"Hold" the racket correctly - Why so hard ????

[Roxy88]

I'd definitely recommend reading the article that accompanies those photos. In particular, my page on grip principles is essential for making sense of the pictures.

That picture shows a relaxed grip, as it would be while waiting for your opponent's shot, and while moving to hit your own shot. As you start to hit the shot, however, the grip will tighten, and the fingers will wrap more firmly around the handle (the gaps will close up somewhat).

If you're trying to make a big change to your grip, it may be better to spread the changes over time. This is because you need to change your hitting technique and your grip, together. If you only change the grip, then you can expect your shots to get worse.

But making big changes to your hitting technique is difficult. In particular, it's hard to switch from from flat-hitting to arm rotation all in one leap. Instead, you can gradually introduce arm rotation, while moving your grip gradually closer to the basic grip (the "correct" grip shown above).

Hi Gollum...I notice when I tried to hold the 'correct' grip (as in the link above), Im not too sure about the hitting technique. Do you have any references on that? Thus, usually I will go back to my old ways, with the correct grip and you know what happen to my shots then! :P Thus, I ended up adjusting my grip.... to be more of holding at the 'V' shape instead of slightly towards the 2nd bevel.

[Gollum]

Hi Gollum...I notice when I tried to hold the 'correct' grip (as in the link above), Im not too sure about the hitting technique. Do you have any references on that? Thus, usually I will go back to my old ways, with the correct grip and you know what happen to my shots then! :P Thus, I ended up adjusting my grip.... to be more of holding at the 'V' shape instead of slightly towards the 2nd bevel.

I haven't yet written anything on my website about the hitting technique. I will do when I get the time.

Surprisingly, I've not found much useful instruction on this topic -- either on the web or in print. There's some good information on these forums, but you have to sift through a lot of chat before you get to it.

Your best bet is to ask a coach. The next best source of information, for the moment, may be these forums: a search for "pronation" should return some good reading.

Hopefully it won't be too long before I put together a guide to forehand overhead shots.

[Amin Khalili]

I have the same situations, I already adopt with panhandle grip in all terms of shot, then I realise it is so important to change to the real grip.You wont go anywhere with the wrong grip! In about 2 days ago, I change my grip to the real basic grip(use to panhandle before), I refer on badmintonbible.com, it is first teaching about relax grip, so when I reading all those guide, I brought my racket to feel/test it, and I do the relax grip everytime I read other article.So I think you must first master the relax grip, Im getting use with the real grip just in one day. But experiece required, try to see the difference between the real grip and the grip that you already adopt with. Also try to use the proper technique. One of the most important thing is, never hold back! I follow my friend's advice and it work. It is just 2 step backward, but in the journey you'll a slightly improvement!