I found this video very informative on badminton footwork even though I don't understand a word what this guy is saying. I would appreciate if someone could provide a pointer to a translated version, or alternatively summarise the main ideas discussed on the video. Thanks in advance, and happy badmintoning
A translation would indeed be nice, but just watching what he's doing is still quite informative even if you haven't got a clue as to what he's saying. Come to think of it for all we know he could be saying, "Don't do this, that and the other. And don't even think of doing this..." as he's demo-ing the moves.
I think this is part of Xiong's VCD, dubbed in both Mandarin and Cantonese. It can be downloaded. But if you don't know Chinese, you can only look at video. In general, he is saying how to to X, not demo what to avoid, so just imitate what he is doing and see how it turns out.
Oukkei, many thanks for your comments. Sure, I'll go through this video several times and try to do the travel phases the way he does. Based on his gestures I had the feeling that he might be explicitely pointing out something about the movement of upper torso when travelling on rear court. Something that I have propably missed in other training videos.
Thanks for the link, sulismies. His gestures help explain. Seems pretty straight-forward. Ready position is with racket leg forward, weight on balls of the feet, feet about shoulder width apart, back foot turned about 45 degrees from front foot, racket held about chest high, etc. To get to position, racket leg leads to the back, non-racket leg to the front, sometimes uses chasse, sometimes crossover step, sometimes end with a leap. The demonstration seems very basic--his own version of technique. From his gestures, he is probably talking about how the body should be oriented and the weight distributed. For example, when he moves to the back forehand in the first shot demo, for the final step, the back foot is in full contact with the floor and parallel to the back line, weight on the back foot with the front leg nearly straight and heel off the floor. In the scissor kick, he seems to be indicating that the follow-through of the arm should coincide with the front leg coming down, both arm and leg moving together down and forward. What I wonder most about this demo is that he always returns back to base after every shot. This is what I was taught as a beginner, and I think most of us were (to get us away from hitting and then just standing and watching). In a real game, however, returning to base doesn't always happen because the opponent will get to the shot before you can get all the way to base and be ready. If you try to get to base, you'll be moving when the return is hit, which only works if your opponent hits it to where you're moving to.
Another footwork video Here's another footwork video. Some of you may have already seen this. This is in English. fyi. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6958888713354397380&q=badminton+footwork
Thanks BaddGolfer, I was familiar with that one. That's also a good footwork video clip. The problem is that I just cannot produce the power needed to move like that on rear court. And yes, I do part of my training at gym and try to do some footwork exercises as well when we have an odd number of players at our club. Anyway, most of the time I need one extra [SIZE=-1]chasse step when travelling to rear court and when returning from the net. So my footwork is more like that show on video "[/SIZE]01 - Basic footwork.avi" in this thread (the lady demonstrating footwork on a blue court).
