[MENTION=64484]j4ckie[/MENTION] You call your latest video decent? Both of you have played better before. And your partner's serve still needs to be worked on.
Well before the tournament we had one session together And yeah, I've played better before. Both these players play in the 3rd division though, which is one below the 2 national ones....with that in mind the first game was decent^^ Since that tournament I've been spending so much time doing rehab or nothing that any non-horrible game is a godsend these days, so maybe I'm looking at it through pink glasses Annoyingly enough, I've picked up a non-badminton-related injury to my left shoulder which might (with some bad luck) need surgery. That would be the ultimate end of any training ambition this year as surgery would require full anasthesia and a couple of weeks of rehab before I'd be able to train again.....certainly glad it's my left shoulder though!
I go to junior performance centre, We have sessions, Which is normally done in groups but the coach comes to us individually when he spots something dont right or we ask him for help
You have improved but still have someway to go in terms of technique. I did see some good backhand shots at the forecourt area. However, the forehand side on the forecourt is very weak taking it very low and being unsynchronised with your feet. So it's quite a struggle to recover for the next shot. A) aim to take it earlier I.e. higher to the net B) coordinate striking the shuttle with when you plant your lesson foot to the ground. Overall, the quality of your shots are not quite good enough. So you make it easy for the opponent to put you under pressure. There's no easy way about it - get 200 old shuttles and practice shots with your brother. There are some other points about your movement and footwork but work on the quality of your shots first.
Certainly not one of my best games http://youtu.be/jGAdG6wabwo Nice rally at 1:29 though. Maby some footage of the real deal will show up in the future.
Restricted probably. We have the Suffolk version on 27th/29th. There is Wimbledon Gold tournament in November. Unfortunately it clashes with the Suffolk Bronze, which I am still eligible for, otherwise I'd be entering Wimbledon.
[video=youtube;Wla2W6rdD6g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wla2W6rdD6g[/video] Advice, pointers, criticism welcome. It's from a B tier tournament in my city, sorry for the bad camera angle, should have put it a bit further away somewhere. I'm the thin guy in black shirt. Realized after watching the video that my footwork is still a lot worse than I thought it'd be, I don't take big steps even though I have big legs, it looks very sloppy . Not sure whether it's a bad habit or flexibility problem however.
Finally having watched it after ages, I spotted a couple things - first, as Cheung mentioned, you let the shuttle drop too low when you're going forward. If you commit more and push yourself further forward, you'll be able to take it much higher, and if you tumble it back to the net, you'll get it so tight you'll get the time back as the lift will need to be higher. If you play it long, you may catch your opponent still moving back to his base and force him to change direction mid-step. That will allow you both to play the shuttle flatter and to force him into awkward shots which will give you an advantage in the rally (at this level, a direct point or a very short lift). Second, you use too much wrist in your net play. The wrist you be nearly static, as wrist-based shots are pretty easy to read as the wrist requires larger movements to make a shot compared to making it with gripping action and maybe slight pronation/supination. To take out the wrist of your hitting action, raise your elbow fairly high, and when you play the shot, push through with the whole arm. It requires a lot more effort from your shoulder and back than playing the same shot by swinging through with the wrist, but once you get used to it you'll be much more deceptive and accurate. I know exactly what you'll have to do as I tend to use too much wrist as well and have to work on that aspect myself Secondly, whenever you jump you hit the shuttle when you're making contact with the floor after the jump. That is basically taking away all the advantages jumping is supposed to give you: a higher point of contact and thus better angle as well as the added pace you get by taking the shuttle earlier and not letting it drop. What works for me to get the feel for the right timing is intercepting shots in doubles - when you watch Cai Yun closely, you'll notice a lot of the time he'll jump upwards or slightly backwards to intercept a shuttle and hit it at the very highest point possible. If you play some shots like that (best get someone to feed you, the opportunity doesn't arise so often in doubles, and you'll not be able to use it when you're not used to jumping that way), you'll get the timing down correctly as you can't afford to drop back down when playing those shots. Try to hit your smashes/drops in singles with the same timing, even if it doesn't feel as powerful. If you want to use a bigger motion in the air, you'll first have to increase your hangtime by jumping higher. Well, that's the two most obvious things. Another thing you might want to work on is your general stance - when you're ready at the base, you're not as low as you could be and your racket is at your feet as well. Improving on that will enable you to respond quicker to every shot, which also means you'll be able to intercept more. The lower stance also works your legs and will help slightly with those jumps
Well, a part of the small steps-problem is probably that your stance in general is quite higher. Getting lower in your 'ready'-stance will get you used to the feel of standing/moving that low. You should also do shadow footwork, focussing on moving low with someone watching you and telling you when you're getting too high. You could also use the training to just make your footwork more fluid and improve on it in general (i.e. how you move into the different corners, where to move the base position after you played a certain shot and so on). Get coaching! Hard to do all the work yourself, half the time you won't be able to notice you're doing sth wrong while it's quite obvious from an outside point of view. Another thing you should work on is how you address the shuttle - when moving into a back corner, you barely move your racket shoulder back at all. You shouldn't face the shuttle squarely, only at the point of contact (even then, sometimes not, when you're playing a deceptive sliced shot, that is). Another thing to focus on when doing that shadow footwork, although to avoid trying to do too many things at once it might be better if you focussed on that part separately. An example of how to do that would be shadowing only the back corners, emphasizing the turning of the upper body (right shoulder pointing to the corner you move into or even further back, then when you're shadowing the shot, moving through the shot until it points forward slightly). Oh yeah, while doing shadow footwork, always shadow the shots as well. The goal with shadow footwork is to imitate a real rally, shadowing both the footwork and shots while adjusting your base position and pace of movement according to the shot you last 'played' (if you lift high, you can move to the base more slowly than when you play a drop shot or even smash).
I think I'll concentrate on the moving low and correcting my footwork a bit. It's a bit frustrating though, because in practice when I have a coach and when I do shadow footwork it looks a lot different. I'm tensing up in competitions and my racket arm won't move as smoothly and my legs won't use the proper steps.
It probably looks slightly different, but that'll go away with experience (=more competition->you get used to it). Thing is - it often feels very different than what it looks like. I also get the feeling that I'm playing just superbly at times, and when it happens while I'm taping, I notice there's actually not much of a difference after all A lot of it is in the head. That's why experience is so valuable, as you mature and also get used to pressure situations you'll get less and less affected by rallies not going your way or opponents playing mind games....to a certain point only, of course
[MENTION=101375]lordrogue[/MENTION] Not too bad. One easy improvement would be your serve. At your level in singles play, just do the underhand very high serve to the baseline, with the occasional short serve, just as you see in pro women's singles. Reason is you have more time to react for the service return and at this level you don't have to worry about the killer smash from the baseline. Your short serves lost you many points when the return was pushed past you to the sidelines. And your high serves were not high enough or deep enough, only reaching the doubles rear service line. Just watch some pro female players like Inthanon and grab a dozen birds and practice your serves on a empty court until you can consistently land your birds within the rear tramlines.
I switched to only high serves after the first set because I could not deal with his push to forehand corner. I don't think all of them were at double service line, but you're right that they're not as high as WS serves. But I don't see how you can make a roof serve and still mask it... if you look at jan o, his high serve is also pretty flat. Yes, I know, different levels, but I don't think the idea is wrong, I just need to be quicker and have better footwork to the corners.
