Good point. While this might be exaggerated, this image sometimes help. You need some angle between your forearm and the racket to make pronation work.
Ah... sorry. In the picture that @BadBadmintonPlayer posted, it looks like you're not having that triangle where the shuttle sits. It looks like the handle is slipping between the "buttcheeks" of your hand like this: I might be wrong, but if I'm not, pronation based strokes cannot work.
Oh ok , you are right with your analysis of my grip. I need more space there and I need to be more relaxed
This is quite interesting topic to me! So what you are saying is that the racket grip should be held more in the fingers than in the middle section of palm of the hand - so this picture would be wrong? (when gripped)
Correct. If you want to use grip tightening or finger power effectively, that handle has to move down south west by 1-2 cm, if north is straight up in that photo. Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
So for example on this photo, Momota seems to grip his racket very tight and more in the palm than the fingers - why is that? (his last 3 fingers are touching the "buttcheek".) Also it shouldn't be past the grip tightening phase on that photo. Or is this just a bad example? I am really confused about this topic, because I am currently in search of the "best grip for me".
1) Momota is left-handed. No idea why he plays with his right hand on the picture... 2) Difficult to read anything out of the picture. Strange situation.
1. Someone just mirror-imaged the original picture. You can identify this with the letters on his shirt and the banner behind. 2. We can still use this picture to do the analysis by imagining he is a natural right-hander. I would guess he's gonna whip with a maximum power. Or he might be changing the grip between the moment the picture was taken and the instant of impact in order to make a drill.
Let's start with this.... "shouldn't" isn't exactly what you want for an analysis. You also realized That's contradicting to your assumption. If you don't know the exact situation, I think it's not a good idea to analyze the grip. Just enjoy the great picture. When his fingers are touching it, the racket cannot sit in it, actually a good sign, but again, the grip certainly doesn't look relaxed. Right before impact, you want to tighten your grip, then it will look like that or similar, but I would recommend to just focus on a relaxed grip, the tightening normally doesn't need any attention (in my experience). You want to hold the racket with your middle finger and your thumb. The other fingers just support it (your index finger slightly upwards). When tightening the grip, the index finger will often move down, but that's not a problem. This grip will work for many forehand strokes while allowing for quick turning off the racket. The more in front of you, you hit the shuttle, the more you turn it towards a panhandle. Just take your thumb up and your good for many backhand shots (the racket will sightly turn and then turn some more when tightening the grip). Turn the racket slightly on purpose and you have a full backhand-/thumb-grip, but you won't need that very often. If in doubt, have someone hold the racket the way it will be when hitting the shuttle, stand the way you'll stand when hitting. Grab the handle the most natural way, most often that's how you want to hold it for that stroke. Don't overthink grips! Just focus on the relaxed basic grip, so I appreciate you paying attention to it, but don't overthink, please.
Your grip should be relaxed in a neutral position or defensive position (see photo of speCulatius). When whipping (clear), your fingers will tighten and the grip will slide more in the center of your hand. After the action, you have to go back to a neutral relaxed grip. This is also the case when you smash, you will naturally grip it tightly in order to exert more force (I think this is what Momota is doing in the photo). But this should not be your standard, neutral grip.
I came very early to the club and did a half hour of footwork movements and also some shadow swings. I have been doing some footwork moves at home but this is the first time ima while that I had time at the club to be in a real court. This was more to serve as a warmup for the games . But you will notice that I’m not doing drills per say. For example on the backhand front court , I didn’t include recovery steps( I’m not sure why ) Also most of what I did was purely random. But because I did this , I was was more prepared for games. My front court drop defense was much better and I moved around the court much better today.
1. Your forehand swing (clear) looks at bit better), still you have to turn your body more and push on your legs to central position. 2. Your starting position is too far back which is why you have issues with the front court also. Take the middle horizontal line and walk back 1 step, that should be your central position. The reason is : if someone clears to your backend, the longer distance allows you to have enough time to react. If someone plays a drop shot, the shorter distance means that you will be too late. 3. You stand too straight which hinders your ability to push with your legs 4. Your footwork needs adjustments. As a starting point, ALWAYS chasse and never walk/run. What you are doing right now is wrong: you walk 1-2 steps and lunge instead of just doing chasse steps. Start with an easier routine, drop your racket and just chasse to all corners in a star motion like in this picture http://www.victorsport.com/files/idc/upload/images/Product/2018/six point footwork(1).jpg
You turn your shoulders enough when you hit the smash but your racquet arm is not going back enough behind the body. Try to work on getting that nice setup where if the opponent was to look directly at your setup from the opposite end, your head and body would block the sight of your arm, hand and shaft of the racquet. I think because your setup is a bit suboptimal, the other parts of the stroke are harder to get right. After you hit an overhead, have a look at your left arm. It flings way backwards making you over rotate on the follow through. Have a look at some slow motion of top players specifically comparing their left arm motion compared with yours.
Had a weird day at the club. Played in games where the skill level wasnt as high as usual so it was very one sided. I was however able to get in a half hour of footwork drills in before hand and also was able to work on some drops and smashes. The first part of the video are some of my practice smashes.
I feel like some of my shots were getting better by looking at today’s footage. I was not really able to practice/warmup my overheat shots before the first match so that definitely impacted my form a bit It was interesting because I think I was flick served more than I was a short serve today which I think I handled pretty well. I also was able to do a good amount of interceptions at the net and I’m getting better at the 3rd shot ( I serve, they return and then my next shot) Although I was playing with people who were around my skill level which might explain my “better” front court play
Arm action for RTH smash is ok. Drop shot action is still very wrong. You pan handle and hit low instead of playing it like a normal stroke. Forehand shots are taken far too low. Your elbow is barely parallel with your shoulder when you're hitting a lot of them. Need to develop your forehand kickthrough so you get full turning motion. If you were a clock, you'd want your right foot to come through to 11/12/1 o'clock, but right now it's stopping at almost 3. There are times on both forehand and backhand where you're almost falling backwards, but still trying to play attacking shots. You're a fairly broad guy and you look like you have strength, and I think that right now that's compensating technique somewhat. Take a look here, when you land, your feet and body are trying to turn more. This means you're prepared to pick up the cross reply, but as you played a straight smash, and your partner is in the middle, it feels like you're redirecting your energy in the wrong direction. This is energy you could be transferring into the shuttle. In another instance, this is just after a smash. You're so off-balance here, that you have to take another step backwards to catch yourself. () Your dropshot action needs a lot of work. The type of shot you're playing is sometimes used in singles when played deep into the forehand corner, but this should not be your default style of drop shot. This rally here is good at showing different types of drop shots, including the one you default to which is used in the late forehand corner. Lin Dan's final dropshot especially, is taken high with a quick racket movement. He doesn't default to pan handling, instead he cuts across the shuttle. You can see his arm is reaching quite high. I think the three big things for me are: 1) Work on your balance. Take a look back over some footwork tutorials, and focus on incorporating elements of them into your movement that will help you maintain that balance. 2) Work on bringing your elbow upwards. We can't always take the shot as high as we'd like, but there are times where you have opportunity to hit and instead let the shuttle drop. This is moreso true for your forehand side. You reach up higher for your RTH shots. 3) Fix that drop shot. What you're doing is extremely limiting.
