I spoke to a player who trains in the national team recently. He said that when you receive a smash and attempts to defend it by clearing / lifting all the way to the smasher's baseline from where you are standing, say, at your mid court, you would defend / return the smash with only your wrist flick. No arm movement involved. So, if it's a backhand defense, the power comes from the wrist and the thumb becomes the pusher. When it's a forehand defense, the power still comes from only the wrist and the index finger now becomes the pusher. I tend to use my wrist + arm. I am now wondering if I am not doing it right. What are your thoughts?
Yes I notice only wrist is involved. For backhand defense, I think the wrist has to pronate and quickly supinate like around 180 degrees. It's like one looping motion. Check out the pros. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy3GinmAgVM&feature=related just my observation
Pronation and supination are movements of the forearm, not the wrist. This is where most of the power comes from. You also have some wrist movement and a sharp tightening of the grip. On defence, it's good to keep the arm swing short; you don't have time for a big wind-up. However, I would not recommend attempting to use only the wrist.
I think you still have to use the arm in order to push the bird outward. If you only use the wrist, the bird will go straight up to the cieling
I think that when people say that a shot is "all wrist," they're drawing attention to the difference between a short swing where most of the observed motion occurs in the lower arm (forearm rotation, wrist, fingers) versus a full arm swing where the body and shoulder go through a significant range of motion. However, a good short stroke still draws power from the body and shoulder - the difference is that with only a limited amount of time, you're only sending a quick burst of energy down to the arm rather than a full swing. So, it is still important to understand good body and arm position/movement for defense.