Use of "Eyes" in badminton

yes its quite true, and i believe its what you call pheriperal(hope spelling is correct) view, which you can develop by practice, practice, pratice....

 

Close. The "h" in "peripheral" just has to move a few spots. Right you are, though. I wouldn't focus too much on practicing to improve peripheral vision, though. There is likely more benefit that accrues to spending the time on improving the strokes and even on practicing when to make certain shots in certain situations. The use of the peripheral is going to kick in when one has experience with certain expectations in certain circumstances. For example, when you approach the net for a hairpin on the backhand side, you may have become accustomed to seeing opponents out of the corner of your eye who are prudently crouching at the T ready for anything. With experience, you can automatically process the difference between that and the site of someone drifting to your side of the court and can react with a crosscourt net shot. How would you train that? Experience would have to be the best teacher.

This is different from when I was a young basketball player and needed to learn how to dribble without looking down. In that situation, the movement of the ball should be more or less predictable whereas the movements and positions of other players should not and therefore should be the object of the player's attention. Some coaches use blinders - pieces of foam under the eyes with a strap just like goggles - so that kids could see teammates while having their view of the ball they were dribbling blocked by the foam. Accuracy and power when dribbling aren't really a big issue while they are in making a badminton shot so I wouldn't suggest practicing memorizing the flight of the shuttle while watching the motions of an opponent. Having said that, when there is a serious skill discrepancy, many better players will "cheat" and look primarily at the opponent, knowing that they can trust their experience in predicting the flight of a shuttle to make a sufficiently accurate or powerful shot without really looking. People get cocky and take liberties like that in any sport. In basketball, no-look passes and reverse lay-ups all rely on correct estimation, without looking, of the appropriate angle and pace required to hit the target.

 

I realised recently after some coaching that for overhead shots if you are too far under the shuttle you lose your view of the opponent. Being well behind the shuttle as it's coming towards you and then stepping into the shot gives you a very good look at what's going on as it is more in your field of view.

 

thanks @event for eleborating (hope its the right word for it) on the subject, that's exactly what i meant...

 

Does it mean that you look at the birdie and look at your opponenet first before you hit the birdie???

 

i think "vision" is misleading..mostly you "know" were your opponent is. just like knowing if the shuttle is out without looking at the lines (i never look... i "count my steps")

 

Wow! Is this a timely thread/post or what?! I just discussed this with my friend and basically if you don't see the "whole field" when the shuttle is high in your end, you ain't moving far back enough.

 

Not really, I think vision is the right word as it's more accurate to actually see where your opponents and partners are than to guess where they are. For players to develop an innate ability to predict what their opponents are doing takes lots of experience.

 

well your vision isn't the onyl sense you use in peripheral vision.
your ears also play a part, and just plain 'ol gut feeling..

 

Okay, but I'm guessing we don't have anyone here with ESP. You only "know" based on the sensory inputs available to you. Anything else is guesswork. Naturally, as Darma Sucipto implies, everyone is looking at the opponent until shortly after the shuttle starts flying into your own court so you will know exactly where your opponent "was". In the case of the flight of a shuttle, you make unconscious calculations in your head and don't always even need to know how far back in the court you are if you have sufficient experience viewing the flight of shuttles from a variety of different court positions. In the case of an opponent, however, you're talking about a living being with free will whose position can change as fast as a human can run. Once you look at the shuttle in preparation for your shot, if he/she chooses to move elsewhere on the court, you need to either see that movement or hear it. That's why backhand drops with your back turned often get killed at the net. The odd time, you can hear footsteps and turn it into a backhand smash or even a surprise clear attempt but if your opponent can read drop and it is a drop, you usually lose. But if you're looking somewhere in the basic direction of the opponent's court, you tend to see unexpected movements out of the corner of your eye and for people in control, this can lead to sudden changes of shot selection.

To answer Darma Sucipto more directly, when I'm being cocky and am really in control of a rally, I will occasionally hit the shuttle entirely without looking at it, looking solely at the positions and movements of my opponents; however, my coach always told me not to do this because of the sacrifice in terms of power and accuracy when you don't look at the shuttle at the point of impact. I do it when I'm playing with beginners and really want to make them run. Anyone can do it. Have you ever picked up an extra shuttle in the middle of a rally or, in quick succession, hit your own shuttle and then an errant shuttle from the neighbouring half-court? It can be done but the resultant shot has a high likelihood of being weak or too high or missed entirely. You're better off making a good shot into a part of the court your opponent can reach easily than taking your eyes of the bird in the hopes of seeing clearly a part of the court to which you might just be able to send the bird perfectly if you didn't...darn...just miss the thing completely! Better yet, if you can vary your shots at random then you always make a good, sure shot that may fool your opponent half the time, even fall-aways or backhands where you can't even see the opponent's court. This is far more worthwhile as a training goal.

 

The thing i found helped with placement and looking at players the most is footwork. You get to the shuttle earlier and you have more time to check their position for what shot you have to play. If your shot is well placed, they have less time to make a return so more chance of a bad placement on their part. This gives you time on the next shot...etc while they are running around trying to keep up.

 

Oh Cappy, my cappy. This is great insight. My coach told me that I should be behind the shuttle when I make a clear and I wasn't sure why because the desired trajectory on a clear is such that it can be achieved, and is, in fact, more easily achieved, when you hit the shuttle from slightly behind your head. His demonstration proved my point, in fact, but he was starting his motion from behind the shuttle and the weight transfer from back to front leg was placing the contact point directly above his head whereas my motion was starting with the shuttle directly above or slightly behind my head. I also found I could hit the clear from the same relative position from which I would hit a clear or drop and simply achieve the right trajectory by altering the snap slightly.

In all this, however, I never considered the effect on peripheral vision but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense. Once I started doing it right, anyway, I suspect that my coach may have been reluctant to persevere against my language barrier to the extent required to get that additional point across to me.

 

Write a pm of thanks to timeless as his ex-korean national friend taught him quite abit when she's in Vancouver.

I have very similar experience as you did, always taking the shuttle 'too late'. I suspect that my shoddy footwork prevented me from pushing off the right foot, thus not effectively transfering my body weight for overhead shots.

As for seeing the court, it's not enough to use peripheral vision or even a peek. One has to look at the whole picture -- opponents and partner's positions and the shuttle -- and derive a shot based on previous analysis of similar setup. Check out LJB's posts on the forum for more revelation.

 

Keep it up, Kmodak. Every 'new' idea needs a transitional phase. Case in point: my old forehand grip was suited to the way I play but it wasn't the proper way to hit forehand overhead. The proper grip, on the other hand, had my swing screwed up so bad that I ended up slicing the shuttle alot. The problem doesn't lie with the grip but instead with my old habit of hitting overhead shots. Sometimes, you can't change just one thing and expect better results.

 

Good elaboration. So Timeless and Economet both have friends who were on the Korean national squad? I live in LJB's hometown so most of the coaches here - many of whom were also at least national junior team players - have him to thank for much of their training curriculum. But they teach it to us the way he taught them: in Korean. Hence, I miss little bits and pieces when I'm not being attentive.

 

Definitely give it time. Once you start getting to the shuttle early enough the way Prajan was describing, as Cappy points out, the view you have of the whole picture will mainly starting helping you once you have something to compare it to and that takes experience and TIME. While you're waiting for that experience to become your own, spend the time improving your footwork so that you'll always be in the best position to choose a shot and make it, and improving your shots so that you will have a variety of good shots from which to choose once you find yourself with the time and presence of mind to do so.

 

try to look a split second before you turn you head up, at the direction your opponent is traveling after he has hit the birdie. At the same time, your feet should already moved to the correct place where you can focus on the bird AND know where your opponent is going to