Soft, sweet shots. (Not the alcoholic kind)

I need help.

Can somebody please tell me how to return an offensive shot without giving it to the opponent? I can't seem to command my forehands and backhands to not return said offensive shot to the opponents direction, so much so that he/she will return the shot back twenty-five times stronger either as a full on smash (I actually got clobbered tonight, thrice) or a soft shot in the opposite direction. I obssessed about it tonight, but I can't overcome it. Then there's the service, I need to learn better service shots. I'll float around youtube, figure out a way around my weakness.

I believe that Badminton is my way of playing lazy tennis. I used to be a varsity tennis player, though for the record I was only in the reserve B team, our A team was the strongest in the league so I played few tourneys in my career, but I trained as much as the A team and had as much fun (without the pressure of competition) in the process. I've not unlearned my basic forehand and as such it translates heavily on my badminton moves. But recently, I've learned to unlearn my tennis and play real badminton, intelligent, strategic, powerful badminton. I run better now and have better foresight of offense and defense. I'll probably still be a work in progress for quite some time, but I realized tonight that I can work on my weaknesses, as a true badminton player.

On the positive side though, I landed the SWEETEST soft shots tonight. I was surprised that I could land one, let alone two,(yes I counted), I landed 5! Just a tad bit more, and I can kill them with my demure absolutely-no-recovery soft shots. Sure I'm no Ginger nor will I ever be of Jojo-calibre, but I've come a long way, and kill me for riding out my confidence tonight.

Sweet soft shots, wapak.