There is always a lot of focus on the preparation of strokes and in every coach education I have seen you hear the same things. You turn your body, point you left hand to the shuttle, pull your right hand backwards and hit the shuttle.
In our camp we had a boy from England and he did not do that, he just let his right arm hang down and made one move towards the shuttle at the very last moment. Several coaches tried to change that and tried to make him prepare to hit the shuttle. Well, I don't like that preparation at all. So I asked why they would do that. No real good arguments came out of that question, so I gave my arguments not to do the preparation.
Everything we do in badminton has to be placed in 'time and space' so create time and space for yourself and take time and space away from your opponent. Literally you can test everything you do on this theory and if something doesn't give you time and space then it is NOT the perfect way to do it, so is the preparation of your stroke.
First of all you don't have the time to do this preparation in 90% of all strokes, badminton is simply too fast. By making this preparation you give your opponent time and you take time away from yourself that is 50% of things you don't want to do. By holding your racket and arm down you show NOTHING to your opponent and thereby you take time away from him / her because they cannot read what you are about to do.
Your footwork will improve as well because by having your arm and racket down your feet will be the leading part of your body, so the racket is following the feet (in the back court you want your racket to follow your feet and in the front court you want your feet to follow your racket).
By following your feet in the back court you will get better under the shuttle and this will improve your stroke and stability on court. You will simply be in a better position and your technique will improve.
The second thing that is important is the fact that you lose power in the preparation of your stroke, one explosive move will give you 20% more power. Players at the camp where in shock to feel how hard they could smash doing the stroke my way. It is also very logical when you look at the motion in a mathematical way. Stretch out your arm will make you slow, keep your arms close to your body will give you more speed and more speed is more power.
The last thing that is super important is the fact that when you lift up your arm and turn your body you will have a lot of motion of your body with the hand just because of the rotation you will make. By following your feet and make one motion in your stroke you will limit your rotation and you will NOT play outside the court so easy.
When I told the coaches and players this they were in a lot of doubt and told me that top players don't do this. WRONG. All top players are doing this, we just did not focus on it before. I have been watching top players videos with some of the coaches and they were shocked to learn that all top players are using this technique. We have been working with this technique already for a long time in our academy and everybody likes this technique. Also in the camp this summer we had some outstanding results with the players.
It is not a very easy subject to write about, but you can follow our facebookpage to get a lot more info about this and other ways of looking at badminton.
Reacties 2
Hmm, if I understand your description,correctly the boy should have a lot of mass from his body moving in a backward direction when he hits the shuttle. That would mean that he needs more force to be able to be on he right place to hit the next shuttle. So he might win time and space on this shot, but will lose this on his next shot. And he is using more energy. Badminton might be too fast, but it will even be faster for you if you won't be able to balance your body in such a way that you will be able to reach the next shuttle. The non-racket arm plays an important role in balancing your body when hitting and keeping your mass in a 'to the centre of the field' direction. Offcourse, without using it in your overhead strokes, you can still be able to hit the next shuttle, but it will be at the cost of using more energy to reach for it. Furthermore your argument that you show nothing to your opponent by holding your arm down is quite stupid, as the opponent will expect an overheadshot anyway, You don't show more or less by holding your non racket arm up or down. The opponent might only be surprised by your lack of technique. Once he gets used to that, there is no advantage anymore. The thing I try to asses is whether the mass of the player is more easily able to move to the next shot after the one he has been hitting. Technique and the use of the balance arm, plays an important role in this, in my opinion.
If I would follow my feet, my face would be facing backwards on a forehand high shot. My feet would cross with my left foot in front first. If I understand you correctly. My body would be more in balance at the cost of a bigger body rotation when hitting in the back court. I could also walk with a cross behind. I would be slightly slower, but I would be able to see my opponent all the time and I would need a smaller body rotation when hitting. For balance reasons I would need to have my racket high when moving. I think both movement types and strokes will have their use, yet both have their advantages and drawbacks.
I do agree that lifing your arm will unbalance your movement. That is why I would like to see, and teach players to keep it in the right position before the shot of the opponent. In that way it does not have to be moved when the player moves and adds to the balance of the movement of the player.
But I hope I still understand you correctly.
Kind Regards,
Erik Helleman
Interssant, maar heb je video ondersteuning? Ik ben we benieuwd hoe dit in de praktijk eruit ziet.
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