Correct Forehand Grip

You had asked about thumb and index fingers video (see your previous question), hence I show you one.

Nevertheless in the video, they have showed twice two-time all-England mixed-doubles player Praveen Jordan example of using a loose grip with just thumb and index finger before using all fingers gripping action for a smash, which requires more effort than a forehand in same forward motion. Hence same concept for forehand. And obviously when using forehand with fingers strength, your will have to grip and twist the racket face to hit the shuttle in the right direction, altogether with your wrist in one action for maximum power.

He had also talked about using more fingers strength for your forehand, perhaps you have missed that. In any case as mentioned when in comes to forehand clear, its the same natural transition.

The crisp twisting hitting sound that I talked about is most pronounced when you are doing the forehand clear base to base (during a pre-match warm up for instance) with the extra twisting action of your thumb, index finger and gripped together with the rest of your fingers. It's hard to explain, you will perhaps have to practiced it more to feel (hear) it.

 

Did you read my reply properly? No where did I mean that the video said that. I did specially mentioned that this phrase ' "'using the thumb, index finger acts like an electric motor to provide extra horsepower and 'twist' to the remaining fingers with internal combustion'.:" comes from myself as mentioned (of course, LOL) above as I was using the analogy of a hybrid engine which I also mentioned in my earlier post.

And btw.. he did finally illustrated usage of this forehand grip for back court punch clear as well...so as mentioned, the same concept applies for base to base clear using forehand.

 

He did mentioned forehand overhead punch/attacking clears at 6:56 onwards using same thumb & fingers gripping action:

 

okay, i'm pretty sure he's referring to squeezing the handle into the palm with three fingers, which she mentioned earlier in the video, and thumb does some squeezing too.

And when it comes to where you said "twisting", I see you are describing the racket face moving, rather than fingers twisting.

I think we're on the same page re what the action is.

 

To 1st post : depends on the shots but for shots that require more power, it's usually closer to the palm. Though in some cases (drives, stick smash, ...) you may have it closer to your fingers to generate quick movement

 

You mention that it's about power which suggests to me you are reading it as a question of, when relaxed, how much air/gap should there be between the hand and the handle, is that your reading?

I read it as, imagining the handle as a hand on a clock, what orientation to have.

Or perhaps, it's asking whether the whole handle should be positioned closer to the knuckles.. (I once met a guy that thought that, and he'd completed a coaching cert, but it wouldn't have been as high up the hand as that guy thought).

But whatever he means and whatever you mean.. I've never heard of a stick smash having a different grip than a regular smash.

And if a person were to speak of doing a stick smash with a difference in grip, then if anything it'd be more finger power not less, which would I suppose be less close in that sense of "close".

 

Original poster is asking about whether the handle should be closer to the palm (yellow) or closer to fingers (red).



and the answer is : depends.

You can have the "V" handshake grip and still have the handle both in red or yellow position, that's why it could be confusing

If you go full jump smash, you will most likely grip like the yellow rectangle as you need to squeeze the grip hard and the racket will be in the extension, almost straight, of your arm.

If you stick smash (cross court) or for instance smash a flick serve, you will most likely grip like the red rectangle as you can take the shuttle a bit around the head (so racket perpendicular to your arm).

For power shots, yellow rectangle is the usual position. For some specific contexts, red is also possible.

For drive shots, both are possible. For backhand, both are possible depending on the angle you take the shuttle, etc

 

Great diagram. Yes that's how I interpreted it.

I feel like I can use finger power either way. I'm not sure that I can say that finger power in the yellow(more straight) position is different/greater, than in the red(more angled) position.

I think we might agree that when both feet are behind the shuttle, when you've had time e.g. where an athletic pro would do a jump smash, or where a regular person would do a regular overhead without a jump, then it's a very powerful position, there's a wide variety of shots that can be played and usually one would want to use the yellow hand position..

But i'd say it's perhaps 'cos when the racket is upright and overhead, it's easier to hit it where you want. than if the racket is in the red position, though as you note, that red position can be done too though is often not favoured in that situation. I don't think it's because one grip has more power than the other grip. But it's because the yellow grip is associated with a particular great position that a badminton player often likes to be able to get into, given time.

And I agree that returning a flick serve, the red position is common.. And as you suggest, it could be the yellow one too. Infact , if an opponent were to try to flick it wide to my forehand side, i'd likely be doing a stick smash, and be using a good amount of finger power, and it'd be with the red grip.

I'd put it to you that if anything there could even be more grip squeezing with the red grip, as a proportion of where power comes from in the shot, because it would tend to be done if wide on the forehand side, and that'd tend to be behind you and wide, and often you can't be turning your body into it because you're taking it later, and so there's a lot of arm rotation and finger squeezing, which is often a driver for the forearm rotation.

So I wouldn't like to say that the red or the yellow allows for more finger squeezing power.. But looking at the scenarios that each is done in, I think if anything one might say the red, if taken in the wide position so, racket is upright, it's very finger power focussed.

I don't know if you might actually agree.. 'cos you didn't actually say that one position allows for more finger power than another. You just spoke of power shots.. And I agree the yellow shot tends to be favoured a lot, in that great, two feet behind it position.

(I think I saw one guy once that favoured the red position in the back behind it position.. but they maybe didn't have great accuracy..in terms of shuttle going left/right, as some others players might have 'cos if the racket is oriented a bit non-upright, any timing issue can veer the shuttle left/right, ). They pointed out to me though that a similar issue exists in the upright position but it's up/down so a timing issue impacts steepness!.

 

As mentioned and shown in the video, the thumb is shifted slightly to the left by about 0.5cm (for right hander) from a Bevel grip (not to be confused with Backhand aka Thumb grip) without changing anything else. This would allow you to quickly switch from forehand clear/smash to backhand clears stroke using the Bevel grip for maximum efficiency and speed.

See the transition gif below to fully understand how this grip works.

 

"Chris's video" included panhandle and thumb grip and bevel grip, which isn't that relevant. But the image of forehand grip for the thumbnail from "Chris's video" is here.

This might help re comparisons to try to figure out what Chris is saying.

"Chris's image" and yours, are viewing the hand from a different angle so I can't quite comment on what Chris is saying re the thumb position in "your images" vs his one.