Hi everyone =) Like I said in a post in the racket recommendations, I would post a video of my smash and see what's up with my technique. It has brought to light a lot of problems which I have noticed in myself and much much room for improvement. So can people watch it and give me any tips and point out what is going wrong along with how to correct it if possible, Thanks! - A friend of mine did the video and the editing, so it comes with slo-mo but I'm thinking the shot is a little close and the normal speed is a little fast XD Still I thank him and it does capture my lack of technique very well! [video=youtube;6Ba9tpUD5Ns]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ba9tpUD5Ns[/video]
To be honest. There's not too much wrong so the following points are minor tweaking. 1) Sometimes you're not using your abs effectively to rotate your torso into the shot. This might be because the feed was a little short, difficult to be sure as the video zoom was a little too close. 2) Your hand position on the handle is in the middle, sometimes for that extra power you could go longer, ie hold nearer to the bottom of the handle. 3) I notice that you adjust your grip during the throwing phase bringing your fingers more into a fist as you hit the shuttle, also known as squeeze as you hit. On other occasions your grip has remained more like a universal grip, so not using finger power to press through that last snap into the shuttle. 4) Another minor problem is the ready position of the racket. Your racket arm is correct, elbow pointing back, but the racket has turned too far. Hard to explain. In other words at the point where you are standing like an archer, string pulled back and ready to fire, your right palm is facing outwards, forehand side of racket is facing out. This will be causing some timing problems and getting the racket head back, loadin gthe forearm correctly. In the ready position try to orientate the racket head so that the strings are point more down towards the net and not out to the sides. Unfortunately I'm at work so unable to load a photo to describe item 4. Hopefully you understand my point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNVC5PVJyPQ&feature=related This pretty much explains point 4 above, notice the racket face ready position and elbow
You use your left arm very well (non racket arm) which is a very good thing. You have a good, compact and explosive swing which is very good aswell. On your jumpsmash at 10-11 seconds, you can see that you do not really turn your body to be square with the shuttle, which might be why you don't use alot of body rotation (as mentioned by coachgary) At 15-16 sec I paused and could see that your elbow is pretty low at point of contact (it's about at the same height as your nose, I think you could still bring it up a little while keeping a relaxed motion) One last thing, I think you do not use enough forearm rotation. Your ARM movement looks fine, but looking at the slow-motions of your follow-through (after you hit), it seems that there is not much pronation but it's hard to tell on the video (I normaly try to watch the videos in frame by frame mode to check for this sort of stuff) it looks like you are using more wrist flexion and less forearm pronation than you should be. You probably already watched this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKC1Depuf6Q , but pay specific attention to the points I juste mentioned (forearm rotation, height of the elbow and body position square to the shuttle), then watch your video again and see the difference. I strongly suggest you work one those points (and those mentioned by coachgary) and post another video in about 1 month to monitor your progress. I hope it helped and good luck with your training! Mathieu
Like what others point out, the lack of forearm rotation is probably due to your grip. Your racquet looks like it need little more twist inward (counter-clockwise). When you jump, it's quite obvious that the racquet face is facing outward, i.e. to the camera. At that position with the right grip (before pulling the racquent back), my racquet usually face the front, with slight twist to the left direction (in this case, left front of the court). Also, you seems to discharge your power a bit late, there are still power release (especially wrist motion) after contact. To correct this, try to let your racquet head ready slightly (just slight) behind your head. This way, your precharge position (racquet pull back) will be slightly lower than before, your power should explode at the right time now, provided you didn't hestitate when you swing your smash. You need to be more aware of this ready position, pull back too much and it will ruin your timing. Just a little will do.
Probably it helps, if you show the position of your feet? how you position it, is it shoulder width apart? Diagonal/perpendicular to the net?etc. From the video, the footwork is sort of hidden.
The biggest thing I see is the racket is too far forwards at the ready position so you have not much distance to get power. It looks and sounds like you probably have a lot of power anyway but extra power is always a bonus lol
ur racket should be coming down to ur left side after smashing.(just saying from a video i watch,don't blame me if wrong:crying and i notice u land with one leg only,easy to lose balance and hard to run to the net.however i'm not a professional so bear with me
Thanks to everyone! Your help is very much appreciated! Right, so to finalise what I am taking away with me: - Avoid overpronation in the pre-loading phase, so that I can utilise the power from the supination-> pronation movment. - Bring the racket arm back further and lower in the pre-loading and behind the head in the loading phase to increase the distance in which to gain power, and to adjust the timing of late power release. - Use abs more in order to swing myself into a position more square to the net so that I can transfer more power - (I've also been experimenting with using the left arm as a source of that rotation - like you're trying to elbow someone behind you hard) - Ensure that the contact point has my elbow at the highest point reachable (without over-extending the joint). N.b I have been told this many times but it's probably the most difficult to correct.... - My kicking movement has much to be desired and is not very well show in the video but I do think about it - almost a little too much methinks :/ Thank you all very much again and I will work hard on perfecting these points, along with footwork and the ability to do other shots XD But I am still very inexperienced and have plenty time ahead!
All good points already. I can only think of 3 more. ..... One: I know it's hard to relax, but the more you don't force the smash, the more powerful it will be. Paradoxical but true. Concentrate on focusing all your power into that moment of strike, then immediately relax into follow thru. ......Two: think speed not power. Accelerate into the strike quickly, not neccesarily powerfully. After all, the bird is very light at only 5g. .......Three: an analogy I've developed is that the smash is like holding a leather glove in your hand to slap your opponent hard on the top or side of his head. The pullback, speed, whipping, and pronation motion are all exactly the same. As a matter of fact, this is what I imagine when I smash at my opponent and it works wonders!
