In my opinion, diving is necessary when you are unbalanced. Then, why a player is unbalanced? Deception by the opponent or lack of recovery of the last shot. Is diving can be learnt? I guess so as goalkeepers in football. But, would I teach that instead of shots (knowing that we have not much practice time)? IMO, no. JRMTL
I remember hearing someone talk about how diving can be used to get some rest. Here's how it works: 1- when facing a difficult/hopeless shot (e.g. smash to kill), dive for the bird and smear sweat on the floor. 2- now that there is sweat on the floor, a short break will be taken to wipe off floor ->> rest!
Of course, that's another piece of 'professional foul' and in badminton this is another form of delaying tactic. But what happens when you sustain an injury as a result of diving - you sprained your limbs or worse still, broke one of them? Then you can take a longer rest, even months!
Diving issues I never had much formal training with either (badminton) footwork or with diving. I had picked up diving from playing a lot of volleball. Volleyball coaches I had taught a lunge-sprawl technique but were reluctant to teach actual all-out dives for fear of student injuries. I learned most of my diving techniques from watching collegiate & Olympic volleyball. One day, i just found myself doing real dives rather than sprawls. Dives were not something I ever really practiced; it's just something that I found myself doing more and more when need arose. I believe that many athletic ppl pick up techniques like diving in a similar manner. Learning by imitation... the way that young kids learn how to walk, speak, etc. I think that talented athletes don't lose this ability to learn visually or kinetically from repeated viewing of role models (rather than from instruction). Since my badminton footwork was less-than ideal when I 1st started playing & competing, I resorted to my volleyball diving techniques quite a bit. As I picked up better footwork by watching other players, the need for diving diminished... but it still comes in quite handy for emergency situations. By employing the dive judiciously, I've found that I will actually win a pretty decent %-age of rallies this way. I'm not as quick as I used to be (I'm way over the hill now) in getting up after a dive these days so I use it in doubles a bit more than in singles. With doubles, I've got a partner to take the next shot if I can't get up in time to get to it. There is nothing more demoralizing to a player/team than to hit a shot that looks like a winner only to have it saved by a diving player who ends up winning the rally cuz of that supreme effort. Diving problems: #1) Quite often, my chest would hit the ground when diving & I would see stars and feel slightly dizzy when I sprang back up to my feet to cover the next shot. If my chest hit the ground somewhat hard, I might even have the wind knocked out of me. Eventually, I learned to arch my back a bit as I was diving to that my belly and hands would meet the ground before my chest made contact. It is also helpful to kick the feet up as you make ontact so that you don't bang up your knees on the dive. #2) As my racket hand hit the ground on the dive, quite often I would scrape the outside part of the heel of that hand and receive a nasty floor burn for my troubles. At times, the floor burn might be bad enough to smart for several days. I don't know how other players resolved this problem, but my solution was to drop the racket just after making contact with the shuttle. This way I could place both the palms of both hands on the ground so that I could absorb some of the shock & facilitate a body slide on the floor (by pushing the hands backward after contact) just as a volleyballer would. Not to fear... the racket ended up on the floor very close by so that I could pick it up quickly as I sprang back up to my feet. I could pick up the racket at the same time as I was getting up; in fact, picking up the racket was completed much quicker than getting back up to my feet. This way, I really lost no time (or very little time) in dropping the racket & picking it up again if I had to play another shot. #3) As I mentioned before, my recovery time for getting back up to my feet is not as quick as I'd like. The racket recovery is not the problem here at all. I suppose that even tho' I don't practice the dive itself, it would probably be very beneficial to practice getting up from the floor as quickly as possible.
Can't say that I would ever dive as a stalling tactic. However as I mentioned in my previous post, some times I would feel a little dizzy or winded after a dive. Cleaning up the floor after after a (wet) dive would provide a means to recover my breath & balance and to clear my head before resuming play. I would sometimes check & clean the floor even after a dry dive.
I think this is a bad comparison of players anyway - Lundgaard Hansen is doubles player - he only has half the court space to cover compared with Lin Dan. If you Compare Nicolas Kidd and Lin Dan, i think you'd find the similarities are all there - Nick Kidd seems to make a habit of diving full length to return the shuttle. not that seems to be any inherent technique there
i won't coach to dive It would be like coaching a volleyball player to hit with the feet. Anyway, the diving come more from the ambition than the technique. So i will say to spend you diving time on a better way to get to the birds
I think this is answer your inital question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuShfAhfDdE it shows a video of Lee Wei Chong, diving for a left hander's smash... and i wonder which left-hander (Lin Dan) they are trying to imitate.
