I've taken the plunge and recorded one of my social singles games. Never did this before as I thought I'd look a lot worse than I imagine myself playing. Just a quick bit of background. I picked up a racquet for the first time at age 35, I'm now the grand old age of 40. I had weekly coaching from a top 100 ladies singles player for about 12 months when starting out. I've been playing singles regularly for about 2 years with a group of badminton buddies, and feel I've made some decent progression but as you'll see from the video I still have an very long way to go technique and footwork wise. Until I watched this video I didn't realise how bad my forehand overhead technique currently is. Anyway, I would appreciate a critique of my game, technique, ability etc. I'm thick skinned, so no need to sugar coat anything! I'm nearest the camera in the white and black top. Unfortunately my opponent is fairly weak, so not many rallies to view but hopefully there's enough to go on to make an assessment.
Surprisingly your backhand form is better than your forehand. You're not reaching high enough. Need to imagine taking the bird at least 1 foot higher. I'm wondering whether you're too pan handle in your grip. Another thing, your racket carriage is too lazy and too low. Keep it at least above waist or higher. Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
You are quite slow in preparing the racquet ready on your forehand side. So for overheads, you don't turn enough. And you don't have time to reach up for the lower lifts. You also do a type of racket head straight back then forward action on the forehand overhead to generate power. That's because you hold the racquet to the side of the body rather than pulling back behind the body. The body doesn't turn so this is the first thing you might want to experiment with. I wonder if this weakness is why you have developed your backhand so well and preferentially use it. You may want to re-engineer this overhead forehand with some coaching because it is a big deficit. On forehand net shots, you don't extend the arm far out enough. Try to extend it more on the initial movement. *edited
It’s been said above, your contact point with the shuttle is really low. That would be the main thing I noticed through the whole video. Your low backhand service seems to be a tad too high (above 1.15m) but may be it’s the angle of the camera. As a beginner myself I’ll stop here and let others be more precise in their analyze.
I'm not a singles player so I can't really offer any critique, but I just wanted to give you a *high five* for staring badminton later in life. I always like hearing about late 30's/40-year-old start playing badminton seriously. Keep up the training!
The next area should definitely be overhead strokes! If the movement is right, you immediately have a better Clear, Drop and Smash. I see a lot of potential for significant improvement in your case. First thing: You have so much time for your strokes, but only use the last moment for all your movements. Pls look this match and compare with your video: - This girls are rdy all time for the stroke - looks beautiful - The girls only have a height of 1.6m, but they hit the balls half a meter higher than you. The angle for all Badminton strokes is extremely important. Second thing - two videos for overhead technique and pronation: Have fun with badminton!
All your feedback is greatly appreciated. Agreed my f/h overhead is the obvious area requiring improvement and will make a big difference to my play once corrected. Getting my racquet up early and behind my body and then taking the shuttle higher will be my focus over the next few months and I'll post a video showing my change in technique once I see it has improved. Badbadmintonplayer thanks for the videos. I need to watch more women's matches! Some of the players are technically superb and ideal for trying to emulate.
Tai and Ratchanok are great examples to follow. It's not mentioned much but having preparation like that will help disguise your overhead. Holding the racquet to the side for an overhead is something that Lee Jae Bok teaches. For this stroke, I have my doubts and prefer to recommend a more classical preparation.
