Personnal progression asking for advices

Discussion in 'Techniques / Training' started by SimonCarter, Jan 3, 2019.

  1. SimonCarter

    SimonCarter Regular Member

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    I have some spare dozens of practice shuttles brand new I will use those. Thanks!
     
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  2. SimonCarter

    SimonCarter Regular Member

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    I have spent one hour practicing only high forehand serve with a set of 36 shuttles and the results are along the following lines :
    - ~ eight are too short (before double serve line)
    - ~ 4-8 are out
    - rest is behind the double serve line and close to the centre
    I forgot to get pictures of the distribution but the idea is here. Numbers are just rough memories.
    I noticed that I have trouble being focused when serving and I am do not look at the shuttle long enough.
    I also noticed that I serve way worse from the left side.
    Shorts serve were not too bad but it is easier without anyone pressuring you. Long backhand were so bad I am ashamed. I have absolutely no control on such shots.

    Conclusion is my precision is terrible! I am gonna keep working on that. Both forehand and backhand. Next session should be Sunday.
     
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  3. speCulatius

    speCulatius Regular Member

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    You could just force yourself to change that, but I have a suggestion to make it easier.
    Emphasis is mine, but I didn't only want to quote that, because there's more valuable information. Still, I want to talk About the dropping farther away from the Body, but don't drop it. Throw it away from your nose. Throw it slightly upwards You can see that little sticker in there when it travels to the point where you'll hit it.

    That way
    • you'll have more time
    • it's easier to see where it really is going
    • (the flight will be completely stable by the time you hit it)
    That way, you'll be able to adjust to the slight changes in ist trajectory, gicing you more control. More control also is the reason why you want to hit away from the body. When your arm is close to the body, you Motion is limited much more, also you want to be able to use quite a bit of pronation, that's not possible right in front of your body.
    Try this suggestion and report back.

     
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  4. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

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    This! That makes a huge difference for me too! What I'm trying to do is to force myself to focus the shuttle until I can hear the sound of impact. In an ideal case, you should actually see at which part of the stringbed you've hit the shuttle.

    Intersting input, that will be worth some testing. Currently, I'm comfortable in dropping it from the stretched out arm.
     
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  5. SimonCarter

    SimonCarter Regular Member

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    Thanks for the replies
    I feel like throwing it would increase the number of small things that can go wrong while serving.
    I will give it a try but I am not sold on this.
    I feel like being focused on my movement and on the shuttle rather than the target is already a good improvement.

    I will see on Sunday!
     
  6. speCulatius

    speCulatius Regular Member

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    I used to do it that way, many people teach it that way, just one coach told me he teaches to throw it. Children often have to throw it to get it far away enough from the body (arm length to racket ratio). I just tried and while a fully extended left arm would be just far enough away from the body, the shuttle will only drop 60cm before I'd have to hit it, assuming I drop it from shoulder height and contact it around hip height.
    That's neither a lot of time for the shuttle to stop wobbling if a finger slightly brushes a feather, nor is it a lot of time for a long full long movement. I do realize that your forehead serve still is quite compact compared to others (mine).
    If you look at players with a longer movement for their forehand serves, they'll throw it upwards, slightly. Ratchanok Intanon for example. It's different from what I said, because they don't throw it away from their nose, but my suggestion came from the idea to help focusing on the shuttle.
    I can see your doubts, that's what I thought at first. Then I tried it, it worked for me, then I tried to think why. The throwing actually is quite simple and easy to get consistent.

    All I'm saying is: Give it a try, but different things may work for different people. While many of my racket movements are quite compact, the forehand serve certainly isn't. ;)
     
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  7. ucantseeme

    ucantseeme Regular Member

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    Your stereotyping is really dangerous and at least please think about the fact how many people on earth you really know and how many exceptions exist. That a national player can toy, with a toy average players don't mean anything that he wouldn't care about the racket for serious matches on eye level.
    I met very different types. Old farts who don't care about the 10 years old shoes, want a repaired stringing job because it's cheaper, to the young teens who are so into badminton that they spend their pocket money for stringing job, grips, shuttles and vice versa and between. They live an breath badminton. IMO not a question of the age, more a question of how much badminton is worth for everyone in all age groups.
    If you ever built a house in your life by your own, you will discover very quickly that good tools can matter much so you can focuse totally on that what you do. And string tension is also a very personal choice and can't get categorized. Even in the pro circuit we have variation of 8lbs within the same level, age and gender.
     
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  8. rehtael

    rehtael New Member

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    Regarding "throwing" the shuttle before the high serve, this video might be interesting:


    He uses the momentum of turning the body to toss the shuttle forward slightly away from the body. He doesn't hold the shuttle very high, but presumably you could do a similar thing while dropping the shuttle from higher.

    I can't comment on whether this is a good technique as I haven't tried it myself. I just happened to see the video recently and this thread reminded me of it.
     
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  9. SimonCarter

    SimonCarter Regular Member

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    Thanks for the video ! I will look at it
     
  10. DarkHiatus

    DarkHiatus Regular Member

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    Wow!

    I discovered this method independently from the video you linked. Exact motion - turning the body to initiate the swing motion whilst simultaneously 'throwing' the shuttle without undue motion. Allows the shuttle to be contacted further forward as @Cheung suggested, without feeling awkward.

    I experimented with the WS high shuttle hold styles at head height but found it quite unnatural - it felt like two motions like tennis; a toss, then a stroke.

    The rotation method still requires holding the shuttle higher than I used to (which led to a cramped stroke, and frequent lifting in my racquet leg to allow space between body and shuttle for a stroke). The change allows a hell of a lot more power/height to my high serve, but comes with a loss in accuracy. That loss in accuracy I think will go away as I get more used to it.

    I'm still refining and practising this method of high serving, but it's good to see I'm not going too far wrong :)
     
  11. Borkya

    Borkya Regular Member

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    Huh? This is a worldwide opinion forum made up of people from all over the world in a variety of ages (and I'd like to say variety of sexes but I still seem to be the only constant female poster here...sigh....) When someone says something a "in my opinion and experience" is built into whatever they say. This goes for this forum, facebook, youtube, instagram etc. That's just the way the internet works these days. And I hardly find me saying old guys care for equipment more than young guys "really dangerous" stereotyping. It's certainly not hate speech or incendiary in anyway. Thank you for giving my words such importance in your opinion to think they have any power, but I think nobody will change their opinions or actions because of what I said. Just sharing my opinions here as all of us are. ;)



    Ahh, this was going to be my question. So men never do the "high hold" style that women do? Obviously I learned the way that you start holding the shuttle high up, near forehead height, but that's for women especially?

    I guess I'm curious as to why the styles are different. Power reasons?
     
  12. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

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    Well, maybe you should make a thread dedicated for female players skill or play style, then you might have a lot more frequent female posters there.


    I think the style different is more about tactical difference rather than power.

    The high hold style used more by women in singles because women do a lot of very high lob serve to the back in singles. It is easier to do a lob serve to the back line that way.

    While in MS, who would serve a high lob serve to the back line when the opponent could easily return it with some dangerous attack like jump smash. It's like you are asking your opponent to attack you the first thing in the rally.
    MS in higher level usually starts with a very short serve to get a lift from the opponents or maybe a flick to trick them and getting a weak short return for the server to attack.
     
  13. MSeeley

    MSeeley Regular Member

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    I don't think it's useful to classify it as a WS style serve per se - it's just a high serve (which is obviously more common in WS than MS as described by someone else above that MS players prefer to use a short backhand serve currently).

    All badminton players are taught to serve that way if they play from a young age when doing a high serve because its the most efficient way to get power and consistency (more time to hit the shuttle, easier to get the right positioning etc). There may be some slight changes of preference on exact position and height between individual players but the basics of the stroke are pretty universal. If an adult beginner were shown how to do a high serve, i'd expect them to do it the same too.

    I think what currently changes over time between MS and WS players is that as they transition from juniors to more senior players, WS players can usually continue to use the high serve to start the rally safely as they are usually well placed to cover the court afterwards, whereas the boys can start playing against MS players with smashes more powerful than they are used to. Also factor in that they are surrounded by top MS players all doing short serves on youtube, so they start to play more short serves. I think the younger WS players cope better against the smashes of adult WS players because they are on average a little slower than for MS players, and the young WS players will be playing against young MS players who can learn to hit the shuttle relatively hard early on. By contrast, I don't think the young MS players will get much exposure to a really powerful adult MS smash as they grow up, because most juniors don't play with adults as they train (and typically it takes a long time to develop a very powerful smash). There will be exceptions, but that's what I've observed to be true most of the time.

    But if a MS player was going to high serve (I like a good high serve personally) I would expect them to do it in the same way as anyone else. Ultimately I think its more of a current tactical difference between the start of an MS and the start of a WS rally. In 2011 MS SF of world championships, Gade starts high serving against Lin Dan, and I think the technique is very similar to any WS player. I expect any difference may go away in time as the game evolves. I see a few top players mixing in low serves more often nowadays (e.g. TTY) but it will depend who they are playing.

    That's what I think based on the development of junior players around here. I don't know if it makes sense to other people.
     
    #73 MSeeley, Feb 15, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2019
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  14. ucantseeme

    ucantseeme Regular Member

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    Mate, would you recommend a seperate thread for woman in these times to the front woman of pussy riot?;) Maybe here are more females but for them the sex is not as important as for feminists and don't need to emphasize in each post that they are female and make out of everything a gender debate.
     
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  15. visor

    visor Regular Member

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    Lol... You don't realise that yuquall is also female...

    Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
     
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  16. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

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    Gasp! You could tell?? :eek::eek::eek: What gave it away?
    My display of dedication toward some male players? hahaha

    Lol yeah. He's right though, about females lurking around here :D
    They just don't broadcast it nor necessarily hide it either.
     
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  17. DarkHiatus

    DarkHiatus Regular Member

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    @MSeeley covers the topic reasonably well.

    Personally, I learned badminton through a non-formal route where everyone has terrible habits, and one of them is jabbing at a shuttle in an awkward serve position. My recent videos show i still retained that in my high serve, with me trying to high serve with a shuttle starting near waist height.

    I would say formal coaching would teach boys/girls equally that a high hold is better for high serve. I suspect that boys want to emulate the pros and move to a backhand serve style earlier (pulling focus away from good high serve technique), even if their level of play is hindered by backhand serving. There is the idea that "I'll be backhand serving soon enough when I improve, so why not start now?". Most of these male players never get to the level where backhand serving would be better than a good high serve for their ability, so you get lots of male players lacking a good consistent high serve even after a long time playing. I still meet men who feel that a low quality backhand serve is still better than a good quality high serve.

    On the other hand, if girls see the high serve used frequently at high level, then they will double down on making it effective. Perhaps lower level WS players also do not hold their high serves near their foreheads. To be honest, I have met one WS player. All other women appear to enjoy WD/XD more. I suppose even MS players are rare compared to MD/XD preferenced players :(
     
  18. MSeeley

    MSeeley Regular Member

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    So true. The whole "i'm afraid of lifting it" thing seems to dominate their thoughts, rather than realising the utility of getting their feet outside the back line. Sigh.
     
  19. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

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    100% agreed, and I feel like this has been getting worse in the past 2-3 years. Let's say 5 years ago, I've had pretty much zero opponents in my league who were mostly serving backhand. Now it's at least 70% who show up with a (mostly sub-par) backhand serve as standard and from those, maybe 5% are quick enough to cover the court sufficiently for a variable and slightly delayed return of serve. But imo, even those high performers would still benefit from a good long serve since they also possess all the weapons to counterattack a non-perfect return of serve from the baseline.

    What a lot of players also highly underestimate imo is that you have a lot more options in terms of trajectories with a forehand serve. You can play everything from a good short serve to a drive-like to a flat flick to an ultra high serve without much difference in preparation or hitting action. Who can do that with a backhand?
     
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  20. ucantseeme

    ucantseeme Regular Member

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    @s_mair do you remember who gave you an advice to switch to high serve years ago? ;)
     
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