After I hit the shuttle with a scissor jump in the rear court, which direction should my dominant foot point to? Sometimes, I find that my dominant foot points to the side. Is this because I turn too much with a scissor jump? Also, should I return to the base with steps or chassé? I felt that steps were easier, but chasse might be better to run back to the rear court if my opponent hits the shuttle back to the same spot.
That's an interesting question. It's not something I've particularly used as a coaching point. If your front foot is pointing completely sideways -- parallel to the back line -- then I'd say you've probably over-rotated. If it's somewhere between pointing forwards and sideways, I'd say that's fine. It depends what shot you've played. After a clear, you'd probably want to use steps. After a drop shot, you'd probably use a chasse (because you have less time to recover, and won't make it as far).
What I tend to coach is that your foot should be back towards the court, if your foot is facing parallel to the back line you are MAJORLY over-rotating. The whole point of a scissor kick is to get you back into the court, why would you want to face anywhere else. I tend to coach (and my coach does too) a running step from a scissor kick back to base on all shots - your feet are already moving like that off the slit step - why try to oppose them? The important thing is split stepping after you get back to base (and a well timed one at that - if you're off time, that will be when you miss the next shot). One final thing, it should be noted that you should experiment with footwork, different coaches will tell you different things - so long as you're there, fast and balanced, you can even roll if you like.
it should always be pointing to where you hit the shuttlecock, unless you used your wrist. Then it should point straight from where you started.
There will be a range of angles of the front foot. I generally dislike the term scissor kick as I often see it wrongly presented as stepping the racket foot forward at the same time as hitting. If the rear foot points towards the net on landing achilles injuries are likely.
In my opinion concentrate on hitting shuttle correctly and keeping light on your feet is whats needed, most of the time, for example moving backwards and clearing, the non racket foot will finish infront of racket foot., as with basic grip you actaully hit the shutle sideways. Purposely learning something known as a scissor kick is useless. It just happens in certain situations, say a big smash with shuttle infront of you. I wouldn't mechanically force it. I dont trust badminton england or many coaches, they have ideas that dont tally how advanced players play badminton in the real world. Infact I would say that some of their ideas caused a hinderance in my development. I'll stick to watching pros and zhao jianhua caoaching vids.
I disagree. The scissor kick (scissor jump/kick through) movement is not especially natural and most players will not get it without coaching. The scissor kick is often over-emphasised in coaching, because we want players to get behind the shuttle. There's nothing wrong with that, but other movements (step out, jump out) need to be taught as well. Players will frequently not have time to get into an ideal hitting position, so they need alternatives. In particular, it's daft to teach that the scissor kick is the only movement, because it's actually used comparitively rarely (in singles, anyway). From experience, I'd suggest it's a lot harder to communicate these ideas than most people think. Try recording yourself on camera and see how clearly you come across. This can be a bit of a shock. It's difficult even to realise how bad the acoustics of a badminton hall are. This is so counter-intuitive (you sound clear to yourself) that even highly experienced coaches often don't realise that players are struggling to catch their words. Badminton England do know their stuff. My main criticism of their "public" coaching approach is that they tend to over-simplify, in case someone gets confused. This results in instructions that sound marvellous if you already understand them -- masterfully concise descriptions of techniques. Unhappily, the brevity comes at a price: the instructions are often ambiguous, easy to misinterpret, and lack detail. In other words, I think their teaching suffers from the "ignorance of experts": the material is so basic and familiar to them, that they forget how alien it is to the average player. Why would you need to explain something that is "obvious"?
I disagree with Bbirdman, Scissor kick is an important part of foot work and need to be coached. Any good rally will consist multiple scissor kicks. And coaching is required to have the correct technic. One may naturally aquire these skills over the time. But it may take years to get it right. And if you can aquire this skills within a week/month with the help of coaching, why would you want to waste years (And possible get injured because of wrong methods) There are so many things one need to consider while using these patterns-Like, how do you approach the bird, when to use what footwork pattern, which grip and what shot mechanism to be used etc. Very difficult to get everything right unless you seek help from an expert. Badminton England has documented coaching manuals in a professional way. I do not think may other bodies have done this or at least they have not made it public. So whom & where do you look for help? There are so many training materials in the web-but you have no means to verify the authenticity of them. I also watch and respect zhao jianhua and I am a big fan of his training videos. At the same time, I am concious that what ever he coaches is his method and that does not mean somebody else is wrong here. In his playing videos, I have seen him using multiple (up to 3) chases to move to back court. But no other new generation coach would recomend this. And in another training video, I have seen him discussing with a player that a full thumb grip is OK for a back hand shot unless the shuttle has passed you, and after that, it is better to shift to another grip (close to panhandle). I am certain that many other coaches would disagree on the first part... Prince
Scissor kick is rarely used in singles on forehand rear, maybe 1 in 10 shots there. I knwo many players who scissor kick too often or who over rotate and its a big weakness in their game. To me a scissor kick implies an old fashioned 180 degree turn with the legs finishing far apart, which is seldom appropriate. Look at this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsPPB-_43bQ one of the hardest smashes ever, I would not call that a scissor kick, the hips start the movement but the shoulder accelerates past the hip and the hips end up almost parallel to net. A second problem is the overempthasis on moving racket leg through leads players to step forwards so that the shuttle is above/behind them at impact, leading to all sorts of problems. When teaching players I get them to use their hip but stop them from stepping forwards, it seems to help.
Badminton England love to play with words Lets call it a shot a stroke move, lets call it a basic grip/forehand grip/conventional grip, lets rebrand Badminton Association of ENgland as Badminton England, lets call the England Badminton team , Team England. That's far more important than having decent coaches or players.........
Indeed they do! Sometimes it may be worthwhile, but often it feels like they change terminology with the direction of the wind. Then it has to be explained to all the coaches, who are expected to "fix" their coaching. One wonders what the players think of all this... I've recently decided to revert to "forehand grip" instead of "basic grip", and Badminton England be damned. I think I understand their rationale for the newer grips teaching, but I've found in practice it causes too many problems in coaching. They were right to identify the problems of the old system, but their solution has problems of its own. It also seems at odds with teaching in other countries (e.g. Denmark). More fundamentally, their grips teaching is internally inconsistent. I'm not saying they're outright wrong -- I'm sure the BE coaching department knows the techniques perfectly well -- but the presentation is all over the place. It sounds like they are constantly contradicting themselves! "Design by committee" may be a problem here. Of course, it's easier to criticise than to create, so we'll just have to see how well I do... My favourite example of harmful tampering was a coaching mnemonic for teaching a new shot (or skill). Back in Coach Part 1 we had "IDEA": Introduce the shot (what situation? singles or doubles? where to? where from?) Demonstrate the shot Explain the technique Action -- get the players practising IDEA is a good mnemonic, because it's short and easy to remember. It's a simple framework and not too restrictive. It might not work all the time, but it's generally pretty good. It worked well for getting new coaches off the ground with their presentational skills. When CP1 was replaced by Coach Level 2, IDEA was replaced with NEDPECS: Name the shot ("We're going to learn a forehand clear") Explain...er...I can't remember what we were supposed to be explaining at this point Demonstrate the shot P...er, I think P stood for Practise Evaluate the players' performance Correct the players (help them fix the things they're getting wrong) Summarise what they learned ("have a chat at the end") NEDPECS is awful. I believe the "Explain" was supposed to cover the situational stuff that used to came under the I of IDEA, but not the technique stuff that came under the E of IDEA. But then I get confused about where the technique explanation is supposed to come in NEDPECS. To make matters worse, the coaching manual didn't even spell out what it stood for -- we were supposed to guess on the course, and write down the correct answer in our manuals.
Couldn't agree more. I think if the coaching course is using acronyms Like that to get coaches to teach it is aimed at people who probably shouldn't be coaching. Last update there were 10 l2 coaches and 7 couldn't play at all, I mean couldn't high serve, move, clear, they were social level players and all passed. A simple test give any prospective coach 10 shuttles to hold and ask them to hit 8 into the rearcourt in 30 seconds. Instantly remove a lot of "coaches" who can't play. The coaching qualification is a money maker for BE and the tutors while those few coaches who actually produce players are often unfunded and underpaid
The trouble is: it's hard to justify stricter requirements for coaches when demand outstrips supply. There are too few coaches available as it is. Nevertheless, I think they could do far better by offering more opportunities for coaches to gain continuous professional development. The coach mentoring scheme also sounded promising, but I've heard nothing about it since its announcement.
In my experience coaches are generally experienced players, the ones I know that are less experienced, usually ones that work at sports centres don't overstep their knowledge and start coaching misinformation. Although ideally it would be good if all coaches were the most experinced players it could be argued that the more people that are educated at badminton the better. If wasn't for badminton england or certain coaches i wouldn't be as good a player that I am. I think its also good that experienced coaches put stuff and online for people to learn Anyway back to scissor kick, which is what aggrevates me and IMO is over emphasised gollum says quite rightly that scissor kick is hardly used in singles. yet the supposed point of it is to get you back to base quicker, ehich is what is needed more in singles. At least one experinced coach and one player i know thought that it increases power, they talked about the step through doing the same. IMO whether feet cross or not is just incidently to the shot, position etc. It shouldn't be forced. Talking about under rotation is a better way to approach it or shot then move as quick as possible rather than shot and moving back to base at same time
One question-Does movement to back hand rear court for A T H shots qualify as scissor kick(I thought so). If so, scissor kick is used as frequently as any other movement patern. Otherwise, my terminology for scissor kick was wrong.
I would say yes, although you could argue it either way depending on your taxonomical preferences. The scissor kick is adjusted slightly for round-the-head footwork, but it's basically the same movement. Certainly a good scissor kick can add power by allowing body rotation (compare it to a step-out movement). If exaggerated, you could end up over-rotating instead, and losing power.
Gollum-Then why do you thing scissorkick is used comparitively rarely? It should be one among the most commonly used patterns...
Having watched more videos i now see the value of scissor jump. I have noticed if a shot is taken in a players forehand corner they generally will lunge or reach backwards and hit across the body, mostly it finishes with the non racket foot being the one nearest the base. If they take the shuttle in the backhand corner with a forehand shot, like I think you are saying, they employ a scissor jump, more rotation to get them nearer the base as you have to get more behind the shot then in the forehand corner. Think a similar thing is being said by Mseeley in the other thread about block jumps.
Certainly a good scissor kick can add power by allowing body rotation (compare it to a step-out movement). If exaggerated, you could end up over-rotating instead, and losing power.[/QUOTE] Agree with this, but if you are normal healthy adult player and you should be able to clear full court without scissor. Infact i used to over rotate. my problem was not focusing power, using forearm, keeping relaxed. People who are learning and lack power I believe generally have the same problems as what i had and thats why i think Zhao Jianhua videos are very good for addressing this. Also think its on your website where you get players to stand still, hit the shuttle, to get the feel thats a good idea too.
