When retrieving shots, I am reacting more with my upper body than with my lower body, and I get out of balance. It's like in drawing A. Is that incorrect? Should I be doing like in B, using less lunging of my upper body, and more footwork ?
both r correct but form B is better. Form A is necessary if u r under pressure and have to sacrifice recovery/balance for sake of the extra reach
well i guess B's better if you have enough time...sometimes to intercept/take shuttle higher, A might be better though
Well, that's the thing, with A, I get out of balance and recovery is difficult. Also, when I unbalance with my upper body, I can't seem to do proper footwork. I know Han Jian taught about the unbalancing method to initiate the footwork move, but I personally find it difficult to recover a balanced step. Watching all the badminton videos, I think the pros use method B.
So does everybody else! The recovery is quite simple. You have to take an extra step forward with the left foot (like cooler said). To give yourself time to recover, play a high defensive shot that gives you time to recover. If you are doing A a lot of times, then you have to examine your posture at the point when the opponent strikes the shuttle. I guess yuo will have two problems: 1) you stand up too straight and therefore have a lurching movement in your upper body. Bend with your shoulders forward and lower in order to lower your centre of gravity and bring it forward in front of the pelvis. 2) the stride before the lunge is too short which means you are trying to cover too much ground with the lunge step. Try to practice a bigger step for the first step.
