Ive been playing for over a year now, and right now im focused with getting my overhead clear to the baseline. It seems like im putting a lot of effort and power into the shot but it usually ends somewhere in between of the backcourt and the middle, therefore making it easy for my opponent to smash or even pin me to the backcourt even more. Does anyone know how to improve this? should i focus on technique or there might be a sophisticated stroke involved? ty in advance
lots of beginners have this problem when starting out. when hitting the clear, make sure that your arm is straight upon contact with the shuttle. that way, you're catching the shuttle at the highest possible point.
Don't be too focused on whether your arm is straight or not. To create racquet head speed you need to start/prepare with smaller angles between your racquet and forearm, and forearm with upper arm. (think small angles move harder and faster to big angles). Whilst waiting for the shuttle to come to the contact area you will find it easier to follow the shuttle with your racquet head. At the last moment take racquet head back and throw forwards, only squeezing the grip atthe point of contact. (Try to think of a fast rebounding tap action. This rebound creates more speed, think of cracking a whip like Indiana Jones ) The racquet foot will land as you strike the shuttle most of the time. Sometimes isuch as in drops you may want to recover more quickly and therefore your racquet foot may well land before the strike. Grip - different for different people however thumb will be on diagonal bevel and not directly on the back of the handle. On the back is ok for shots played in the fore-court/mid court. On the back restricts wrist snap/forearm rotation, ok at the forecourt as this becomes more of a finger power shot. Hope this helps a little. Could go into more detail if I had more time. It all begins with good footwork of course!!
thanks gary, i do a lot of shadow drills and basic footwork drills and i think it helps, just to clear up u use ur normal forehand grip when doing the overhead clear right?
I use a slight variation of the forehand grip, with my thumb shifted towards the thin side of the handle. A nice picture of it is actually in an article I was recently pointed to by a BC member. It flattens the racket head nicely for me, and allows a lot of whip from my wrist. Edit: Oops, forgot the link: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/badminton-central/content/view/81/26/1/7/
**EDIT** The link clarifies matters! Scrap all that, you weren't describing a shift towards panhandle at all. The universal/multipurpose grip (now called the bevel grip) actually creates a better angle for forehand overheads than the "forehand" grip described in the grips guide. This grip is actually used for backhand overheads. For forehand overheads, keep everything the same but don't place the thumb straight along the diagonal bevel. It should still be straight, but the thumb pad will rest more on the wide part of the handle. The grip angle doesn't change. In other words, you have a good choice of grip; just make sure your thumb doesn't get in the way when you tighten the fingers. Gah, this will be so much simpler when I can just give a link to a better guide
No worries, I put it all together eventually. I would have never used a panhandle grip anyway, feels too unwieldy and unnatural.