Practise skills alone

[Chen]

We play badminton in a small recreational club and we rent courts. Seems that there is no body interesting in practise skills, they just want to play games. Is there any way I can
practise skills by myselfe? especially backhand?

Chen

[Kelvin]

Sorry, for the caps, that was meant to sound like the cops in the movies, and TV shows... :p

Anyways... I learned this at a very young age, in order to improve your play, your basic skills must, MUST be improved.

You're right, most people just want to play games.
If nobody wants to play with you, if you can find a wall to play against, just practice hitting the bird up against the wall with enough force so that it comes back at you.. (physics!!! what a wonderful thing. :) ...)

I know I shouldn't be telling you this, because I was saving techniques and stuff for articles on this website, but I'll just give you a few pointers...

Make sure your elbow is pointed up, and out towards the oncoming shuttle.
Make sure you only make your swing slightly before contact, and flick your wrist.
By flicking your wrist, I mean (practice doing this right now as you're reading this...)
use the same motion as you would if you were going to snap your fingers... only flick your wrist (these are techniques I learned to gain a very powerful backhand, not just drives, but clears, and even the elusive backhand smash... I trained hard enough to consistently enough back in my prime, to hit back hand clears from the back of the court, all the way to the rear of the other court, and under control!)
Practice this same motion when you're doing your backhand, make your swing towards, the bird, but the power, and control comes from your wrist flick.

Try to control your shot at first, as the power will come with more practice.
Practice for a good 10-15mins a day whenever you play, or even at home outside your house... just make sure whoever owns the house is ok with it!
Within less than a week, I garauntee you will see results of some sort.

Man, you should have seen how rough my coach was on me while practicing my backhands! :p

You're lucky because I'm writing this to you... hehehe, just kidding.
Hope this helps!

PS: MAKE SURE YOU HIT THE SHUTTLE PROPERLY IN THE CENTRE OF YOUR STRINGS!!! As if you mishit the shuttle you will not only be wasting your energy, you'll hit a flat shot for the opponent, thus giving away easy points to them.

Now what are you waiting for?? get practicing already!!! :o

[David]

Find a nice flat high wall, stand about 5-6 ft away from the wall and hit the shuttles against the wall with your backhand or forehand. This excersice will improve your power and quickness.

[May]

The only thing u can't practise is the smash.

[marshall]

Find a large enough area on the gym floor and practice your footwork there. It's nice to have an empty badminton court to do this on, but not necessary. Set up 6 shuttles at 6 'corners' (even front, even midcourt, even backline, same for odd court), and position yourself on the centerline. Now move to one corner using proper footwork, pick up the shuttle, and move back to your base. Repeat for other corners until you get tired.

[May]

gawd, i hate this one.

[Kelvin]

In order to improve... I think he'd have to push himself a bit further than getting tired... how about setting a time limit, just to gauge how long he can keep moving around for?
just my opinion though.

[olli]

Yes, marshall is rigth.Improve your footwork.Here is another practise:

take a court and play without a ball, shadow playing may be the word for this.Choose some corners (a circle,left net,right back,left back for example) and practise china-jump,malaysia-jump ,block-jumps,do something like a smash&run to the net & kill.Do each circle 30 sec. take 30 sec pause between the circles.But as long as nobody can correct your mistakes you will only be faster with your personal style (and your personal mistakes),'improve' is not the right word for this,i think.

Try to play backhand against the ceiling.

--olli

it's difficult to explain the jumps in english ,maybe someone here can do it.