Guys, I keep hearing ppl talking about slicing shuttles, be it at the net or even when you are in mid court. What do you achieve by slicing? How do you train from not just cutting or chopping the air ?
Some uses of slicing: Slicing dropshots in the rearcourt. Advantage: adds more deception to your dropshot, because the racket motion and body angle may not correspond to the direction that the shuttle travels. For a sliced drop, especially a crosscourt one, you also need to hit the shuttle harder than for an unsliced drop. This too adds deception, because it looks more like you are playing a powerful stroke. Advantage: the shuttle will spin initially, giving it greater air resistance and therefore greater deceleration. This makes the shuttle reach the opponent's court more quickly, yet it falls in the same place as an unsliced drop. The trajectory will also be slightly curved (viewed from above), making it harder to follow and sometimes harder to hit. Sliced smashes in the rearcourt or midcourt Like the dropshots, these are used mainly for deception (the angle is unexpected). They also allow you to hit angles that you might otherwise find difficult to achieve. Spinning netshots in the forecourt. Advantage: the shuttle will spin ("tumble") over itself, so that the opponent must wait until it becomes stable before playing his stroke. This causes him to hit the shuttle from farther below net height than he otherwise would. Advantage: the spinning increases air resistance, so that the shuttle tends not to travel so far forwards and will fall tighter to the net. Sliced low service in doubles For a righthander serving to the left, a sliced wide low serve to the tramlines is very deceptive. This serve, however, should not be used against lefthanders. There are other uses of slicing, but these are probably the main ones. Sometimes players will slice a stroke when there is little benefit from slicing -- they just like slicing! This can lead to a loss of accuracy without any compensating advantage. Slicing requires lots of practice. It is an unnatural-feeling way to hit, and it is much easier to mishit the shuttle. To begin with, try hitting dropshots with an angled racket face. You will find that they fall well short of the net at first, but as you hit them harder they will start to work.
Well done Gollum, most detail I have read. There is another way to slice a shuttle. You need a really sharp knife. Get a dead shuttle (not a good one). You know how to do the rest. Advantage? Take it out on the birdy.
Well, it's me I believe slice drop shot is a very good attacking stroke. A good slice drop will make the shuttle travel very fast, yet drop very steeply when it passes the net. For the technique, as Gollum has said, you need to hit the shuttle much harder than for the normal drop. From my experience, the grip should be held very tight upon contact. However it is not something like a smash grip because your control would be limited, the grip is held tight with the fingers only, thumb is kept straight. The initial racket movement for a slice drop is exactly that of a smash, but you don't pronate fully in the end, just half way, and the rest of work is done by fingers - slicing the racket head around the shuttle. It's really difficult to describe the technique in words, and please excuse me if it seems a little bit obscure.
I would recommend that you keep the same basic "forehand" grip, and do not hold the racket tightly. The thumb and first finger are very important in controlling the racket movement. There are two types of sliced dropshot: slice and reverse slice. An ordinary slice can be played crosscourt from your forehand corner or straight from your backhand; reverse slice can be played straight from your forehand or crosscourt from your backhand. (For backhand slices, slice goes crosscourt and reverse slice goes straight. Obviously this is from your backhand corner ) To play a sliced drop, I recommend that you do not pronate the forearm as part of the hitting action. The hitting action is different, but it will not look different because pronation only occurs at the end. Instead, you want to brush the racket around the outside of the shuttle, in an arc movement with the end of the arc pointing in the direction of the shuttle. For the reverse slice, you do pronate the forearm (like in a smash or clear), but you pronate it earlier so that the angle will be different. Again, you will ideally brush around the shuttle in an arc, not just slap it. In both cases the grip does not change. Tracey Hallam (world ladies singles #9) described the motion for hitting a reverse slice as "like peeling a potato". The point here is that you are making an arc that caresses around the inside of the shuttle, not just slapping it with an angled racket face. To start with, just slap it with an angled racket face. This is easier. But for more spin, you need an arc that goes around the outside of the shuttle (slice) or inside (reverse slice). The Xiong Guo Bao video is very helpful on these motions (search BF).
Very good and detailed explanation as usual. The slice drop, similarly to huynd's description, I learned hit with a tight grip. Maybe there are different ways to do it, maybe is the coach's perspective. Regarding deception, both can be highly deceptive. The unsliced shot can also be performed with a very fast stroke, slowing just before the contact. It gives you the impression that it is a smash but it is not. I think the difference between the sliced and unsliced drop is the placement. Usually it is considered a very good unsliced drop if it lands close to the net, but the unsliced can be further away from the net.
I would strongly recommend against playing any stroke with a tight grip: the grip should initially be relaxed. During the stroke there will be some amount of grip tightening (much more for power strokes than soft strokes). Of course, there are different interpretations of "tight grip" It may mean different things to different people. Generally, however, it is important for coaches to teach relaxed grips, because many players hold far too tight a grip yet very few players hold the racket too loosely. Almost everyone will tighten the grip when they need to, because otherwise the racket will fly out of their hands. But many do not relax the grip when they should! Sliced drops can be slow or fast, just like unsliced. Slicing does not limit the placement of your drops. (Note, however, that slicing does limit the power of your smashes somewhat.) Although unsliced drops can also be disguised as smashes, it is harder to do this because the racket head speed must be decreased more than for a sliced drop. For a sliced drop, especially a crosscourt one, the racket head speed is quite high, but all the pace is taken off by the slice. So unsliced drops can be deceptive too -- but sliced drops are more deceptive
Thanks for your advices Gollum, When I said tight grip, I mean tighten the grip and cock the wrist only during contact with the shuttle, and the shot is played with little followthrough. For me this help control the racket angle better. If I keep the grip loose, the racket head would go parallel with the shuttle, which makes a too slight contact. As for the pronation, maybe i exagerated saying one should pronate half way for the sliced shot. I will see this next time when I play
Ok, well laid out list of what slicing does and types of slicing. Well done. Hope it will be an easy search in the future for anyone looking for a slice. (How do I get the emoticons up like you guys ??? Darn ) How do we train for it ? Does initial training lead to a lot of futile trial and error chopping the air and not able to contact the bird ? Slowly we will develop the right arc contact ? Which one to try out first? I was thinking of either practising on the netslice (netspin) or the mid-court slicedrop first as they seem easier to execute.
Very good explanations, thank you. What about backhand slices? I seem to have more trouble with these. I can't do them consistently. Maybe I just need more practice.
Quite possibly. Some players will pick it up more quickly, some less. My school seniors seemed to pick it up pretty much immediately. Guess they must have a good coach or something Do not try the spinning netshot first. It is far more difficult than the rearcourt slices. This stroke is pretty much the pinnacle of technical subtlety in badminton. The sliced low serve is also very difficult. I think that the crosscourt sliced dropshots from the rearcourt are the best ones to try first. To start with, you do not need an arc: you can just hit the shuttle with an angled racket face. Until recently, that's what I did; and my slices worked fine. The arc is better (more spin), but more difficult. Yes, probably you do need more practice. I know I need more practice Backhand slices, especially the reverse slice, are tough. Again, the Xiong Guo Bao video gives excellent demonstrations.
Gollum, I think the video you refer to is in this link http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33121&highlight=xiong+guo+bao+video Unfortunately, the sendspace webpage says it's expired. Anywhere, I can get this good video ? Anyone ?
A quick Google search gives me this: http://www.hiquasports.com/badminton/vcd-guobao.htm I believe it's the same video.
http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33121&highlight=xiong+guo+bao+video The 4 megaupload links in this link still work for me .
huynd, the 4 megaload links requires you to have an account and you will be charged for it ? Hence the videos are not FOC ?
You can also slice your lifts. If you do it just right, it makes for a terrific trick shot! Anyhow, in the learning of advanced strokes, it is effective to use progressions in which the student masters the stroke in successive steps. For example, some players are attempting to slice the bird when they have a poor technique for the drop shot, perhaps a poorly positioned contact point. For this player, there's the added challenge of fixing the poor contact point at the same time as learning the slicing action - and this can lead to many failures during the learning of the stroke. You don't want your students to learn how to fail at hitting the slice, you want them to learn how to hit it successfully. a progression for the slice might be: - drop shot - slice from midcourt clear - slice from 3/4 court clear - slice from 3/4 court with a step - slice front and back - slice with an occasional net shot return - multi-shuttle drill with the slice - random multi-shuttle drill with the slice
