How to not forget raising the racquet up?

Footwork training, focusing on keeping the racquet up, can help a lot. Drills making sure you focus on racquet carriage will help a lot.

Unfortunately, bad habits are hard to break, so it requires your body to be trained to feel so comfortable with keeping your racquet up, that dropping it feels uncomfortable!

You will struggle to correct this if you only play games, as you won't be able to focus on it, and your body will always relapse into dropping your racquet.

 

There is one drill that would help you in this situation. You could practice hitting the wall using overhead forehand shot. Try to do it as much as rep you could. Eventually, you will find yourself that your hand is always up during the game.

 

It's called muscle memory and you need to develop this so that you keep your core engaged and keep your racket atleast at tape level. Few suggestions:

1) Get a partner or better still a coach to rapid feed you shuttles at the net, making you move side to side, you have to do the V step movement, you hit a shot, return back to the 'T' intersection of the court, then come back to hit another shot the other side and repeat. The aim of this exercise is tri-fold. It teaches you the quick footwork movements to move in the forecourt, using the split drop step. You also have to knowingly keep you racket out in front of you and atleast tape height, imagine you arm from the elbow up is in a cast and you cannot physically drop the racket below your waist. Ask the partner/coach to always point out when you are dropping your racket and use self positive talk to make sure you learn to build the muscle memory. Finally this also teaches you to react to faster shuttles subconsciously over time. This in turn will improve your ability to hit shots coming at you fast when you have little time to think about it.

2) Stick some feather shuttles on the top of the net, about 12 or so in a line. Then go to do tight net kills, the aim is once again not to drop your racket, you are learning to keep the racket up high. This drill is very challenging as you need to hit only the top cork of the shuttle without touching the net. However if you get good at this drill, you will invariably improve with much easier shots.

I hope the above helps as a starting point, good luck!! Report back your progress. Any other questions, just ask and I will try to help further.

Kindest regards,

-Ajay-

Quote of the Day
A great attitude becomes a great day which becomes a great week which becomes a great month which becomes a great year which becomes a great life.

 

i’m an intermediate singles player with a very bad habit. i tend to keep my racket down after hitting every shot, which sometimes causes me to not be able to catch the next shot as my racket isn’t raised in time. even if my racket is raised, it almost always is held on my forehand side, causing me to not be able to catch most smashes on my backhand side. i know this is a really simple issue but it’s something i’ve faced for a long time i’m getting slightly better at remembering to keep my racket up recently, but does anyone have any ideas on how to remember to keep my racket up constantly? have a competition coming up in slightly less than a month and i don’t want to risk losing against someone of similar standard simply because my racket is down

 

@dacmochii
I’ve only ever had a few lessons, many years ago. But there may have been a pearl of wisdom in it for you.

During practice drives the rather intimidating female coach would say, “Racket up!”, as soon as I hit the shuttle, to keep me from letting my hands drop between strokes.

After a minute or so I told her that I understood, so she didn’t have to say it every time.
“No, you don’t understand,” she replied. “Because I am saying it over and over, you will hear my voice in your head, even ten years from now, and you will never forget.”

It’s true. Ten years on, I still hear her voice in my head. So perhaps you can use the same trick during practice... in your head, or out loud, just say “racket up,” immediately as you hit the last shuttle. It may stick in your head and muscle memory, too.

 

Totally true! This is what I was going to recommend. My coach constantly yells it when we play games and it does help when he is not around. But, you need a dedicated coach for this, and you need to play with them regularly, for this to work.

Also, hitting it against the wall is a good way to practice, as suggested. Just make sure that you are standing close enough to the wall. The whole point is the time pressure of getting the shuttle will force your racket up all the time, so if you are standing too far away it's worthless.

 

I have watched many single games recently and realised that the "racquet up" is important for double especially when you are at the net but for single play, i don't see it's too critical, even the pro players don't keep their racquet up even after the drop shot they are preparing for a "net kill" they still have their racquet at waits level or lower.....because their feet have to move first when they need to attack and for that far distance (from service line) so plenty time for "racquet up", also you need to raise your body for the jump (which should start by raising your aims high for the jump so your racquet has to be up high anyway.

Whereas if the opponent return a good net shot..they need their racquet move from low to high (for a net shot or a lift shot), so if they have the racquet high...they need to lower them to do a drop shot with will take more time (unless it's an intent trick shot). So I don't see why you need your racquet up in single. Am i missing something? or I don't see it right?

 

The main reason professional don't keep their racquet up is because they are extremely fast at getting their racquet up when needed. A lot faster than us.

To have the racquet up already allow us to focus on other things while the shuttle is coming our way. If you never feel like you are too slow to get your raquect up you won't benefit a lot from doing so. It will only release little brain and muscle power for other things when getting ready. It is a plus but most of the time it won't be the biggest thing.

Correct high should be at shoulder level not higher. That way you would have minimal movement for any shot, backhand, net shot, overhead.

 

If that were the main reason, then you're saying the singles pros are being lazy because they can get away with it.

They can certainly get away with it, but there is a benefit in keeping the racquet lower (waist height, not knee height) in singles. For drop shot returns, it's a natural path to bring the racquet to the level needed, rather than pulling the racquet down to hit up again. For smash returns on the side lines it's got an obvious benefit of being more efficient.

Finally, they are also indeed extremely quick to get their racquets back up when required. Aside from Lin Dan, professionals bring the racquet up to shoulder height as soon as they know they are going to play an overhead stroke - that means as they move off from base position. Most of us amateurs wait FAR too long to bring the racquet up, often waiting until the actual stroke to bring it up.

So in summary, there is a benefit to a lower, waist height hold. But the caveat being that most people will lack the discipline to bring the racquet back up for overhead strokes. For the non-pro player, they will benefit more from holding it normally at shoulder height to get consistent overhead strokes, and losing a little bit of efficiency on drop/smash returns .

 

You want to play every net shot at shoulder level anyway tho, I agree that lowering your arm feels very unnatural hiwehow.
When I say racquet up I meant between waist and shoulder level. We should rarely have it higher except when hitting.
For smash return it is more the whole body going low than the racquet relatively to the body.

I just checked some footage and I feel like they are being lazy actually ! But more in the sense that it relaxes their arm and save energy. It is only worth it because they are very fast.

 

The main reasons why you dont keep your racket high in singles all the time:
-it's not necessary, you wont have a lot of drive exchanges. Keep it up if you anticipate a flat shot or drive, though.
-It's strenuous to keep it up all the time - your shoulder will tire eventually, especially when you have long rallies. You'd probably have trouble lasting even 3 games.
-It's more efficient to move without raising your arm. You'll have to stabilize it right before you start your swing/as you get ready to adress the shuttle, but if you're covering the diagonal of the court or moving forward quickly after a smash, you're going to be both quicker and more efficient using your racket arm to help your balance and stability. Otherwise you'll have to stabilize by using your core muscles more, another unnecessary waste of energy in a lot of situations.

If you play a tight net shot, you're probably best advised to keep the racket head roughly around net height in case you want to pounce on a short reply or if your opponent tries to push the shuttle flat to the back. In defense, keep it around waist to low chest height as that is most likely where you'll hit the shuttle. Generally, you can keep it at a comfortable height (roughly waist height) if you're moving more than one step as you're not going to be pressed for time. And please dont confuse racket carriage with shot preparation, of course you should raise the racket eventually in preparation for overhead shots =)

 

I agree with the theory of everything you just said, but for 99.9% of players I don't think the last bit you said about overhead preparation is going to work as well as simply getting it up as soon as you start moving. There are two main reasons for this:
1. Most of the time people don't realise how early they could have taken it because they prepare slightly late, then swing slightly late. This is the difference between intermediate and advanced players! Advanced players can prepare and swing earlier. I would again agree with your position in theory: it can be down as long as it doesn't impede the earliness of the stroke. But in practice, I don't think it works.
2. Most of the time, people will miss opportunities to intercept the shuttle early because of the habit that they can gradually prepare their racket overhead e.g. against most people, a player can gradually raise their racket as they move. However, against another opponent who hits shots flatter in trajectory, most players will prepare their overhead at the same speed, and thus be too late to make an early contact. And in most cases, a player will NEVER realise what they are capable of reaching early because of their slow racket preparation for an overhead stroke.

So I agree with your theory, and your advice regarding where to hold the racket in defence and regards to the net makes sense. Most of the time people will need a comfortable waist or chest high racket carriage.

But whilst your theory for overhead preparation is correct, in practice I would recommend that people prepare for the stroke the moment they start moving backwards. This also has the benefit of being more deceptive against the opponent, as they have no idea when you will start your stroke. If you move with the racket relaxed and then suddenly raise it into position to start the stroke, the opposing player will have a much easier time reacting to the rhythm of your shots. I'd highly recommend that most players reading this prepare very early - as soon as they start moving. This will prevent you having to relearn how to move when you try to reach advanced from intermediate, and will hopefully let you experience how much earlier you can really take shots anyway. After many years of practice, the discipline I am recommending will become less necessary, but it is a useful tool for those who are learning badminton who are not yet international standard (most players!).

I hope that kind of makes sense - its not really a contradiction to what you said, as what you said is true. But it is a recommendation not to behave as if what you said is true, because I believe thats a better route to achieving a higher standard of play.

 

Well differentiated, I concur. As I belong to the group that you generously classified as 'most' (the over 99,9% that do not play at an international level), maybe I should change racket carriage myself

 

I'm as guilty as the next person! And I teach it for goodness sake - I don't have any excuses except lack of dedicated intentional practice to form better habits. But I think its the best route for most players, and the moment I learn to do it better myself is the moment I will start reaping the benefits.