In my opinion the split step (I don't think it's drop) is very usefull right when you serve long, clear high or have a long lift. Make sure u are on ur toes, low to the ground, balanced and have your feet spread out. Visualize urselve reaching every shot and getting on to the attack and most important have confidence. I prefere to bounce with both feet equally in this sitation but I think it depends on the type of footwork you have. (ex prefer chasse or cross over) After the initial shots, just make sure u have a little hop (I agree with the poster before me that the left leg should hop a bit more) before the opponent hits the shot on the way back to the base if you dropped or smashed (basically when ur on the attack). Watch ZJH or peter Gade as they perform this very well.
maybe subconsciously but I have never been tought them at my club in fact the coaches at the clubhad never even mentioned them, when I started going to the county training I was surprised how much the coaches emphasised the importance of the split drop, but I think its unnecessary.
the only time that i think they are needed is when you are recovering from an overhead backcourt shot and then you need to gain more speed to get to a net shot from your base
Perhaps you might opt to serve low (eg. doubles serve). Many a times, I find it to my advantage to do so especially if you are more of a doubles player than singles.
i am a newbie to badminton and i am interested in improving my footwork... my question is: what is six corners, or should i say where to my the six corners
six is probably meant to represent the number between 5 and 7 and with the corners he meansthe two corners at the back (backhand corner, forehand corner) two corners at teh front. and two places at the side-lines..where people smash/drive etc. hope it helped..
that is step not drop right? anyways its ironic you say it slows you down, its supposed to give you some more speed, I use it alot when i increase my tension (not string tension, as in umm game tension..? dont know how to explain), esp in a singles game or mix doubles where my partner suks... and i have to run for everything, most of the time i use it for defence and pressure my oppenent with a couple fast drives or smashes and finish it off once they are forced to make a mistake.
In the red corner: fast3r, amateur junior player. Faster says that split drops are a waste of time and slow you down. In the blue corner: all the professional players in the world. Every single professional does a split drop every single time. I reckon the blues win this round
Actually, what fast3r said does have some logic in itself as everyone "should" be pushing off their left leg to go to any corner. However, if u just use ur left leg to push, your good balance will be jepordy which will make recovery difficult. I had discussed this topic with my coach who was a professional.
No, this is wrong for two reasons: First, it is not true that you should push off your left (non-racket) leg for moving to every corner. Footwork patterns are much more complicated than this, and there are occasions when using the right leg will be better. I agree, however, that the left leg is more often used than the right leg. Second, and more importantly, the purpose of the split drop is NOT merely to position your feet (indeed, positioning the feet is very much a finesse element, rather than a core element of the technique). It is a pre-loading jump, that uses eccentric muscle contractions to increase the acceleration of your movements. The "jump" may not always involve actually taking your feet off the ground, but it always involves exploiting the stretch-shortening response of your muscles by loading them briefly before moving off.
Just to reinforce that this is untrue... Imagine you are right handed and your opponent has hit a clear to your backhand/round the head area. You are standing in a square stance (neither foot is forward). You then split your legs and your right foot goes slightly forward and this is the leg you push off with towards the back left of the court... if you imagine you are playing. Your racket leg (right leg) then either goes clockwise 180degs behind your left leg to play a round the head shot or roughly 100degs anticlockwise to play the backhand shot. To return to base you AGAIN push off with your right leg in both the forehand and backhand situation.
This is interesting because for the round the head shot, I believe that the left leg is responsible for the bulk of the explosiveness to the back. If you watch badminton videos, you will see that to the round the head position, most people will push off to the corner and take two small slides with their left leg in the middle of turning 180 degrees and finally reaching the back. This would not be possible when pushing off the right leg as you would have to turn 180 degrees without the slide to give you extra distance, and perhapes one more shuffle to reach the back (Although this is also proper footwork, just slower). It is quite hard to explain and I'm hoping you can follow . However after thinking about the back hand shot, I do agree that the right leg may be used more predominantly to push off so I guess this may be a scenario where lifting only the left leg would faulter. And by the way, I did say that taking a split jump is important, what my coach had said to me was that the left leg should be raise above the ground whereas the right leg can take a smaller preloading step. I fully support taking a split step, I was merly commenting on the mechanics of it.
...Probably because it is hard... Most people jump without thinking about it. I just imagine trying to get to the shuttle as early as possible and hitting it as steep as possible, which tends to make me jump.
I agree with everything you say apart from the change in racket: a weighted head-racket with a stiff shaft fits an attacking player as it gives more power, but a well balanced racket (i prefer a stiff shaft in defensive rackets too) feels "lighter" (i won't explain the physics of it), i have found that i can hit it alot harder if i use something like the nanospeed 9000x than with my carbonex racket. Contrary to that i do agree with th footwork aspet completely, movement is by far the most important thing, if you are not fast you can't be deceptive, powerful or even reach some shots.
It could also be hard to jump because of the timing it takes!! Me Personally I have O.K. timing but dont always hit it the way I want!!
i reckon if you watch an old video of zhao jianhua you will find the perfect example of how to move on a badminton court. it also helps when you have legs as powerful as he does, so train the legs and learn the basic drills. The more you practise the easier you can get around the court. i agree with kwun, footwork in any racket sport is the basis of everything. get fit to play badminton, dont play badminton to get fit!
i think the change in racket will have only a psychological boost to your confidence, ie, if i paid so much money for this racket then i must be able to play better! you may see an improvement in your play if you try different stringing tensions.
Footwork is extrememly important. However, if you have footwork, but no vision speed, you can't do a thing. As my coach once told my dad, "Don't run for the bird. Just see the bird, and hit it." If you have awesome footwork, but no vision and image skills, you cannot make the best of any situation.
