[VIDEO] What to focus on

[Karlos]

Hello! I have been reading this forum for a while and have been amazed by the community that helps some players here with their technique and training. So I decided to try something like that too.

I've been playing for 1 year now (25,M), always trying to get better, watching videos of coaches, pros, pro tournaments, analyzing my technique etc. So I know I do a lot of things wrong (of course...). Mostly I feel really uncertain, or unsafe with my clears/smashes. I often try different kind of approaches to the swing (still figuring out the best way). I experiment often, like how much to pronate, how much of an angle between the elbow etc., but still I don't feel satisfied. Here is a clip from yesterday's training session with my partner.

If you could look at it and point out the most important things I should focus on, that would be really helpful! Like what I do wrong, what should I do to change it and that kind of stuff. Thank you very much in advance!



Karlos

 

[visor]

Only 1 year? Pretty impressive!

Maybe suggest to reach for a tad higher contact point? And also make sure pronate more to make sure you're not slicing the bird.

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

 

[Karlos]

Hi! Got a new video from a training few days ago. There is a mix of everything - mostly clears, drops and a few smashes.
What I noticed from the clips is that my swing seems very arm focused, or... just very mechanical. And my swing also looks very "small" when compared to others. Looks like there is almost no backwards pronation during my backswing - the angle at the elbow seems very big and maybe I am not bringing it to the back enough? Maybe that has to do with @visor 's comment about me not pronating enough. I tried to reach a little bit higher fot the shuttle, but got a lot of mishits, so I have to work on that

Any tips on these videos are greatly appreciated!

 

[MSeeley]

You've been referred to another thread which has some good tips, but some really brief pointers to get you started:

The shot looks a little "smaller" as you put it than other people for two reasons and both are related to how you stand as you are "ready to hit" the shuttle (i.e. standing side on, racket up etc etc). In this position, firstly your racket arm elbow is too high (its above your shoulder level - it should be no higher than shoulder height and most people have it slightly below). Secondly, the angle at your elbow is too large - you want to bend the arm slightly more to create a narrower angle (if your current bend is about 90 degrees, try to get somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees). These two things in combination will make the elbow start a little lower, and the racket start a little lower, which means during the stroke they can both rise up more, creating a slightly larger swing with the racket and something that looks a little better (and will be capable of better more powerful shots etc).

Start there, and see how you get on. You could also try to reach slightly higher, with a slightly more vertical swing. But for now, focus on the elbow details! Good luck!

 

[Karlos]

Hi! Back with another video from today's training. I tried to focus on the things you pointed out so far (mostly the elbow, but as I watched the videos, failed a lot of times). The elbow was still at 90 degrees at a lot of shots, but simetimes I managed to close it a little. Also I noticed that I managed to keep it lower as @MSeeley said (or I hope so)

Today's feelings are that I had a nice feeling from drops and was terrible at clears. Smashes were like always - nothing much, nothing great. I noticed that when performing the drops on my backhand side of court (0:43) (and mostly playing cross drop shot), the technique looks much better than when playing on the forehand side (0:00). I wonder why? Do I do something that drastically different?

As I said, the clears were terrible (and I guess they were always my weakest point) - I feel like the more I try, the worse the shot gets. With full power I often hit very bad shots, slice it a little and stuff like that and the clear ends up in the middle of opponent court. We often try this excercise where I try to play just with my arm and try to pronate as much as possible (3:07) and my clears are much, much better with little to no effort. But I lack the ability to covert this into actual gameplay with normal body movement and "full swing".

Again, thanks for any tips! Next training I will focus more on the elbow angle and also I noticed that my arm looks pretty stiff during the swing preparation - so I will focus on that.

 

[Cheung]

Your grip is wrong. That is why you can't get power on the clears. It doesn't let you pronate the racquet head efficiently nor can you use the fingers to generate the explosive power. You currently can only use body and shoulder power.

You are holding like a hammer which is too tight. Have a look for correct grips on the Internet. You should try to hold it in the fingers more.

 

[Kento]

Cheung is correct about your grip - you are also too tense in your wrist area.

If you want to direct your smash better, maintain a looser grip on the racquet handle so that there is some air between your fingers and the shaft and then tense your wrist when you are about to do your wrist smash, loosening it once more when you have completed the downward motion on the shuttlecock with your racquet head.

There is also another permutation.

If you watch a video of Lee Zii Jia of Malaysia, you will notice how he curls his wrist around the racquet handle to shift its direction as he is going through the action of his wrist smash.

In this way, he is able to manipulate the direction of his smash at the very last possible moment, so as to fool the opponent by disguising his real target area with his smash - by so doing, he makes it very difficult for his opponent to position himself correctly in order to attempt to return the smash.

Of course, when he does his jump smash, he jumps and times the swing of his racquet so as to smash down on the shuttlecock in perfect coordination with his motion; he keeps his wrist locked as his racquet makes an arc through the air when he does this because he is using a greater height and thus has added momentum to direct the shuttlecock to the target area on the playing surface that he desires to hit it and thus the velocity generated in tandem with the steepness of the angle of his smash usually means that his opponent will not be able to return his smash, even though he may work out where it is going to land on the court.

 

[Karlos]

Thanks for the great feedback! Indeed, my grip was as you said. I focused on a proper grip like 2-3 months ago, experimented with different grips and what best worked for me, but in doing so, I started to use this "hammer" grip. It looked like I was able to pronate more with this grip (at least the feeling indicated that), but the power wasn't there. And with other things I focus on with my stroke, I just didn't think about it anymore.

Today I focused mainly on proper grip (holding it in the fingers, relaxed, loose grip) and a little bit on my elbow angle and position. And I have to say, the difference was to be recognized immediately - especially with the clears. It may not look like I have fixed the grip throughout every shot, but I tried to look and fix my gripping before every set of excercises.

That also helped me with relaxing the wrist a little bit more, but I still feel it is too stiff, looking at the videos - mainly with my back swing looking very small-ish (as talked above).

 

[Kento]

Thanks for the great feedback! Indeed, my grip was as you said. I focused on a proper grip like 2-3 months ago, experimented with different grips and what best worked for me, but in doing so, I started to use this "hammer" grip. It looked like I was able to pronate more with this grip (at least the feeling indicated that), but the power wasn't there. And with other things I focus on with my stroke, I just didn't think about it anymore.

Today I focused mainly on proper grip (holding it in the fingers, relaxed, loose grip) and a little bit on my elbow angle and position. And I have to say, the difference was to be recognized immediately - especially with the clears. It may not look like I have fixed the grip throughout every shot, but I tried to look and fix my gripping before every set of excercises.

That also helped me with relaxing the wrist a little bit more, but I still feel it is too stiff, looking at the videos - mainly with my back swing looking very small-ish (as talked above).

I can see the vast improvement in your play Karlos so well done.
The stiffness that you mention will not be there for long as you continue to train; it is just due to the residual muscle memory of your previous grip and this will fade as your wrist muscles 'learn' your new and much improved grip.

 

[Karlos]

Hi! Back again with another video from my newest training session. I think I got hold onto having better elbow angle in pre-shot, keeping the elbow lower and also having proper grip - holding more in fingers than a hammer grip - because I was not really focusing onto these things as much (during this training), but noticed that I was doing them (at least I hope so ) properly. I also researched a lot about pronation, I think I know everything I need to know, but still cannot figure it our during play. My swing still looks really weird - I think I identified the most notable "errors" - for example it seems there is little to no real backswing, I just draw my racket a lot to the left of my body behind me (looking from the camera angle - behind me) and my swing then looks like I draw my racket to the left and then swing from left to the shuttle in a weird, slice-looking way. I would like to have my swing more from the bottom, to the top (in a straight line). I also noticed that this more often when the shuttle is more to the right, but when doing more overhead shots, it is slightly better. Also I feel like I am not pushing my elbow to the front enough (like only half way) - maybe this is the cause?

Anyway - Clears are from 0:00, Drops (with movement to tle left/right) are from 0:59 and the rest are Smashes from 2:33. Also at the end of video (3:41) there is a "bonus" clip where I try to do the probler swing (if it should looke like that). That is what I was training at home, but I guess couldnt transfer into the actual game.



I love any/all tips, opinions, ideas, thoughts! That's why I am posting here. Love the feedback so far!
Karlos

 

[Borkya]

My tip is don't use fisheye lens! hahaha. The shuttle movement is distorted (as is your body curve) so you can't see the results of your hits and therefore it is hard to give real feedback.

 

[Obito]

Dont forget about the elbow on your racket arm. It is way too low. Ideally it suppose to be 90 degree parallel with the floor, but I understand that most of us watch the pro and it seems like their elbow aint parallel with the floor, but in fact their elbow is 90 degree but it looks bend because they draw their back to play the power shot not the elbow. Otherwise, your swing will be too big and slow.


check this video out

 

[Kento]

Obviously, the video above is demonstrating the straight smash. With a cut smash, the angle of the racquet as it hits the shuttlecock is altered to allow for the cutting motion.

 

[Karlos]

@Obito Damn! In the first two videos I got adviced, that my racket elbow is too high during pre-swing (and also too big of an angle), so I was focusing to keep the elbow down a little bit with smaller angle, but I guess now it is too much?

@Borkya I guess you are right, I thought it would be okay - but here is a video from 2 days back with normal camera! The angle is not perfect (first time) and you really cannot see the contact point, but next time I will do better haha

As always the same, swing looks weird - not so powerful, like playing with whole arm, and again the swing looks like going from left to right instead from bottom to top (like on picture below red (me now) vs green (what I would like). You can really see it on the videos. It that right? What would help me to achieve this - any tips? Maybe it has something to do with my racket/elbow ready position? (too mush to the side, not too high etc).

Thanks again!

 

[Cheung]

Get a higher angle on the camera You will see the technique (and potential areas to improve) more clearly.

Get your right elbow higher in the preparation.

When you do the overhead clear, smash, drop, position yourself so that you hit the shuttle directly above your right shoulder.

When you smash, rotate your hip more. It stops halfway. Also, make sure your right leg goes forward instead of moving out sideways. Right shoulder and upper arm should also move forward on the follow through just after you hit the shuttle. At the moment, they just stop.

 

[BadBadmintonPlayer]

The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that you dont use the forearm rotation correctly and therefore your smash ist not hard!

1. Your preparation is crazy. Elbow a little bit higher and your racket should look forward (red line). All you have to do is pull your elbow back. Not your arm to the right. It's like archery.


2. Don't stretch your arm completely. So you can't build up power (shoulder, forearm rotation) and at the same time you injure your arm. If you hold your racket correctly, there should be a small angle again (green line).


3. I think you're holding your racket wrong, and you're not even using forearm rotation correctly. For me it only looks like a wrist. Otherwise the racket should go to the right after the hitting point and not just down.

 

[BadBadmintonPlayer]

Thats perfection for me:

 

[Karlos]

Thanks for the great tips! Lots of things for me to take in. I have been troubled with my prep. before swing and pronation and you just made me sure that was the thing I want to focus on right now.

@BadBadmintonPlayer you were talking about that I may be holding my racket wrong - here are pics of my current grip that I am trying to get used to (in fingers, loose, no "hammer").

And here is a slow motion video of my trying to get a hold on proper pronation - but after watching the video it still doesnt feel right when compared to others. Also I was so focused on the pronation thing during the video, that I forgot to put my grip "back" after each stroke . And also I grip the racket quite high due to the ceiling, but it wasn't really restraining in the end, just a precaution.



Karlos

 

[Obito]

Are u able to perform punch clear or half smash ? Those two couldnt be perform with incorrect pronation . I was curious about how exactly “wrist and pronation” work then my coach enlighted me lol.

PS there is no wrist only pronation and supination that create the power. The wrist movement is usually the moment you tighten up the grip there will be slightly wrist movement in the last moment.

 

[DarkHiatus]

Thanks for the great tips! Lots of things for me to take in. I have been troubled with my prep. before swing and pronation and you just made me sure that was the thing I want to focus on right now.

@BadBadmintonPlayer you were talking about that I may be holding my racket wrong - here are pics of my current grip that I am trying to get used to (in fingers, loose, no "hammer").

And here is a slow motion video of my trying to get a hold on proper pronation - but after watching the video it still doesnt feel right when compared to others. Also I was so focused on the pronation thing during the video, that I forgot to put my grip "back" after each stroke . And also I grip the racket quite high due to the ceiling, but it wasn't really restraining in the end, just a precaution.



Karlos

Your video practice swings all would result in a reverse sliced shot, because you are turning the racquet face too early, which may be caused by you swinging the racquet head from right to left, at an angle to the direction you are facing.

Make sure the actual forward swing travels perfectly straight (in the direction you are trying to hit) from the cocked position, all the way through to contacting the shuttle, before your follow through moves off to the left to dissipate excess energy. Remember, your follow through is exactly that - it follows the end your stroke in order to prevent injury and to aid in recovery/balance, but I would not class it as the core mechanic of the stroke itself.

Here's a video for comparison. In full speed, it looks like they swing to the non racquet side as part of the motion. In slow motion, you can clearly see the stroke itself is VERY straight and the following through happens very clearly after the shuttle leaves the strings. It almost looks like two movements in slow motion, but the pros are so fluid that it seamlessly follows.