spinning the shuttle ..

Discussion in 'Shuttlecock' started by kwun, Aug 28, 2003.

  1. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    we have talk about spinning / tumblnig the shuttle during a netshot, but i think we haven't talk about spinning the shuttle during a overhead. the action is often describe as a cut. either an inside cut more often used for forehand drop or cross court drop, or the reverse cut often used in around the head drop.

    spinning the shuttle has some interesting effect. as the shuttle spin, we all knows that it slows down the birdie and creates a nice curve which has a nice curvature that either hugs the net during drop, or produce a high and deep clear, or a spining smash.

    the shuttlecock however, is not completely symmetrical, it is rotationally symmetric, but it is not a mirror image of itself. in other words, the clockwise and counter-clockwise spin can create two different flight path.
     

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  2. wilfredlgf

    wilfredlgf Regular Member

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    I have a question :

    I noticed that most opponents whom I've played with who are good with their strokes (especially those went for training for inter-school, provincial etc tournaments) seems to hit the shuttle in a way that it comes spinning regardless of the stroke - drop, smashes; and what I also noticed is that the shuttle seemed to travel much 'smoother' ie so much less turbulence. I've been smashed quite often by these people before, and the shuttle lands bouncing once or twice on the floor rather than just skid and stop.

    Can I ask if a spinning shuttle have any bearing on how well or how correctly one does in executing a stroke?

    What is the advantage? I know that in the principal of balistics, a spinning missile (on its axis in the opposite direction the flight path) have less wind resistance and travels with much less turbulence (think about arrows, their ends stuck with feathers)

    A little off topic : also, these (good players) seem to be able to prolong the life of a shuttle, unlike amateurs like me who'd had the shuttle a little tattered after a short hit about. Anything to do with how correct a stroke is done?

    Thanks for any help.
     
    #2 wilfredlgf, Aug 28, 2003
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2003
  3. jump_smash

    jump_smash Regular Member

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    Good, but reverse can be used for cross court rather than around head.
     
  4. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    wilfredlgf, yes. that one thing that i am hoping to get at as well. i have also seen players like whom you mentioned. they can make the birdie travel much smoother and faster like a bullet. i wonder if there is a certain spin pattern that they managed to produce to achieve that.

    i am guessing having a lot of spin is not gonig to do it, as that will create turbulence and resistence, but due to the shape of the birdie, perhaps there need to be some spin to counter the feather pattern, but which way?
     
  5. Traum

    Traum Regular Member

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    To Answer your OT Question

    For the most part, I think this comes from the good players being able to hit the cork more squarely on the head than us amateurs. With significantly fewer mis-hits, they don't damage the feathers / skirt portion of the shuttle nearly as much as we do, so their shuttles last longer.

    -Rick
     
  6. Aotis

    Aotis Regular Member

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    my guess...

    For the question that pertains to the smooth flight of the bird, I think the key is hitting the bird squarely on contact. If you'd pay close attention to how the feathers are arranged, you should notice that they are all slightly "angled". If you were to drop a bird from a tall building, you should see that the bird has a constant/smooth spin while dropping, this motion stabilizes the flight of the bird. The best way to reproduce this on the court is to hit the bird as square as posibtion, i.e. the face of the racquet is normal to the direction of the bird.
    The reason why some people, including THIS amateur (ME), doesn't seem to be able to reproduce that flight pattern is because our racquet head at contact of the bird isn't norm to the direction of the flight as described above. When the racquet contacts the bird at any angled position, the result is that the natural "spin" of the bird is disrupted by it and thus causes a less desirable flight pattern.
    I believe the physics that governs the flight of a birdy is the same of that of an arrow...
    in practice, I can produce a very nice flight pattern if I pay attention to "limping" my wrist, raising my shoulders and elbow, and squaring the contact points. During play, I use my "bad habit" techniques so I can't hit as nice :( . I know I just need to relax more.
    I hope this helps.
     
  7. Mag

    Mag Moderator

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    Right-handers VS left-handers

    Hmmm... this raises another interesting question Kwun, although not being the one you were originally getting at. Let's think of the feathers of a spinning shuttle as air flaps: the feathers of a shuttle overlap in such a way that there is maximum air resistance in the spin imparted by a slice (air will then brush "against the edge" of the feathers of the spinning shuttle, they act as open flaps), but minimum air resistance when executing a reverse slice (closed flaps). That is of course why the flight path of a slice is very differently from a reverse slice.

    Now, this is assuming that the person executing the shot is right-handed. For a left-hander, the slice will behave like a right-hander's reverse slice and vice versa.

    Is this is why many left-handers have so fast slices?

    (By the way: do the feathers of all shuttles overlap in the same way?)
     
  8. coupii

    coupii Regular Member

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    A friend of mine spins her net shots instead of tumbling them. Then when I try to play the shot early, the shuttle will bounce off my racket face in some crazy direction. She told me I have to wait for the shuttle to stop spinning so fast before I can take the shot, which means that I had no choice but to take the shuttle low, in effect forcing me to clear, which is her intention. Since her net shots are so tight, my clears would go up at a very steep angle for an easy smash. She tried to show a friend and I how to do it but it was hopeless for me to learn. It seemed so easy when she did it. Her spinning cross-court net shot was very beautiful.
     
  9. ants

    ants Regular Member

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    Sometimes spinning a shuttle during netplay can also confuse the opponent. You can mis hit the shuttle if your not experienced with it. For those who spin the shuttle during baseline dropshots.. we really need to practise.. sometime also depends on the condition of the shutle feathers. But i seldom see people spin their shuttle during netplay and dropshots.. most of the time direct hit. Maybe i should try it one time.
     
  10. Kurodo

    Kurodo Regular Member

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    normal birdies naturally spins counter-clockwise

    a normal hit:
    - birdie hits racket and stops spinning (a stop is the worst disturbance possible :p)
    - bird leaves racket with no spin and center of mass moves the direction of the hit at the same time it starts to spin again, and eventually returns to streamline state

    an angled hit:
    - birdie hits racket and continues spinning in the same direction; usually spinning faster than before collision. (minimal disturbance to spin)
    - bird leaves racket with a faster CCW spin than before, the spin increases the bird's recovery speed to stream-line position
    - results in a faster return overall

    as long as a player has good form, they dont usually have to try to spin the bird, it just occurs as a product of there natural stroke... besides! depending on the way you hold your racket it already forces an angled stroke
     
  11. coupii

    coupii Regular Member

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    From what I could tell, my friend would play the shot with a very slight curved sideways motion, using only fingers and a little wrist. The other effect of spinning her net shots which I forgot to mention was that the bird would not always fall with the cork facing down. Mostly, it would be spinning so fast the cork would be positioned out to the side, or even sometimes slightly up. This would force the shuttle to contact the face of my racket at the angle of maximum rotational spin (sideways) sometimes causing the shuttle to actually flip over the face of my racket.
     
  12. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    let's not talk about netshots for now. we are talking about overhead clear / drop / smashes. netshots are at a much slower birdie speed and falls into a different topic of discussion...
     
  13. My99broke

    My99broke Regular Member

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    some guy mentioned above, hit the shuttle squarly on the head and the shuttle will go with its natural flight pattern. Pronation helps.
     
  14. chub2003

    chub2003 Regular Member

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    my coach taught me a "deadly" weapon to use against right handers, and he believes that left handers are the only ones who can pull it off with the best results. since im left handed, its a cross court smash to the right front corner with a crazy slice. since i hit the bird so hard, it goes pretty much as fast as a normal smash, but is able to be very close to the net w/o going out. usually when i try to do normal cross court smash it goes out
     
  15. ants

    ants Regular Member

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    Chop Smash? I 've tried once.. for right handers. I dont know weather you guys tried this before. instead of smashing the ball with the usual grip and badminton face. Try to change the grip and smash using the back face... very hard to explain. Will try to make an illustration later.
     
  16. the_guilf2003

    the_guilf2003 Regular Member

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    After I got my MP77, I felt a little hopeless as I was getting no power on my smashes.... so, I tried spinning it like mentioned here. It seemed to improve my shots twofold. I'm a right-hander ;) .
     
  17. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    some follow up on this topic.

    so we did some experiments on the spin. we threw a couple of shuttlecocks from 2 storeys high and observed the spinning of the shuttle. as Kurodo mentioned, the birdie spins counter-clockwise (if looking towards the direction of travel) as seen in the attached image.

    so what can we deduce from this observation? is it really that the least air resistance flight be one that has the counter-clockwise spin?

    if so, it sounds like we need to cut the birdie *slightly* to introduce the appropriate amount of spin in it. perhaps the degree of spin is to be experimented?
     

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  18. jayes

    jayes Regular Member

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    I think I might know what you were writing about. In my case, however, I don't have to change the grip and "smash" using the back face. This will usually throw the opponent off, especially in singles. However, in doubles, I would only do this when opponets are on offensive formation and I am feeling a little bit of a risk taker. :)
     
  19. fan

    fan Regular Member

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    I am a right hander. I smash cross-court, from right to left, with some cutting/slicing sometimes (seldom). The shuttle doesn’t go as fast, at least it appears slower to me, but it curves. It doesn’t curve as much in the first say 2/3 of the total flight distance. It starts to curve outward in the last 1/3 of the distance. Even it only curves just a little, it can cause problem if the opponent didn’t pay attention. The reason I think it works is that the shuttle come pretty fast and it doesn’t appear to curve in the beginning, so the opponent start to lunge and set him/her self in the position for returning the shuttle. Then shuttle starts to curve after he/she kind of fixed in the position. That really suprise some people. You can clearly see that they try hard to stretch themselves in the last moment try to reach the shuttle but end up hitting the feather or miss completely. I only use it for opponents who are quite a bit better than me.

    I don’t know/remember if I had ever on the receiving end of this shot. It is always easier to remember the victory than defect. ;)

    We know a spinning object fly smoother in its path. It is smother but doesn’t necessary always in a straight path.
     
    #19 fan, Oct 13, 2003
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2003
  20. Faisal

    Faisal Regular Member

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    By the way, where was Sidek from? Someone told me he was from Pakistan:rolleyes: But I am not sure...anyone knows?
     

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