15:30 is indeed where it begins. When I watch it back, using all of the corners and varying the shots means so much more than getting downwards angles. I think for now, either my smash is not good enough to be used as a building shot and/or I don't understand how to use it as a building shot yet. It almost seems at times i can barely rely on it as a mid-court finisher... :s
In some ways, the two of you are very much alike in many ways. For example, he also smashes quite a lot from positions that might get him into deep trouble with a good defense. Sadly, you didn't exploit that enough since your defense shots somehow lack a clear objective. It feels like you are completely happy by only getting the shuttle back over the net somehow. A perfect example at 4:38. What was that meant to be? A short block? A drive? A lift? And then there were a number of rallies in which you kept defending with lifts repeatedly which makes the rally almost appear like a smash-drill for your opponent (see 14:25 for example). So if I were you, I'd put "smash defense" on my to-do list immediately. A simple straight block with good precision would have gotten you at least 5 points more per game. And now think of adding a cross block as variation.... On the plus side, I've found only one scene right at the beginning (1:02) in which you performed one of your signature suicide smashes. That one seemed to have worked well as a wake-up call. And one word regarding your smash. I am not with you when you say that it doesn't pose a threat because of a possible lack of shuttle speed. Aim for precise placement and angle and you'll see quickly that you can score direct points with that as well. And on top of it, you'll get some weak replies in return that you can then finish off. IMO, sheer shuttle speed in a smash is highly overrated at "our" level.
I see you went back to this post I made and have had a bit of an epiphany about keeping the shuttle in court. I haven't looked through the whole video but 9.00 was exactly what I was on about. A fairly decent serve, opponent drops, a tactically correct netshot, and then a great lift to the back tramlines and not needing to play to the corner of the back court. 3 decent shots by you in a row keeping the shuttle in court with decent quality. Please do that some more. Serves - almost illegal because your right foot moves left just as you hit the shuttle. Getting no hip rotation means you cannot hit it higher on a high serve. To be honest, if you can get this high serve higher and consistently in the back tramlines, then it will help you get a couple of easy points which will make the difference between winning and losing a tight game. A very good development is that you have resisted smashing everything that goes up in the air and prepared to rally keeping the shuttle safe more. It's only taken two years to realise it but better late than never! The longer rallies will actually help you analyse your tactical weaknesses more. Some players can't actually hit more than 5 shots in a rally (if you have played decent high clears , drops and worked them around the court a little bit) so you might want to notice this in other players and take advantage of it by waiting for their mistakes. Maybe you can reanalyse this match and see if your opponent had this characteristic. You can't analyse your other matches because you didn't rally in those others. In training matches away from competition, you must be prepared to rally - it's OK to lose (and work out why) but you must rally.
It's a great observation you make, because a friend on the sidelines mentioned the exact same thing on my smash defence. He put it more bluntly, "Why are you defending it back to him? Make him move!". I think this is my half court smash defence training, where it helps the feeder on a single shuttle drill if i don't play crosscourt blocks. Better change that into a multishuttle drill! The smash/lift defence was to vary the defence between rallies; in hindsight, i need to learn to vary my defence WITHIN a rally! I think I am now relatively confident returning smashes at all, so the next step is to think about where I want to put them which i've noticed includes deciding where I might want to return a block before they have even smashed it. Cheers for the comments once again!
Play a straight block a little faster and flatter so that if it were to land in court, it would land past the service line.
Working on it is important to achieve that. You need to involve your body more to get more power and more control. Even when there's no pressure, you rely on your arm too much. Try to actively start the stroke with your right hip moving forward and upward. Then let your elbow do the same. Forward and upward. Then hit. My hope is that by focusing on these two details, you'll achieve several things. I hope you get to involve your body more and let it work in a relaxed way (only your hip and elbow really working). I hope by focusing on the forward and upward movement, you'll reach higher and you'll realize immediately when you were not behind the shuttle. Don't forget to check if your shoulder turned enough, it doesn't at the moment, but when you're more relaxed, it might do that on it's own. That's singles. Be patient, wait for your opponent's mistakes, but take your chance when you get one. When there's an opponent who threatens you more from the backcourt than this one did, you need to use neutral shots. It helped that your opponent was trying to finish it off by all means, taking chances that weren't there. While that might sound negative, it's not. It means you didn't give away chances. Again, for some opponents, there would have been chances, that's when you need neutral shots. Keep working on your overhead technique, your defence, and footwork is always important, but when getting better and facing better opponent's, remember the neutral shots. Keep it up.
4:38 was supposed to be a tight block, but I put way too much power into it. I don't think it's power that is the problem with my smash - it's 100% angle and accuracy that's problematic. With my existing technique, I can hit some relatively powerful and accurate smashes (generally struggle with angle), but only if I have lots of time. Backwards RTH clearly doesn't qualify as 'lots of time'. With my shoulder coming through first, it's difficult to get downwards angle on anything to be honest, including drop shots. I practised yesterday and found that i get better steepness if i keep the shoulder back and let the elbow lead. This was counter-intuitive to me, because I thought bringing the shoulder up before the elbow meant id get a higher contact point. Instead, my shoulder comes up, and once it passes the highest point, it's impossible for the elbow to be directly upwards, and instead it comes out to the side. The trouble seems to be in my shoulder movement which breaks the power chain. At the moment, even if I do a powerful hip pivot, it results in my arm being thrown out to the side more. I'm hoping by correcting the elbow movement, I'll be less reliant on my arm to generate power. I've already seen some surprisingly powerful+angled smashes where I put 50% effort in with the elbow coming straight up and a slight scissor kick...I just can't do it in a game yet as it requires a lot of focus. I have been having difficulty with bringing the hip through on a very deep high serve in accuracy terms. I can reliably get it high, but the accuracy isn't anywhere near good enough. Either I get a lot of faults by hitting out, or it is very high, but it would land on the doubles line, maybe even 20cm short of doubles line. On training nights I use the full action, but I've left it out of my matches for now - should I force myself to play with the full motion in matches too? In terms of rallying, I wasn't confident in playing a clear under many scenarios previously (either not confident on clear quality, or my ability to retrieve), and smashed before I would get into the position where my opponent forces me to play to the net i.e. "I'll play to the net on my terms, rather than you force me into a position where I have to play a weak shot to the net". Flawed thinking since they then know I won't/can't play clears from certain positions... I have tried to play without smashing previously, but I don't think I could recognise the benefits of not smashing against such opponents; my smashing play would still win me more points than my rallying play, both because I made more faults in rally play, and also because my opponents were stronger at rallying than in defence. In this game, it was abundantly clear I was was haemorrhaging points by smashing when my opponent was 100% ready.
Sounds more like an elbow/positioning issue. After reading this, I watched it again, and theres some more evidence that makes me think that it's more about the positioning. The strokes from your backhand corner are better, because you cannot get the shuttle out to your right side. For almost all shots, you're not behind the shuttle far enough. I was told that as a coach I cannot always be nice, and I should not be. So I'll tell you now, "There is no kinetic chain to break! It doesn't exist!" That's not because your body cannot do it, but I think now, that it's mostly positioning. It's much better on your backhand side, you do know a much better movement, leading to a much better and controlled clear (2:23 for example). I'm not talking about being under pressure or anything like that, so I took an example (exactly 4:00) when you had more than enough time to prepare: Doesn't look too bad, does it? Your elbow could be pulled further away from the body, you yould already have opened your chest (I think we had that somewhere else before, so I think you know what I'm talking about), but you do that right before the stroke, so I won't complain. You could pick any frame before and after that, and all will look the same. Well, you move, obviously, but everything is moving at the same time, hip, shoulder, elbow, ..... The elbow is the reason why I chose this frame: It's not leading at all. I cannot see it in the video, but I'm pretty sure that you're contacting the shuttle right above your head, slightly to the side, but you're neither stepping in (look at your right leg), nor leading with the elbow. You cannot do either without hitting behind your head. You need to get behind the shuttle! This is after hitting the shuttle. Note that your right leg didn't move, but your left leg moved to the side. It's not only this stroke, It's every stroke that's not from the backhand corner. Also note, that you didn't close your chest. Your left shoulder is not being pulled inward at all. If there was a kinetic chain to break, that might be one of the points to work on. Just take a look at the stroke at 2:25 (again, just an example, from the first minutes you can exchange the strokes arbritrarily): The elbow is going in the direction of your stroke, not perfect, but much better. By the way, you're under way more pressure here, compared to the first (worse) example. I stand with my first impression that it's a hip and elbow problem, but you can only work on that when really getting behind the shutte, so you can move towards it (towards the front) before (and when) hitting. Obviously, there's more detail to work on (closing the chest, i.e. puling the left shoulder inward, too, and some more, but some of that might be fixed when youre behind the shuttle enough. Before I sum up my opinion, I have to dig up something I read a little while ago... Then, you should start with your hip, lead with your elbow, and throw your body in the direction you're hitting. When landing a scissor jump, your upper body should be leaning foreward. Be confident, your body already knows a much better stroke under much more pressure!
The video sequence is exactly what I mean by my shoulder breaking the kinetic chain (and why there is zero kinetic chain to see). The shoulder is right in the middle of the chain, and because it moves first, before either the hip OR the elbow, it screws it all up!
You really need to do drills to ingrain the proper kinetic chain movement into your muscle memory. Start slow with shadow strokes at home at 30% speed and gradually work up to 60% speed, then add shuttles on court and work up your speed and explosiveness gradually, but all the while keeping in mind the proper flow of the hip, trunk shoulder, elbow, grip tightening. Listen for a higher pitched swish for an indication of higher racket speed and better kinetic flow. Do it enough and you'll get it to become second nature. But as others have also mentioned, you do need to get behind the bird half a foot more to get a better strike. Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
Maybe we mean the same thing, but we're talking a different language. In my opinion, to break the kinetic chain, you must have started it first, but I do not see that. There's no notable movement towards the shuttle, your balance is even going backwards (taking back the left foot), so I don't see a kinetic chain breaking, because I don't see the start of it. The point of my last message was that you cannot really do a proper movement, because you're not behind the shuttle enough. You're hitting the shuttle at a position slightly (very very slightly) in front of your head, just not after moving into your stroke, but after moving slightly backward, so it is not possible that you were behind enough. If the rest is just language, you still need to get behind the shuttle first to change your stroke. You cannot focus on everything at once, pick two points. The first one must be to really get behind the shuttle and I suggest the second one to be your hip (but I think you'll choose the elbow).
I don’t like that preparation position. Try copying TTY. Get that right hand behind the head on the preparing for the overhead.
Pedantics - the kinetic chain is broken at the shoulder when I try and drive power through my hips. It goes straight up, through my torso, then when it gets to the shoulder, my shoulder gets thrown forward too far which pulls my elbow out to the side and renders any good contact with the shuttle improbable. You won't see this in any match, because why would I initiate a kinetic chain that won't go anywhere in a match? I can take a video to show what I mean - I'll never begin the kinetic chain in this manner in a game, because I'd miss every single overhead shuttle, but I've tried it in training (lots of power, but ridiculously bad contact because I can't control my arm). I need to stop my shoulder leading the stroke, otherwise it blocks every other part of my body from moving correctly. In terms of getting further behind the shuttle, I'm having mixed views on this from various coaches. Some say I move too far and it's not worth trying to take it that far in front of me for a flatter lift - to learn to play strokes with my arm and keep the shoulder back to maintain balance. Others say I need to move more explosively and get into full smash positions to give myself options at the expense of energy and court position. I've had a LOT of coaching on the latter style, so I'm going to give the control/balance teachings a try - my hope being that it instills a calmer/more relaxed playstyle because SO many people say I am far too tense on court.
If you think I haven't been doing shadow strokes at home/garden/off court whilst waiting/after training, then you're wrong on that count. What's more likely is the unsupervised shadow strokes are wrong, and I've ingrained wrong strokes even more (yay). Not all change is positive it seems. If you find my lack of progress in overhead technique disappointing, you can multiply the disappointment and frustration by 10 for me. It's not as if I'm content to leave it be, and it's not like I ignore it. I'd say every single match I post, my opponents have better overhead technique than me. I can improve my tactics which is a weakness, but as @MSeeley says, my tactics will get a healthy boost if my technique improves since I'll have more options. I can improve my footwork, but my footwork isn't what's holding me back against my level of opponents. What's holding me back is playing effective, consistent strokes, and I KNOW that is directly prevented by my terrible technique. That said, I AM progressing, it's just bloody SLOW.
I don't like it either. The preparation is even worse for RTH strokes, because my racquet head points out the right of the court, even though I want to contact the shuttle to the left of my head. Getting the right hand behind the head/getting the elbow raised is exactly the problem I am looking at right now, and directly addressing in training. The drills are to get me to be aware of my elbow and to try and limit the shoulder influence on my strokes. One of the habits I'm trying to break even in this drill is that even if I get into a high elbow, hand behind head position, I next pull back my elbow down, and drag the racquet head out to the right as my shoulder leads upwards, which defeats the whole point of having the elbow raised in a good preparation to begin with. As I say - my high elbow work has not *quite* made it into my games yet.
Do you stand next to the wall and do the shadow stroke so that your elbow will baby into the wall if it sticks out to the side?
I doubt that not moving behind the shuttle enough is the way to go to be more relaxed it safe energy. Being behind the shuttle means that you can have a forward momentum when hitting leading to much quicker recovery, leading to more time, leading to a more relaxed style. Also, I cannot think of a single stroke where you don't want to be behind the shuttle from a technique point of view. I'd even say it's a principle that you want to have the game on front of you. It might not always work, but it should be what you're going for and more often than not, you will have made a mistake before (shot choice, rushing to the front too much,....), if you cannot achieve this goal. More relaxed doesn't mean that the technique should be poor, it means that you get a rhythm. Quickly get behind the shuttle, hit with a quick recovery (first step), then relax/adjust the speed to the shot you played. I agree that it would be better if your movement looked more relaxed, but that doesn't replace to get behind the shuttle. There's no purpose in moving backwards when hitting. It puts you under more pressure. You have to make up for the backward momentum by using your arm more. Recovery will be slower. Shot choice is more limited.... I hope I misunderstood what you were saying.
Yes, though unfortunately it turns out I "cheat" in various ways e.g. pronating early. (with a shuttle it would result in a slice/bad contact, but allows the arm to come up). I can also "cheat" by reaching up, but not grip tightening properly, sort of like a cricket bowl, but not as extreme. I can "cheat" even with throwing the shoulder forward, by lagging my arm behind. But again contact with a shuttle would be terrible, and often is after I do a few shadow sets, and get on court with an actual multi shuttle feed. I was surprised at how many ways I could swing beside a wall, not hit it, and not be swinging correctly. I did it with a coach and was being corrected all over the place, never once hitting the wall.
I get your logic. I have embraced it for a few years and relay it onwards too. On this one you have understood me though. It's not necessarily hitting it BEHIND me to minimise movement, but it's the idea of not having the shuttle as far in front of you as you COULD. My coach related it to the example of a smash follow up - you can either go all in and take it at the absolute highest/earliest point possible and attempt a kill, or you can move in slightly slower, take it lower (but still leaving you with plenty options).
