My first blog for the RVBA site, don't quite know what to ramble on about .. must keep it clean and preferabaly badminton related. :) Ah but seriously 2010, its a new year and its been hectic already, January through the start of February has been competitive weekends every weekend for me between Spanish Liga commitements for Paracullos (Madrid) with fellow RVBA players, Richard and Sarah as we look to take the team into the semi final stage and furuther of the domestic club competition.

My schedule so crazy the last bit that I can't even really get enough international tournaments played as I would have liked to, at the very least I have to do this just to maintain a world ranking and keep up my chances of making main draw of the biggest events in the World. Since last September my world ranking has slipped down slowly from 58 to about 128 last week, and I had the tough decision of either playing my Scottish National Championships or the Iran International in Tehran. The parameters for me in the end were quite simple, if I played the Scottish Nationals I may have been picked for the Thomas Cup team but I definetly wouldnt have qualified for the European Championships to take place in Manchester, April, in the end not an easy decision but a decision made fairly quickly when all things were considered. Play Iran, make last 16 or better and guarantee a world ranking high enough to qualify for the European Championships. (The qualification date for the European Championships is 25th Feburary, so no time to play with)

So .. qualification secured for the European Championships I have been looking at what is the best schedule for me for the next couple of months .. I will play another 4 International Events before the end of April to qualify for the BWF World Championships in August (Paris), then I could aim to head out to Asia mid April with no ranking points to defend and have a strong training/tournament program through to the World Championships.

Things at the moment, schedule wise can't be completely confirmed as the liga schedule in Spain is being changed around so I don't know exactly where the calendar will be location wise per week for the next 8 weeks, but hopefully this week will get it sorted and stability not least peace of mind will re-commence in the world of Alistair.

What else ... ? Have been uploading lots of high quality video for my site and the RVBA site  .. you can check out the channel here ... http://www.youtube.com/user/acaseylinassgroup  and if you have any requests of stuff you'd like to see up, then comment here and between us we will try and source if for you.

Visit my propoganda site as well if you have a spare moment ... :)  http://www.alistaircasey.com/

In the interim .. here's a little video taster ..........