So I'm playing with a black knight rapier beryllium 865 with Yonex bg65 @ 21lbs. The racket weights 85g strung and has a medium flex. I have a lot of power but my technique seems to be lacking. I can clear from one end of the court to about 2 to 5 feet short of the other side. I play with Yonex Mavis 300 medium speed (in mediocre condition) So... Should I even be able to clear baseline to baseline with crappy shuttles? Is it only possible with decent condition plastic shuttles and feather ones? Watch the vid and please give me some feedback!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIqP4zpe5YY No comments on my weight please, I'm working on that Sorry for bad quality but this is the best I can film. Disregard my cameraman's stupidity lol. Any constructive criticism is welcome!
It is clear your technique is just wrong, simple as that. I will let other experts to guide you though as I am not.
Clearing doesnt require so much strenght. The shuttle is supposed to reach an high location for you not to get surprised by a quick interception resulting an easy dropshot. Weight wont matter here, only technique does. A good clear also demands a pronation of your left shoulder, a body movement from side to front. In a smash shot, you strongly hold the grip at the moment of impact with the shuttle, that differs from clears. Dont ever hold it too strongly, it gives tendinitis. Think about a pure wrist movement making accelerate the racquet head, i swear it doesnt require a lot of power. Your left hand should naturally comes up to your right shoulder at the end of the movement. Racquet head speed matters in a clear, not strenght. Try it @home without a shuttle if you can.
Hi Atreyukicks, Firstly, I play with Mavis 300 a lot and I like those shuttles. Its fairly easy for me to clear full court with them, so you will find it easy one day too The following are some observations I have made regarding your technique, based on the video above. As others have mentioned, only technique is important. It looks to me as if you are using the "wrong" grip. The way you hold the racket has a hug influence on where "power" comes from. The power we are looking for, which so often is called "wrist power" is actually power generated from the rotation of the forearm, the "wrist" which is a joint does not contribute to the power at all. The grip you are using is what I would call the panhandle grip, which is not quite right. This grip does two thing that make it difficult to hit a good clear: it stops you using forearm rotation for power, and instead relies on elbow extension with a wrist snap at the end, which is no good. Secondly it will stop you from reaching UP to take the shuttle as high as possible, which will decrease the effectiveness of your muscles and hence lead to less power. Refer to the badmintonbible grips guide for more information regarding the correct grip, which is called the "basic grip". You look to be taking the shuttle in such a way that it is almost behind you at impact, this means you will not be able to use your body weight to hit FORWARDS into the shuttle, instead you are leaning sideways or backwards when you hit. This will again lead you to believe you are putting in a lot of effort, but the results will be "wasted" as it is not transferred effectively into the shuttle. I recommend practising moving backwards MORE, so that you COULD catch the shuttle in your left hand, and the shuttle will land in front of you. This will help you practice "stepping into" the shot, adding your body weight to the hit. You could turn more sideways before you hit the shuttle, making it easier to move backwards. Then, when you set yourself up to hit the shuttle, you will have your left shoulder pointing towards the net. You then should swing, with your correct grip up towards the shuttle. As you swing your shoulders will turn so that they are facing the net. This will add some rotational force into the hit. In summary, I would recomend: Turning sideways on to the net before moving Moving back more than you did before so the shuttle would land just in front of you Checking your grip to ensure you get the best action I hope some of these comments will be helpful for your Matt
1. bg65 @ 21lbs, seems not that effective. bg65 is for high tension(>30lbs) + prestretch. average good durable with plastic shuttle, i do recommend bg80 @ 24lbs. 2. your technique is quite a disaster. footwork is very very important for every shot execution. for clearing; right foot on back, left foot infront. body slight face left. as hitting the shuttle will be like throwing javelin. your swing is too much, like using sledge hammer, whole body throw to front. think of using towel to snap top. get power from arm and wrist rather than whole hand. try watch video. commenting here is hard for me. 3. average mavis plastic shuttle shall be okay. 4. your weight, not really a matter. 5. your cameraman did a average good job, dont condemn him/her.
I really would not recommend that tension of 24lbs mentioned by drifit. Using such a tension will not benefit you in any way, and may even cause you harm due to your technique not being quite refined just yet. 21lbs is a good tension for you, but I agree BG65 is not the best of strings, BG80 is probably a "nicer" string, but its down to personal preference. Note: However, to say BG65 is designed for in excess of 30lbs is also probably not true, as its a yonex string and yonex rackets are recommended to be strung at maximum of 24lbs, so it seems unlikely yonex would produce a string that cant be used in their rackets. This is my opinion and could be wrong. Please understand it is your technique that should be improved, the strings and the racket will not help much.
A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is probably priceless, eh? take a look at this link... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNVC5PVJyPQ
I think this is a good practice as I often find myself not clearing deep enough (80% of the court) when I try to clear the shuttle behind my body.
Thank you for the replies, so far I can see almost everything you guys pointed out that I am doing wrong. However I am using the basic grip... :S As for moving back more, this is only convenient for practice, when playing an actual match, you have to be able to hit a baseline to baseline clear even if the birdie is over you instead of in front. I never really focused on my technique since I always did so well in badminton... I can't clear and my smash is mediocre (at best) and yet I easily beat A and sometimes AA players...Now that I play with my friend who uses clears 90% of the time, I always lose against him. Gonna be hard to drastically change my technique after like 3 years of (school phys ed level) badminton. I will be trying to improve on the points you guys mentioned and will post another video within a week or two if I didn't improve on clears. Thank you for all the help and if anyone has any more suggestions to post please do. Also if you know some good exercises to improve those techniques, it would be greatly appreciated.
What MSeely and drifit say abt technique is excellent. You're putting too much upper arm power into it. And make sure you hit into and through the bird instead of just at it. For exercises, try to throw birdies over the net while standing at baseline. Clears are like a throwing action upwards, as drifit mentions like throwing a javelin.
concentrate on your footwork. If your feet get you into position in time, everything else will fall in place. You appear to have the muscle; use it to move, as in a dance. At the completion of your shot, you should end with your right leg in front; in the video, you don't move your feet at all! This means you are almost always out of position for the shot. Rotation of the hips is absolutely required. I think a visit to Gollum's site is a very good idea. http://www.badmintonbible.com/articles/forehand-power/
Just tried this outside by myself....Pronation, pronation, pronation. WOW Was my technique ever wrong.... haha. I was relying on straight up muscle power and wrist snap before..... Now I see that it's all about correct grip and pronation.... plus a few other factors which I couldn't really practice since I will only be in a gym on monday or tuesday night. PS: The correct grip and pronation make it such a weird hit.... with the correct grip, If i do the same movement as in my earlier video (*with incorrect technique) the racket is facing sideways and not the net lol. Keep posting help and suggestions guys, I can never get too many tips on how to improve
I am almost certain your grip is not quite right in the clears I saw in that video. However, I may wrong I recommend performing the practice about getting back in time, because this will get you used to hitting the shuttle that way. Too often, people have enough time to get back, but don't because they are "used" to hitting that way. For example in your video you posted (which is the only thing I have to go on), you have plenty of time given from when you react to the serve to when you hit the shot, to actually move back, but instead you waste some time "preparing to hit" with your arm instead of getting back and hitting with a quick and relaxed hitting motion. The video posted by cobalt gives an excellent demonstration of what is required for a forehand clear, although personally i wouldn't have such an angle between the arm and racket, preferring to reach slightly more upwards. Actually, as cobalt says, you should focus on footwork, and this would result in you NOT having to take the shuttle from behind you except against an extremely skilled opponent. I would say if you spent an hour or two practising the "forehand clear and smash" technique discussed on badminton bible, you would find you have extremely powerful shots in no time at all, as the instruction is very clear and well explained. This is probably the best place to go for a quick technical lesson Hope you can work hard and improve as much as you want to! Matt
Well I don't know how to edit my posts, but yes my grip was ALL wrong.... lol now that I've actually paid attention to other videos and even slow shots of lin dan, I can clearly see that I was doing everything wrong in my video. I had the grip right, just on the wrong angle...which changes everything. Will post a video monday or tuesaday to show improvement PS: Thanks for such an involved and cool community guys! On other forums (such as car forums) people aren't as willing to help or they tend to be assholes lol
Atreyukicks, you are right! I little change in the angle of the racket will make a huge difference to your game! Im glad you have spotted the error and decided to correct it! Look forward to seeing your improvements!
footwork hi, others have commented on your grip but i think your position is wrong. before you take the shot, you should have moved one step back so that you can put your weight behind the shot. this is all to do with footwork. taking a overhead shot will not be as powerful as putting your entire body weight on the shot which is achieved by taking it one step behind. just my 2 cents.
You will notice I also stated about the positioning. however, bad technique will not allow him to focus his power into the shot, so getting back would be less effective unless a technique was improved as well! (you are correct though)! Matt
Alright so tonight was the night I tried out the pronation in my clears and smashes. Results: I have never played this bad in my life. Every shot was unprecise and lacking power even more... I watched over 20 videos on pronation, watched slow motion videos of lin dan and gale and everything was fine.... in theory. Once on the court I performed the required movements in every way possible....arm fully extended, arm slightly bent, pronation before, after....everything possible. Nothing worked. My shots had about the same power if not less and were all over the place....switching between basic grip and pan handle when needed was quite difficult...and the whole focusing on pronation made my footwork garbage and slow. My best results were using my old/wrong method of hitting (like in the video) however while concentrating on footwork. the only game I played like that, We won 21-12. Summation: Does anyone live in montreal and want to show a dumbass beginner who can't learn on his own how to hit a damn shuttle properly? I am so disapointed with myself... If not can someone record a video DETAILED on how to hit a clear? EVERY single little motion, also showing the grip and how you step into your shot. I really need help, I am not the fastest runner because of my size so I have to rely on my strength and precision and right now I can't use my strength properly because of lack of technique...
You don't learn a new technique by playing games; you learn it by doing drills. Get your friend to feed you birds accurately to you overhead so that you don't have to worry abt footwork. Did you manage to visit the badminton bible website that MSeeley pointed out? There is an excellent step by step breakdown of the clear/smash forearm pronation action. You need to read that and get your friend to practice those drills with you. No games yet, not until you get this right... otherwise your bad habit will persist.
I did do about 10 minutes of that.... he fed them to me mid court and I was able to send them about a foot out... And no, Badminton bible won't let me watch videos unless I pay :S
