My father speaks in reverence to a coach from China whom he calls Fang Kai Xiang whom he says was responsible for the rise of the singles players of Indonesia, such as the likes of Alan Budi Kusuma, Heryanto Arbi etc. Strange enough, the background of this man seemed to mirror somewhat that of the great Tang Xianhu - Chinese national who migrated to Indonesia, then left after the Soekarno regime, then left for China before coming back to Indonesia again, currently in charge of the Indonesian juniors. He was said to have been involved with Malaysia for a while before leaving due to internal politics of the BAM, for Indonesia. Mind you, he told me this some 5 - 6 years ago. I did ask him about Tang and Hou and he knew the both of them as superb players of their era, but like the usual Chinese educated people in their 40s, he had the tendency to speak about 'motherland' China and went on about why the Chinese left Indonesia, Soekarno, change of names and so on etc, when all I was asking him was badminton! (At that point I lost interest and left to watch TV... ) Anyway, in a matter of speaking, he referred to Tang, Hou and Fang as separate people but he seemed to be much better informed about Fang than Tang. Anybody can verify this man, Fang Kai Xiang? Did he mistake this man for Tang instead? Thanks.
- Fang was same era as Tang and Hou and was the 3 rd singles player. Remember him as Msia coach in 1988 , improved the atleticsm of Razif/Jalani, Foo Kok Keong, Rashid etc. Fang introduced Chinese training methods to Msia and brought Msia 1 level higher. He was paid only RM800 a month . i remember him for his quarrel with a project 88 player whio wanted to fight with Fang because he thought Fang was a sadist for torturing him and taking out the joy of badminton.During Fangs training players were vomitting and stuff. Fang told him that his training was the womens standard in China, if he had used the men's standard they would fall out.
That was almost exactly what my father told me - the quarrels with the Project 88 team over training methods. This only shows how much Malaysian players lack in terms of discipline and had often been too rebellious. I remember an article in the news of Yang Yang when he was coach of the men's singles, esp after his fall out with Rashid Sidek after the latter complaint that the training is not effective etc, YY said, "If this kind of training can make me and my compatriots champions all over the world, why can't it make him?". Discipline. And sadly, if I wasn't wrong - former coaches such as Indra, Morten Frost and Park Joo Bong had spoken of the same sorts of problem with the Malaysian team, barring a few perhaps Wong Choon Hann. Back then it was also when internal politics and inteference by non-coaching parties which contributed to this 'player power' problem. Coaches ended up frustrated with prima donnas. Anyway, how was he like as a player, this 3rd singles, compared to the more famous two?
- I for one dont know much about Fang. i only know Fang,Tang and Hou keft Ina fr China in 60s. They set up a rival camp in China combined with China training methods to rival that of Rudy Hartono,Darmadi(Wong Pak Soon) and Muljadi(Ang Jing Siang). All of them took badminton to a new height, speed and smashing. I dont think anyone of them were highly talented, they just played at a very high speed giving opponents no chance to play. Hou Jia Chiang was described by Malaysian players as having the eyes of a hawk, able to seize even smallest opportunity, I think he passed this skill to YY and Zhao, they always knew where their opponents were. As for discipline I dont think it is a big issue as it happens everywhere where quality of life has improved. I think Wong practises self-discipline, he knows what he wants, his targets etc and gets guidance on how to achieve these ends.No self discipline is an ever bigger problem. I dont think even China practises the authoritarian discipline any more ie. do as you are told etc.
- Ong Beng Teong should be able to give a good account of Fang as Ong benefitted from Fang's training.
Interesting interview by Fang Kai Xiang. I have similar thoughts about modern players - most of them excel in one department and not as 'complete' when compared to some older top players. Back then, (60's and 70's) it was common reading in the news about Tang, Hou in badminton and also a famous table tennis player Chong Jat Tong?? (Cantonese pronounciation). The Chinese media then often referred that China had 2 national treasures - a tiger and a monkey. This was referring to Tang Xian Fu(tiger) and Hou(monkey) Jia Chang. I have watched Tang XianFu, Hou JiaChang and another excellent player by the name of Chen TianChang play though not at their prime. I was so impressed by their skills at that time and it left a deep impression. Especially Tang XianFu all around skills - singles, doubles and mixed doubles. I am not knowledgeable enough to talk about their skills, so I borrow from my memory, the description by a badminton lecturer/coach from Guangzhou Sports Institute, also involved with the Chinese national at that time: Hou JiaChang is characterized by his tactical excellence, speed and defence. Very agile, with a rock solid defence and quick counter-attack, he usually invite his opponents to attack. He did not like to play long rallies as stamina was not his strongest point. If his opponent did not attack he would send the shuttles to mid-court giving the impression that a big opportunity was there - but he would return the smash. The only player capable of challenging him in singles was Tang XianFu. Hou JiaChang can't be said that he is that complete player in doubles. His full smash was not powerful so it would be weaker in a front/back situation where he was positioned at the baseline. However he was very quick at the net for interceptions and kills. Tang XianFu is characterized tactical excellence, power and attack. Considered by many the most 'perfect' player due to his technique - combination of strokes with footwork, a powerful player who excels in attack. His strokes are 'perfect' - well disguised and well integrated with his body movement, making his opponent hard to anticipate. His drop shots are precise at any point in the court wheter it be upperhand or underhand and his smashes are powerful and well placed. Like Hou JiaChang, during his prime he was unbeaten in singles and the only player able to challenge him was Hou JiaChang. In doubles, Tang should be a better player as he is able to set, defend and also attack. Tang Xian Fu is also very fast at the net, so he could play either in front and back. Also, from my knowledge, he was the first person to use the Reverse Spinning serve in doubles - incorrectly (in my opinion) described by the media as the Sidek serve. Unfortunatelly I have never seen Fang Kai Xiang play. According to the same professor, Fang was very hard working but could not attain the level achieved by Tang and Hou. He was an intelligent player with excellent all around skills, especially his net play and smash. He was able to put a lot of spin in his net play making almost impossible for his opponents to return. Even if they were able to return, it would not go beyond the mid court (my coach confirmed this also) and he would finish it with a powerful and steep smash, most of the times to your body.
- Well that must be the most authortative accounts odf Tang and Hou outside China. Pity China does not think much of releasing their videobiography, when I asked China people they said 1) Nobody's interested in Grandpa 2) Their records are tightly kept in libraries like national treasures. Good news is in 1-2 years someone in this forum is going to produce some DVDS of legends in 1979,80 and 81 inlc Rudy Hartono, Liem Swie King,Tjun Tjun/Johan Wahudi, Sven Pri, Fleming Delfs, Lene Koppen etc. Again they may not receive wide acceptance as 1) No one's interested in Grand dad,2) Can we have it for free ?
I assume you would be that person. I am interested in recordings of these famous players, most especially earlier recordings of Tang and Hou playing. Of course free would be ideal but would not mind to pay if cost is affordable to me. I know that even though China was not part of IBF, they did play often in exhibition games and tournaments not sanctioned byt IBF. You may try to contact countries like Denmark, Sweden to check if any video survived. And surely BBC should have some somewhere. As mentioned in an earlier post somewhere in this forum, for sure HK-TVB and also former RTV (now ATV) have recordings of Tang and Hou playing the HK Invitational back in 1976(??). With some luck you'll see Tang performing the reverse spinning serve. These games were broadcasted on TV as I remember the singles final between Yu IuTong vs Liem SwieKing. All the best to your challenging task.
Speaking of Fang, I heard that he was coaching in Bimantara Tangkas, Jakarta (Indonesia) and had to leave due to something... I wonder where he is coaching now? Anyone know? More importantly, anyone know the Chinese training method introduced by Fang and Tang? What weight training system they use, how they train for speed and etc?
Hou & especially Tang were extremely talented! Don't guess about about Tang & Hou (I don't know Fang) not being talented if you have never seen them play or anything. I played them in the Thomas Cup selection meetings in Indonesia. Tang was only 15 or 16 then and not training particularly harder than most, but an amazing talent. I played Tan Yoe Hok and Ferry Sonneville (in those days said to be the number 1 & 2 in the world), but Tang was more talented even than Tan, and probably at 16 already the Indonesian number 2. Ferry was of course included in the team because of his experience, but Eddy Yusuf was included in the team because otherwise no 'real' Indonesian would have been in the team (the strongest players were all Chinese players). I can confess this to you, because I was among the final sixteen TC line up (Yusuf eventually play 3rd singles), even though there were some Indonesian players with Chinese names that were not selected in the last sixteen even though they were better than Eddy and myself. Without sparring opportunities apart from playing each other (as the Chinese top in the 60's was actually the Indonesian junior top of the 50's) Hou and Tang were probably the best players of that era and with their game of that would still make a good impression today. Tang as a junior made a stronger impression on me than the young Hartono, and as an equivalent of badminton technique, speed and power only Zhao Jianhua (when focused) has made a bigger impression. But a player like Chen Hong would certainly not be able to beat Tang in his prime!
Welcome Koboduck, you are a very important authentic yardstick for us to compare the great players of the past with the present. Having been in the final 16 Indonesian Thomas Cup Selection in the 50s with Tan Joe Hock, Ferry Sonneville, the great master Tang, Hou, etc. you can provide us with some interesting observations and opinions of where badminton has come all these years, whether the game as it is now played has changed for the better or worse?
Havent heard of this guy before , but after reading the notes and post of the impact that he had done to the indonesians and malaysians, i'm sure he is a great Guru. If he is still actively coaching.. maybe BAM may consider asking him to be the advisor.
Badminton pastr and present Hello, thank you for replying so fast. My dad took the liberty of responding to your remarks last time, in my name. I myself was in the Dutch National team in the 80's (so not quite up to the old man's standards) and it is great that you reacted in this way, because we have often discussed exactly your point. His observation (and mine after studying videomaterial etc) is that in men's singles the field nowadays is deeper with a lot more countries producing players that can play badminton. So winning a tournament is harder nowadays compared to the past, because the weaker players are not so weak anymore, while in the past progressing to the quarterfinals was mostly easy. But the level of the top single players - apart from their physical ability to play several hard matches in one tournament has not progressed tremendously. In the real early days professional training wasn't widespread and talent was the main factor. At the end of the 40's the American players Alston and Freeman were among the first to approach the game and training in a more professional manner, the latter proving the advantage of professional training by beating a much more talented Wong Peng Soon. Wong as a reaction adopted more scientific principles in his training to become the number one in the world. Malaysia then became the leading nation due to good training methods, combined with the greatest talent pool for badminton in those days. However, when internal politics and overconfidence made Malaysia field a less than optimal TC Team against Indonesia (not fielding Oon Chong Jin for example) - which allowed the Indonesians to win, Indonesia took over this role. Overnight badminton became the most supported sport and immensely popular, so the talent pool in Indonesia became the biggest in the world. This resulted in a lot of great talent breaking through, even though the training methods were no more advanced than some of those the Malaysians practised (but they had a smaller pool of players). Tan Joe Hok was a great talent and one of the last of the not so professionally training players. A new wave with a more attacking type of badminton was coming with Thing Hian Houw (later called Tang Xian Hu) as the greatest exponent. The anticommunist and antichinese politics in the late 50's made the best Indonesian (of Chinese blood) juniors go to China, where they - the greatest talent of that era - with a vengeance improved by training hard and professionally to compensate for a relative lack of sparring partners. This combination of talent, physical training and the fact that these few players were fortunate to be exceptional physical specimens that could endure this almost experimentally punishing training resulted in a great leap forward in the development of men's singles. Only later in the mid-80's when these factors were combined with a greater talent pool (because of further popularisation of the game in China), their level was eclipsed by the likes of Zhao Jianhua (when focused) and Yang Yang at his prime (their play at their best is imho the peak of men's singles development so far). The level of the top players in the nineties and the turn of the century was probably a bit less than that. As an example, I heard that a retired Zhao could still beat Sun Jun in training in the year Sun Jun became world champion. And Sun was one of the best of that era, sure to have been a 2-time WC if cramps had not prevented him from beating Rasmussen in his first WC final. What we think are a possible set of reasons for the slight decline of world class level since the early nineties are: 1 - many political and internal problems in the Indonesian and Malaysian camps have prevented those nations from making the most of their talent pool; 2 - some of the great talents of recent years never reached the peak of their potential due to problems with their association (Hidayat) or injuries (Gade); 3 - the biggest talent pool - China - has become so big that the goal (a) to make the most of the potential of an individual talent has become different from (b) winning a maximum number of medals for China. Because the latter is the most important for Chinese coaches, the first goal has been subdued. Reason number 3 probably needs some explanation. Theoretically the highest level (say 100%) is reached when the most talented player gets the chance to reach his full potential, which he would probably reach at say 26 or 27. Let us suppose that 95% on the same scale is good enough to win a tournament. If the goal is to create the best player of all time, this player should get the chance to have a full career at least until that age. However, the greatest talents are not always the most consistent, and - in our argument even more important - in a full span career, everyone has at least one weak year. Mr Supertalent will be 92%, and so not winning tournaments that his 'lesser brethren' (and in a big pool like China that could be fifteen guys) peaking at 95% would win, therefore losing his place in the national team and maybe never appearing on the international stage again. Yang and Zhao had the chance to develop for a longer period, but nowadays the turnover in the Chinese team is much bigger; being aged 23 could mean being the grandpa of the team! Weaker periods traditionally are compensated by more severe training with very often the opposite result. Even Zhao never reached his full potential, with a lung capacity decline of 30% due to the fact of being forced to continue training and playing in spite of a severe (and later very ill-treated) pneumonia. Today, in a world where a Gade at his personal 95% is ranked number two in the world, Lin Dan is the nearly undisputed world number one, although he has still not reached his full potential. He could develop a Yang level or beyond if he can develop a few more years. But he will have fewer chances than his legendary predecessors to come back from a weaker period. And also he is ever subject to overuse, showed by his complaints of soreness and tiredness, but forced to play the Danish and German Opens against his will. The same goes for Bao Chunlai, very talented but already injury-plagued. In short: I rate the level of Hou, Tang in the late 60's, Hartono in the 70's, and Liem, Han, Luan and Frost in the early 80's for a single match play similar to nowadays top level players Lin, Gade, Xia and higher than rather one-dimensional players like Chen Hong or Peter Rasmussen. Zhao and Yang at their best in the late 1980's are a little ahead of the others. That was men's singles. Men's doubles is a discipline that requires a lot of training of standard situations in ever increasing power and speed. This allows a high degree of standardisation that is already quite matchspecific. More training is then more easily translated into more results. Because of better training conditions nowadays doubles (with one of its possible peaks imho in Sydney's Gunawan/Wijaya) is actually a lot better than doubles in the 60's, 70's and the biggest part of the 80's. The opening situation (first three strokes of the rally) was more error-prone then, and also defensive skills were weaker than nowadays. The above is a concise version of what we could talk hours and several beers about, and is probably a bit oversimplified. I hope you like it anyhow. [
Excellent insight, koboduck ... Any ideas how what the regiment of the Chinese Team is/was? I remember Zhao/Yang Yang, commenting on the Malaysian team training, that the Malaysian team couldn't handle the training at all. Great article, and a must-read for all, I say -dave
Badminton backlash? A most interesting and insightful posting! Thank you for sharing this historical perspective with us. (Although I must say I find it a bit strong to call Peter Rasmussen one-dimensional... ) There has been discussion here before about today's "burn bright, fade away fast" training regimen adopted by many countries, perhaps spear-headed by China. A badminton career is much shorter today than, say, 20-30 years ago. It is my firm belief that certain qualities need a lot of time to develop fully, such as certain psychological aspects, creativity and tactics. I have the feeling that many of today's most talented players retire before they have even realized their full potential... Certainly the game of badminton has developed a lot in the last 30 years. It is hard to say to what extent this is a result of harder training programmes or a result of development of new materials etc. But you seem to suggest that the quality of the game has not developed, or perhaps even deteriorated. Does that mean that we have now reached a critical limit where the hard training programmes are actually becoming counter-productive?
im a big fan of Zhao and Yang Yang. i believe they played an important part in the development of badminton. but to say lin dan taufik and gade are below them is hard for me to comprehend as the badminton singles imho have taken leaps of advancements since those days. pace of the game aside, zhao's era eliminated (most of) the use of the 'weaker' stroke: the backhand. and focus primarily on forehand and overhead strokes. and i hear that the jumping smash was then perfected by Zhao giving him tremendous advantage againts the rest of the pack. however todays players like gade, LD and taufik went the other way. instead of leaving the backhand behind what they did was improve on it combined it with the forehand and overhead strokes. this is because a high level backhand skill is more effective than the overhead in a greater amount of situations and positions. where as the overhead is only useful in one 'form'. ie backhand is the answer to many type of shots, but overhead answers only one. another improvement seen today is the drives / flatshot / panhandle-fu is seen more rampant in today's singles game. look at taufik. most ppl know to avoid flat shots when playing taufik. this trend is not limited to taufik alone, as most of the indon fraternity are armed with international level flashots. thats all i have now. thanks the above is just my personal opinion. feel free to add or discuss. cheers
I watched Tang Xianfu play - in my opinion, in his prime he is still better than current top players. Together with Hou Jiachang I believe they were ahead of their time. Just too bad not too many people know about these 2 giants of badminton. Zhao Jianhua is the other talent which I consider to be their level. But Zhao's consistency is far behind of these two legendary masters. As for technique, don't think much changed at the top end. The current top players are not better than the previous generations, only the lower ranked players improved a lot. The technique then available only to the top players is much more accessible now. This make the tournaments more interesting, upsets could happen any time but not necessarily better players than before.
Agree with you. Their harsh training, emulated the Japanese method after they won the women's volleyball gold medal in 1964 olympics. Some ex-Chinese team players mentioned at that time they trained 6 days/week, morning 6am-11am; then 2pm-5pm, and evening 8pm-10pm for theory development/discussion. I don't think Zhao and YY were given more time to develop their game. They were excellent players and China did not have anybody at their level. What happens about the early burnt-out theories is the players do not really master the fundamentals and find it hard to cope with younger and stronger players - i.e. Xia xunzi, SunJun, Dong Jiong, etc In China the economic development is huge. There are a lot of things that would change the scenario - before being an athlete in China would bring fame and prosperity. Today that is not necessarily so. There are other avenues to achieve prosperity. One child policy and with the improving life quality it is harder for China to find talent in their big cities. I remember my coach saying 'when was the last time he saw a kid climbing a tree in a big city in China'. In late 70's/early 80's Tang and Hou were still able to beat Luan Jin and Han Jian in a 15 point game. Observers did add the word 'easily'. This may give and idea about Tang's and Hou's level when in their prime. I still see Tang and Hou the best players. Zhao is on their level but less consistent. Your posting is really interesting. Gave us a lot of information about the past players and a good comparison with current players. Hope you will find some time to post more. Please do ask your father to post more about the players of his time.
