Movin from Nylon to Feather

I switch between the two frequently, because when I play club, we use feather. But at school, it's plastic. For some reason, the power strokes (overhead) for feather is significantly weaker than with plastic for me. What's up with that? Does anybody know the problem? I also defend better with plastic birds. My smash speed is slower with feather, but when I get that "bang" sound, it almost reaches the plastic speed.

 

As discussed in other forums, the two birds have different flying patterns. Perhaps this is the reason to your mishits. There is no substitute for practicing more with the feather bird. The reason (IMO) that your bird goes slower with feather is because of the same problem and you're not hitting it squarely. You mentioned that it goes around the same speed when the "bang" sound comes.

 

Playing with feathers is very different because:

* feathers are heavier
* feathers have more drag (= slow down quicker)
* feathers are much stiffer
* feathers have a more evenly distributed weight

In practice this means that the feather shuttle cock will stay in your racquet for less time and it will be "hit" rather than "pushed".

Typically nylon players follow their shots "through". This is because when the racquet hits the shuttle, the shuttle deforms and is dragged along with the racquet head. This means that "long followthrough" = "precise & fast shot".

Switching to feathers will be problematic because here you tend not to follow through as much. For quick shots you want a quick "dry" hit, not "woosh" but a "peng!". The feather shuttle cock will hardly deform at all in the racquet and will be out well before you can "push" it very far.

This probably explains the loss of power that you experience. You are trying to push the shuttlecock through its trajectory instead of "snap" hitting it.

Once you get used to feathers you will not ever want to go back to nylon though. Feathers allow you to play much more precisely and offer you a lot of scope for deceptive shots because the actual action is shorter.

Best of luck.

Frank

 

Damn, that was insightful. Makes sense as I think about it now. I actually play a lot more feather than I do plastic, but I started out with plastic, so when I first learned how to hit, it was more a drag... Wow, explains a lot actually. Thanks.

 

i dont want to correct frankrei's post but i see some have accepted as insightful and correct so i should say something. Frankrei had made some correct and incorrect intepretation on comparative shuttle contact with stringbed.

for start, asterisk point 1 and 4 is incorrect.
after that there are some correct and incorrect description.

 

ohh......... my bad. Can you please enlighten me? I don't get it. Why is it that playing nylon is so much more... effortless? My shoulder hurts after 30 minutes of clearing drills with feather, but not plastic.....

 

since i'm only familar with slow speed shuttle, a slow mavis 300 weigh 4.85g while a speed 73-75 feather shuttle is around 4.5 -4.7g. (weight is not a good indicator of shuttle speed)

if ur hurt from hitting feather instead or feather, then ur hitting the feather shuttle with plastic hitting technique. The correct part that frankrei had said is that a feather shuttle bounce off the racket faster than plastic shuttle. I think ur swinging slow, u try to increase swing speed with brute force when hitting feather shuttle by using more shoulder swing. Hitting feather shuttles take less effort, almost feel like just lifting my arm effort as the feather shuttle just pop off my racket (eg. clearing shots)

 

this is because the feather skirt is stiffer than the plastic skirt.
When you defend against a smash, the shuttle is coming at the racquet cork first, and you generally try to hit it straight back. So when you contact the shuttle it is trying to fly skirt first. Flying skirt first means you get a lot of air resistance until the shuttle turns over and starts flying cork first.

A plastic skirt deforms and reduces this air resistance.

A feather skirt keeps its shape and the air resistance remains high. This is when you see all the feathers getting ruffled at the same time.

 

I find that when playing feather I prefer to have my strings strung 1-2lbs higher. Otherwise I find I have poor power and control.

With plastic birds, it doesn't seem to matter as much. I just whack at the birds hard towards the middle of the court!

 

There are plastic shuttles and there are feathers and real feathers. It may surprise some of you that most of the so-called feathers you are playing with do not have the feel of real feathers. Only the very expensive feathers feel like real feathers, because they have the best cork (real ones), best goose feathers, and they are individually tested by a QC tester (hitter). The feathers that most of us play with have half plastic/half cheap cork disguising as the cork, and cheaper goose feathers. They have some of the hard feel and hard touch of plastic shuttles. The really top feathers may dent your wallet but there is nothing like the touch and feel of their cork progessively and linearly sinking into your racquet stringbed before being propelled outwards.