Badfight / Badmington Fighting

Recently Strange Games received an E-mail from Michael Semenenko, senior lecturer of faculty of sports St.Petersburg State University. In it he describes a most brilliant new combination game that he has created.
Most strange games enthusiasts are aware of combining two games to make an unusual new one, Chess Boxing being the one that comes immediately to mind. But badmington fighting or Badfight as Michael has named it combines Badmington and a martial art and is very special indeed.

Badfight is played on a 6x12m area with a badmington net set at 2m high in the centre. Players attach flat sponge pads, measuring approximately 15cm square, onto the backs of their hands and also onto their feet (see pictures). The serving player must kick the shuttlecock over the net. The returning player has two moves to return it, first with the foot and then with the hand. To catch and flick up a shuttle using just your foot pad must take quite a lot of agility...and then to smash it back over the net with the hand pad! It sounds like it would be absolutely exhausting to play.
If the shuttle touches the floor or goes out of bounds then the point is lost. First to 15 points wins.

A superb game that deserves much wider publicity and inclusion in the Olympics as soon as possible.