When playing I find that I often spend a lot of mental energy on predicting my opponent's shots. Looking for eye / shoulder movements, etc. Most of the time this helps, but when I get fooled completely there is no way for me to recover from the shot. However, if I did read the shot correctly then I have more time to get to the shuttle. How do you guys balance this? Do you always keep the same position after recovery, or do you change your footing based on what you THINK your opponent will do next? I have been recently trying to only change my footing after the shuttle has left their racket to see if my reactionary game is better than my predictive game... but so far it is not working out. Any suggestions?
You need an element of both. More reaction than prediction though. Footwork is a major player for this... check out www.badmintonbible.com or www.badminton.tv for examples of footwork and for videos of professional players
Prediction is seperate from reaction, you can have a maximum of both. However you are using the wrong terms. Predicting in your terms is actually just reading your opponent, when you read your opponent, mentally go to where you think it has to go, but practice so that you will never react before it actually goes there.
Part of it depends on your ability. Is your technical skill sufficient enough that you don't have to focus on hitting shots correctly? If not, master that first before worrying too much about predicting. Can you change direction using an effective split step while in your sleep? This is also a fundamental skill. Otherwise, you should learn to position yourself for every situation on the court. In any situation, you have to know where you, your opponent, the shuttle, and the court/net are, as well as the velocity of the shuttle. Based on this, some shots are impossible while others are improbable given your opponent's skill level. For example, if you play a good net shot forcing your opponent to reply from a low position, a fast flick past you is impossible since the net would get in the way. Therefore, you can move in closer. As for where exactly you should go, it really depends on many things. If your opponent has poor netshots, he might play it safe and lift to get out of trouble - so you hang further back. If he the kind that likes to go for a risky netshot, you can move closer in to capitalize on that.
yeah, reaction is what precedes. Its good to be able to predict the opponent, happens only with players you play often with, though. But prediction can never be totally relied on, ever unless perhaps you are playing a beginner. hope this helps. and by reaction i mean, footwork, agility, etc. not running around after seeing the birdie hit .
At more advanced levels, you need to use both. You first predict where the opponent is going to hit, based on the position he's taking the shuttle at and his habbits. Knowing what he might hit, you position yourself in a position some what neutral but at the same time offensive towards the shot that you think he might be hitting. Then when the shot is played, if its the shot you anticipated, you dash right at it and attack the shot. If it isn't, well you were at a neutral position and so you should be able to react and take the shot still. One key point that I would like to raise though, about reacting when your opponent played a different shot that you anticipated, is that your state of mind should be neutral, ready to move to any other direction if you have positioned yourself to attack a particular shot. Your mind shouldn't be expecting the shot to occur too much. At the same time you should not move or even make the slightest jerk towards the corner in which your anticipated shot is going to head to until the shot is played. Doing so will shift your weight out of a neutral position and causes you to slow down in reacting to the other shots that may be played. Hope this helps
