

have a great new year everyone

--Ryan

Team Lunar New Year Party

To celebrate the year of the rat, we will have a team party on Saturday between 12pm and 2pm. There will be *fun* games with prizes. ;) We will also practice doubles for BAO. Don't miss out on the fun!!!

No Practice Wed - Fri

There will be no practice Wed (1/9), Thu (1/10), and Fri (1/11). Everyone is encouraged to come to open gym to hit and play some games. Please check back for updates or changes to the schedule. Practice will resume on Saturday.

Message from Ryan in China

We found out yesterday that Ryan is *alive* and well! Here is a note from him to the team:

Hey everyone i hope you miss me a lot.

First, im sure everyone is wondering how im doing. I'm great actually. Everyone here is nice to me and treat me like i was leo back home hahah...
Everyone here reminds me of you guys ranging from short kids with amazing slices like Justin to super dark skinned guys with super smash like Son.
Although the kids I train with are a lot younger (all the kids i train with range from 9-14...lolol), they are about my skill level! They train with such a passion here it's out of this world. Everytime they think they do a good shot they scream SOOOOO really loud. every kid, not just some. And one day the coach came super late and all the girls just did double jumps for fun... the girls are 7-8...Karen's age. They can do up to 50 about from what i counted.

okay thats all i have time for today..

I miss everyone

Train hard and train with passion!

Bye --RYan

Upcoming Events

Here is a timeline of upcoming events:

January - tournament qualifier for D level for BAO
February - Spring Bay Area Open @ SC
March - team ranking @ Bintang
April - Davis Spring Open @ UC Davis

Train hard and prepare for all these exciting events!

Happy 2008!!!

We wish everyone a very happy 2008! May the coming year be filled with an abundance of bunny hops and plyo's, 10-minute smash and drop drills, and infinite double jumps, and of course, many trophies at tournaments, more silly games during parties, and lots of fun and laughter! Keep working hard and playing hard, Team Bintang!!!