smooth strokes

kwun, could you tell from the tape which racquet Koon was using?

 

Anders Boesen is a fighter and a very physical player, and he is extremely well-trained. Maybe it's to make up for less than perfect technique? He's just not going to make it all the way to the top however much he trains... I suspect genetics plays a big part here.

An interesting thought: take all the top 20 MS players, let them play with ski masks, and I think one would still be able to easily say who is who...

 

soft and hard styles

like martial arts and all things in life there is a hard and a soft style. hard styles require more strength moves, often less dexterity but none the less effective. hard styles are easier to master but takes greater physical effort. soft styles require less physical effort but requires more time to master.

i recall from some conversations with a china coach that there was a decision for the china training program to undergo hard style rather than soft style since on the average (from their discussions) the time to learn hard style takes roughly half the time than soft to master. this allows for a continual flow of new players since training cycle is shorter, however most will burn out faster.

 

Thanks cheung. Kwun, I asked because i want to understand the connection between style of play to certain racquet characteristic. Does it matter you asked, well i like to know that too.

Badrad, that is very interesting. I also believe that one's personality also dictates whether he or she excells under hard or soft style of training. Having coaches or programs for both styles of training would be ideal to bring out the best from each discipline. By using only one style of training for example, the hard style, the school would basically eliminate candidates that would excel under the soft style and could have being better than the best of the hard style players, and vice versa. Hmm, if one don't know which style suits him/her, i wonder if one could change style afterward and find out. In this case, Koon being a soft player but was using what i call a 'hard' or aggressive racquet. I personally knows a few hard smashers around the clubs i played in prefer flexy racquets.

 

Kwun,

Sicking aint it? But its the intense training they go through that makes it possible. These indonesians etc practise the shot so much, they dont need to think about it, it's second nature to them. All the concentrate on in the tactics..

Matt

 

unfortunately the training cycle is too long

when i had my discussions with the coach, she mentioned that the average training period for the soft style was 5 years. with the hard style (physically demanding) they can produce world class players in a matter of 2 - 3 years, a significant difference in time. she went on to mention that this was a considerable concern - to be able to fill the void of having a continual flow of world class players but faced with their short career span or take the longer plan to develop players that can endure longer.

cooler - relearning a style is difficult. there are some fundamental differences in basic grip and wrist movement between the soft style and hard style. i was only shown a few of the soft style moves, but i could not get used to them either. luckily my daughter picked these up early on.

 

I never heard about the 'hard' or 'soft' style training. It will be interesting to know the characteristics of each of them. Before coming to Canada, that is about 6 years ago, I had a chance to meet my coach who visited us during his vacations. At that time he told us a bit about future training directives. But not hard or soft style.

Players after Zhao Jian Hua, Yang Yang's era did not master the fundamentals as well as their predecessors and as such did not do as well in international competitons. Their game is characterized with speed and power but not much variation.

In China I believe the players' development (skills set) changed with Tang Xian Fu as men's national coach. In my opinion, the current crop of players are better - Bao Chun Loi is only 19, very good technically and already above the previous generation of players. Never watched Lin Dan play and in Cheung's appreciation, he is even better than Bao. Bao strokes and footwork are of very high quality. Comparing Bao's and previous generation players I would say that the development programmes must have suffered a change in their contents. But not sure if this is what Badrad refers to the differences in soft and hard styles.

 

hard and soft aren't actual terms, but something i recall from my discussions. that discussion also spoke about the direction of the china team which was to train for speed and power - the objective to reduce the time to market (so to speak).

but if you do look at the different players you would definitely see at least a couple of styles - some harsher and some softer - both having advantages and disadvantages.

hard style is characterized as a physical approach to training, speed and power elements of training was the emphasis. soft style is characterized by extremely flexible movements, very whiplike. the hard style is the easier to train, since power and speed can be obtained from mechanical means (weight training and conditioning). footwork can be obtained by quick hard motions - the player is physically fast. or footwork can be fluid - just as fast, almost dancelike.

i don't believe there is a right or wrong method, just a method that works well for yourself.

 

I've seen players using what I'd call a "soft" style, characterized by easy, gliding movement around the court, never rushed, and fluid strokes, as opposed to abrupt starts/stops. I always thought that was dictated by body type, natural instinct, co-ordination, and quick recognition of opponents' shots--I didn't realize it could be taught.

 

i think there is a natural way some people will play or move. but at the same time these can also be taught - at an early stage. for footwork i had been shown a number of ways to accomplish the same objective, but notably two asian coaches showed me two almost opposing methods. one was strength oriented, using the power in lower torso to initiate forward or backwards. center of gravity remained slightly lower, for compression and strength.

another equally proficient coach showed a method which was extremely light footed, nearly to the point of skipping. center of gravity was higher, almost straight standing. since i had learned the former method, my footing could not adjust to this other method.

body pivot points were also different in both methods.

 

a few pointers

1: - pivot point is the two balls of the feet, weight is evenly distributed. when you decided where you are moving to, the feet pivots so that the feet are aligned in the direction of the move.

2: - movement is initiated from the lower abdomen, which then translate to quads pushing you off. both legs push off at the same time. but the racquet leg is not necessarily the lead leg. strength is required for quads, abs and calfs for this technique.

3: - for all moves towards backcourt, (unless you are extremely caught off guard) must be as you will play a forehand overhead (around the head). if at the last second you cannot reach a forehand around the head, pivot backwards to play the backhand. this is a very quick and effective move to play the backhand.

4: - never shuffle - shuffle wastes time and energy. especially for asian or short legged players. especially for front court moves, you should scissor the legs when moving forward, not shuffle or half step.


these were taught to a friend and me during one late night at an out of town tournament. we couldn't get to sleep so we wound up wandering into a basement in the school that we were hosted at. we bumped into one of our competitors who was also an insomniac, whom we had already struck up a rapport early in the week. he was at that time nearly 60 years old, yet he kicked our collective butts in earlier qualifying rounds. he challenged both my friend and i to move across the entire length of the basement in two steps. well suffice it to say we failed, close but no cigar. he stood at one corner, in two steps, made it totally across the basement. now that really made us crap our shorts, just the raw speed and power of this elderly fellow. and then he showed us. it is very hard to put into words what he showed. some of it was in chinese, and he used phrases to represent what he meant. he also showed me his stroking techniques, which is what resolved all my previous arm problems. the unfortunate part was that we met him in our later ages, so we never fully developed using these at an early age. such is life...

 

i guess the best representative of the soft style is susi susante and camilla martin comes very close.

 

Re: a few pointers

hi badrad
i think what u've mentioned is totally amazing
could u please elaborate on the stroking techniques that the older guy showed that resolved all yr previous arm problems
this is coz i think i'm still in a position to change my style of stroke -play
i started playing regularly 6 mths ago & i've already beaten junior national & state players (not all ofcourse!)
so i pick up things well & i'll definitely pick up the styles too

hope u can help me
especially on the softer style of play

shabs

 

Right on. Whatever works for you is the best method. But Chinese coaches keep emphasizing the 5 principles: style, determination, speed, power and accuracy.

 

styles

Badrad and Viver, both of you might not know it but I think you two are basically talking about the same thing but from two different direction. Whether there is truly a soft versus hard style, I think with a good coach, all styles of play can be taught. HOWEVER, it is up to each individual personality and physical attributes that determine whether he or she EXCEL in that discipline (this reasoning also applies to other professions as well). It can not be denied that each pro has it owns style achieved from years of training and fine tunings. Beyond certain level, a coach can't or should force certain training style if that student no longer improving. A good coach should able to recognize this and adjust his/her coaching to take advantage certain attributes of his students. If one is very smooth and good in deception, a 'soft' style might work better for him/her. If one is very muscular and powerful, a 'hard' style might be better. As I'm writing this, a football game (bronco vs 49er) is on my TV and I see two basic offensive players, ball catchers and ground ball rushers. Each of them is specialized in a particular play and it would be useless to force train a player with delicate hands to be a ground ball rusher. Similarly, it would be futile to train a tall and flexible guy to be a brute ground rusher.

Neither soft or hard style is the best, each has its own plus and minus. However, neither one style can take a player into pro/legendary status. He or she must possess both style (maybe with slight tendency toward one style) and knowing when to use them. Which one to learn first, in my opinion, try to learn the soft style first and then build your power and strength later.
In chinese kung fu, there are numerous form differentiated by styles. Soft style include wing chung (bruce lee's first form), judo, tai chi, wu su and qi gong. Hard style might include karate, tae kwun do, kick boxing. Last words from a legendary fighter: float like a butterfly (soft), sting like a bee (hard).

 

Cooler,

You may be right. Me and Badrad may be mentioning same thing. What confused me is the soft and hard styles designation. To my understanding a developing player must learn every skill - strokes and footwork. How the player understands/executes his moves is another history. Might be more gracious or more power that depends on the individual and his/her physical characteristics.

A 'complete' player should be able to play aggressively using different strokes - like Han Jian beating Morten Frost in 1985 World Championship in Calgary where he switched in the middle of 2nd set from high clears and drops to smash and net play. Who had watched Han Jian play knows that his style is high clears and drop to tire the opponent out. What most people did not realize is his smash was also quite powerful. But in most of his games you rarely see him smash.

Having this 'soft/hard' styles in mind, this is also the reason why I consider (again this old topic) that Tang Xian Fu was the best all time player. Not only his strokes and footwork were fast and powerful but they were very gracious as well. A delight to the eyes for those who had the chance to see him play/practice. Never thought badminton could be like an art until I saw Tang play.