a poorly-executed shot to an unexpected place is much better than a beautifully executed shot to a place they are expecting. A few months (years? ) ago, someone posted a shot of (gade? ramufussan?) executing a slice shot, purposely missing, and returning it to the opposite side of the court with a quick backhand. For no reason whatsoever, I decided to execute that shot today. I did it horribly. The return shot was high and slow. It should have been easily killed. And yet, my opponents were on the other side of the court scratching their hands, wondering where did the bird go. Their impenatrible defence returned tight not shots and drives with ease, and lost to a low lob. And to think, i've wasted all that time trying to develop tight shots when I should have been developing faky-shots. I know deception has been discussed quite a bit before, but I don't think it ever gets the respect it deserves.
Heh! Execute it often enough and they just might smash it down your throat the next time. What happened with that situation of yours was just plain luck. You won't catch good players too many times with that. Trick shots like Gade's don't happen often and with good reasons. I don't think Gopichand would get caught twice with that. Consistent deception only comes with good form. eg. every overhead stroke is indistinguishable from another. I would say that successful flaky shots are more by chance than technique.
Absolutely. Shots like that can only ever make up 0.1% of your game. There's no surprise to them if they happen all the time! The bread and butter of well placed well executed shots however will never go away.
The shots we are talking about here are negative deception shots. This is where you sacrifice time - hit the shuttle later than you normally would - in order to confuse the opponent. These shots cannot be a significant part of your game, or they will be exploited. Positive deception, on the other hand, should be integrated into your game as much as possible. This is where you make every shot look identical until the moment of hitting - your opponents can't tell clears from drops and smashes, or lifts (cross or straight) from netshots (cross or straight).
i'm talking about a postive deception shot. I.e. slice the bird to the right but miss, and swing the racquet backwards to hit it left. as for getting caught... well you wouldn't use it all the time. If you see them moving in the intended direction already, just miss and hit it elsewhere. If not, then hit a good shot where you were going to anyway. You've just took half a second off their response time.
If you miss the shuttle deliberately, and then hit it in another direction, then you must be using negative deception - since you could have hit it earlier!
If you swing early underneath the shuttle then you minimise the delay. It's shocking how many people follow the racquet and not the shuttle!
Well, it is one of the cooler things about badminton, that you can actually pull off these crazy shots and let your creativity run kinda wild. While yes, I agree with the evaluation that "negative deception" shots are a sure road to ruin, I believe that this is only the case in high levels of play. Truthfully, not everyone plays at a high level and most people will only ever be club players and, on the middle levels in most clubs, there's no reason why these shots won't work. Now if you're really not yet sure how good you can be, then play a straight game and use the tested shots. But if you already pretty much know that you're not going to get much better, then I suppose you can try to raise your game by being more unorthodox. I've seen plenty of average players become more effective by focusing on trickery and placement. It's a choice you're going to have to make though as you will be sacrificing higher level development if you start to change your orientation into this style of game. That being said, I can say that I have seen people pull off the weirdest shots and pull them off consistently enough to win when maybe the other team was stronger. That's really a part of badminton.
Oh, absolutely - and even at the highest levels, negative deception can be useful occasionally. Witness the awesome Peter Gade cross-court net fake I've nothing against negative deception - like positive deception, it has its place in badminton. It's just that I think positive deception is a more effective way to play for most situations.
neither positive nor negative deception should be overly used: if your opponent is at anywhere near the same level as you, he'll get the general whiff of things after a few shots, and using too much deception can slow down your game However, using some deception, then switching to your normal game, and suddenly reverting to deception again can really throw your opponent of his game. Frequent changes of tactics are sometimes much more effective then sticking to a very unflexible gameplan
Negative deception really only works well on amateurs and old people. Chances are if you're playing someone good and you manage to pull one off and it works, for the rest of the match they'll likely be on their toes waiting for your shot instead of moving too early. Positive deception, on the other hand, is a by-product of correct stroke training, so you don't really need to work on anything special to achieve it. At a recent tournament, in a Singles match for no reason at all I decided to try a "deceptive," shot that I had never, ever, practiced before. The opponent played a net-shot to the front backhand corner and I came in with a full-speed swing like I was going to defensively clear it way high but I took the pace off and turned it into a fairly decent net shot. My opponent was heading backwards, so he got caught and was stuck at his base. I think the reason it worked so well (this guy is good, too, and I'm not) was because my stroke looked the same as a clearing stroke. Phil
I believe you got it the wrong way around. Positive deception refers to doing a positive act, such as making a fake move. Negative deception refers to the absence of a postive act, such as making all shots look the same. Positive=action; negative=inaction.
I think you are being overly harsh on the effects of trickery. One guy at my club has excellent deception. He can swing the racquet in one direction but change the racquet direction and stroke mid-stroke. He can also do double-strokes (first miss, then hit.) He very consistently beats all the varsity players at my school. Since we were #1 in badminton last year I presume that means he and his opponents are very good player. And yet they fall for it all the time.
I think Gollum is using positive and negative in relation to the passage of time. Positive being earlier, negative being later. (negative = loss of time) Phil
I'm not saying negative deception is bad, but I do think that it is more beneficial to work on good strokes so as to improve positive deception before working on negative deception. In fact, improving these two aspects in this order, positive, then negative, should have a greater effect because a player who has not yet learned to make his strokes consistent may give away his intent to perform a deceptive shot because he will change something in his shot preparation. A player who has consistent looking strokes will be able to hide his intent until the last possible moment, even if they are performing a negative deception stroke such as the one you described (miss intentionally and then hit). The guy at your club's shot that you describe, the one where he swings the racquet but changes direction I think is still a form of positive deception because he is not losing time in this shot. This is a good shot to do in singles at the net when the opponent put up a weak net shot; to face the racquet to one corner but in mid-stroke to turn and push to the other corner. Phil
But overall, what would win most points in the game:? Consistent good quality basic shots.? Consistent poor quality deceptive shots.?
Any shot to unexpected place is better than a poorly executed shot. The perfect deception is still a shot that looks just like any other yet keep the opposition guessing until the last second. Best thing-- and the most rewarding to boot-- is still to work on consistent playing form. Along with overhead/drive shots tipped over the net, I usually apologise for rimmed 'lucky' shots because I don't mean to hit them that way.
Deceptive.... Even though u were lucky... Still make shots that throw them of balance. These shots are the unexpected ones. Even if they can return it, it's alot more difficult for them.
link to teh shot that Gade made? I'm curious.. another fun one can be found at www.ibbs.tv register and find: free videos: deception
