clear motion video for beginners

kowchan seems to be a higher level player than Jimmy, looking at his strokes and footwork videos... so there must be a reason why he left out pronation

imo, kowchan probably thought that would be too much for the beginner to absorb... he just wanted a consistently proper body and arm motion for a nice square contact with the bird first ... pronation would be taught later

 

I guess both of them are not perfect.
The first one is almost great. But one thing I need to metion is that players should never snap their wrists. It's wrong.
It's dangerous to do so especially for beginners because there is no muscle at all in wrists.

Jimmy Lin's video is great but not for pure beginners. The forearm roration mentioned in his video is acturally the right way to generate the power of clear.
However, in his video he kind of exaggerated this point a little bit too much. So you see his normal motion in a lower speed, you will find it different from what he demonstrated.

For beginners, I guess the first video is enough, but you need to tell them don't snap the wrist. The most important thing is not the details about how to hit the shuttlecock but the overall motion and the timing.

For other videos, I would recommend Jonas Rasmussen's videos though it may be slightly too advanced for beginners.

For me the most classical instructions about high clear is from Xiao Jie, a Chinese coach. I'm not sure whether there is any translated video from her on youtube.

 

The wrist snap demonstrated is incorrect and harmful to the technique. The wrist should not flex forwards beyond neutral.

It's still very common for coaches to teach "wrist snap" like this, unfortunately, due to a fundamental underlying conflation of two different techniques. It's a surprisingly easy mistake to make...

Something very simple that's easily forgotten: reach up for a high contact point. This is a good coaching point to start with.

More details in my clears & smashes article.

 

There is some very nice content in some of these videos. Thanks for sharing them.

 

I don't believe I heard him mention forearm pronation or supination at all. :shrug:

He just kept talking about the wrist.

 

Yes, and it can be an effective coaching point, used carefully. The trouble is that coaches demonstrate something quite different from what they actually do when they hit the shuttle.

If you show players wrist flexion, they are going to copy you.

 

This is a tricky one to answer. Something important to point out was that he is demonstrating a "point" smash, which is not a full power shot, but requires a faster "tapping" motion (sometimes called a stick smash) which can make use of the wrist more than other shots. This is a good way of teaching a player how to focus the energy of their shot into the contact with the shuttle (but perhaps not the only way).

As far as I am aware, he did not use this same level of wrist movement in his full power smashes as a player, but its hard to tell from videos I have seen. I believe his wrist stopped at "neutral" on full power smashes, but I could be wrong.

And to clarify - he wasn't just a good player, he is probably one of the best ever. Even watching videos of him when he used to play, I am not sure if players today would be able to cope with what he could do.

 

Even on clip smashes, I think the wrist is usually going to stop on (or near) neutral. Exceptions include difficult changes of direction, e.g. extreme cross-court angles from around the head. Here power is sacrificed for placement.

I think people commonly get this muddled up, and I think it's to do with demonstrations.

Demonstrating a clip smash often involves the coach shadowing the shot. Without a shuttle, there is no resistance, and so a relaxed wrist naturally flexes forwards beyond neutral. This creates an obvious wrist snap, and to the coach it feels the same as when he normally plays the shot.

But when you hit a shuttle, it's different: your relaxed wrist is stopped by the shuttle as your grip tightens, and the force is transferred into the shuttle instead.

Shadow hitting actions are a very useful type of demo. But they are not entirely realistic, and I think we sometimes don't realise the consequences of that. There are differences between what we demonstrate and what we do.

 

My references to wrist flexion were to Zhao's demonstrations with the shuttle, both slow motion (at around 1.30) and faster (at around 1.00). Where his wrist clearly (to me) flexes, but obviously not to full flexion (which is not demonstrated and not advised). Instead, it goes slightly past neutral. In my mind, this slight flexion is ok for some shots, and does not occur on others.

Thus, I agree that the wrist stops NEAR neutral (as you said), but I think it DOES flex sometimes, and I think it is right to want it to flex sometimes. Some may argue this is just a small detail, but for me it is important. If I want to use a faster tapping motion e.g. clip smash or some punch clears, I will use my wrist, and flex my wrist more.

However, for shots like a power smash, (or less "tappy" shots) I will not try to use the wrist more (or quite frankly think about any of this crap). As long as I reach up high, relax, use the correct grip, and get my strings pointing towards my target at contact, and my swing going roughly towards my target(for non slice shots) I am happy The focus (for me) is on the feel of the swing, rather than the technical elements. I appreciate that this isn't appropriate for everyone.

I agree though, that in general, shadowing a stroke can give a different impression to watching the real thing. Its a tricky one. I think if beginners tried to focus more on the feel of the stroke, rather than the exact techniques needed, they would be far more successful, and would likely develop faster than worrying over the details. The obvious thing to point out here is the necessity of having a good coach watching over it to ensure that no crazy techniques are going on.

 

Yes, I think that's correct. Slight flexion can be useful on some shots, including clip smashes.

My concern is not with the sort of demos that Zhao does -- they seem flawless to me -- but more with the sort of demos you sometimes see elsewhere, where full wrist flexion is used while teaching "wrist snap".