hey guys, been lurking for awhile, but i finally had a question worth asking.. what do u do with your non-dominant hand (left for me), when you do a smash/clear? i initially hold it up, but when i swing, i instinctively move it to under my right arm so that my arms end up in a cross after i hit. my dad (who, btw, doesn't play badminton), complains that it looks really ugly, but when i try to keep my left arm up, i cant figure out where to put it. any suggestions?
Watch other players. And I don't think it would matter if something looks good or not as long as it doesn't greatly affect your shot.
you should look at some pictures of the pros when their hitting. You can't go wrong if your style looks like Taufik or Lin Dan XD
Your non-dominant hand should be around like this to maintain your centre of gravity(??) or body eqalibrium. *Credit lucker for that sexy picture
use it for balance, its essential, some might think you are acting cool or trying to be fancy, but its important to use your other hand to balance yourself maybe use it to push yourself up if you get down on the floor like LD
definitely. I hold mine almost above my head in a bent position as I go back to hit the shot, but as I go through move my arm out forward and away from my hitting arm.
I do bao chunlai/xia xuanze style, kind of looks like i don't have a hand on my non-racket side so i pre-extend my arm way out as i'm jumping into the smash. Feels awkward for sure but helps drift my body forward as i'm coming down from the smash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIOHVxCQVpU the smash at the very end
Kind of a bad example because I'm falling over sideways trying to find a bird caught in air currents (school badminton, argh, barely a sport ). Regardless, hopefully it gives you an idea of what I do with mya rm and when I put it down.
Had a talk with my coach about this 4 days ago. Pretty interesting: He told me I need to use my left arm more (also with a around-the-head) to allow my body to rotate more..the emphasises a lot on your complete body rotation, especially your torse/core muscles. he said: "try this: Stand with your feet shoulder with apart, keep your right arm up (like swinging a racket) but your left arm down and turn your right shoulder back. now do the same with both arms up. If done right you should see you can rotate 20degrees more when you keep your left-arm up... in short: put your hands up, and keep them up (never drop your left arm all the way down, because your right shoulder will sag as well) just rotate your core so that you wont hit your own fingers
I actually had a conversation about this topic while waiting for our matches during a tournament. Personally, I keep my hand out slightly in front of me with my fingers loose so that they basically just hang. Some people I've watched keep their fingers straight and their hand points straight up while their arm is extended out in front. This one guy I watched made a little claw with his hand - it was quite interesting to watch.
Simple, balance first as you initiate the smash or jump smash, but as you are about to hit the shuttle, it would be wise to use that hand for extra weight shift/rotation, it makes it alot easier to unleash ur body power than just leaving ur hand down or something, im sure most of us already use our left hand unconciously for this but if you think about it, and practice the stroke a bit, you can probably even attain a better form with more power.
Similar to karate or boxing. You need to imagine that your are doing karate/boxing. With your left arm/fist up as a guard and your right arm ready to throw a punch. As you throw a right punch you would bring your left arm back to your centre line, ie, your left hand would come somewhere near your heart. In badminton it is somewhere near to this also, although the ready/preparation position of both the right arm and left is held higher. The finishing point of the no racquet arm/hand will be to the centreline ish of the chest.
