Help with Stroke Please!!

Some serious progress imo! Keep it up!

 

Overall I think better footwork preparation to get behind the shuttle is what stands out most, letting you behind the shuttle and get a good shot. How many times have you hit your partner's head in the red shirt on a smash? He puts his racket behind his head almost every time he's in the front and you're smashing in the back LOL!

 

Whoops, sorry I think I worded my post vaguely. I meant to say that your footwork in preparation for the shot has GOTTEN better since your previous videos. And well, hitting your partner in the back of the head, it will happen eventually. I wonder if that particular person has had a bad experience in the past =P.

 

I think you are improving nicely. Your movement is slowly getting better and your drop shots are much better. You are also starting to make use of a more articulated "stick smash" type motion on occasion, where you use primarily the forearm and wrist, without much follow through.

If I were your coach, I would say your smash has been getting worse for the last few videos as I feel your grip is too far towards panhandle. You are obviously doing pretty well with it, but I don't think its as good as it was a few weeks ago. I reckon if you improve the grip once more, you will have more power available to you, and the possibility of hitting a more elegant overhead with a higher and hence more threatening contact point.

Good luck!

 

My advice: Spend as much time as possible on court with those three. This will boost your overall game more and more sustainably than another 500 posts in here. Also, try to get some singles matches going with them. They will wipe the court with you in the beginning if they go all-in, but this will force you to improve your court coverage, footwork and everything that goes along with it automatically. Just compare your movement and posture in those two clips to the previous ones. Like night and day.

Regarding your smash technique, there is one thing that I still really dislike and which has been discussed a couple of times already - that weird side-to-side oscillation motion when you try to do a scissor kick (watch the legs):

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It gets worse the harder you try to force a hard stroke. You do not generate any momentum or power in direction of the stroke with that and you end up in a bad position to initiate any follow-up movement towards the net. I won't comment on any other aspect of the overhead movement since you have the real BC-experts already around to take care of that way better than I could.

Watching the latest couple of clips, I get the impression that maybe you are forcing it a bit too much and with that, you lose the lightness that is needed. Looking at that first screenshot, I can almost see your white knuckles from squeezing the handle. Try to loosen up a bit and maybe think about reducing the frequency of your video documentaion. IMO it's very, very hard to spot real progress if you don't give yourself a bit of time to internalise some things in between. With the level you have reached now, the learning curve will inevitably get less steep and level out compared to the very beginning.

 

Just to be clear - I wouldn't conclude your grip is now a panhandle, but in my view it is getting too close towards a panhandle away from the correct grip. The grip really changes the arm mechanics and creates a stroke that has a very different shape.

 

Totally agree with you. Try to train on more footwork since most of the time you didnt have enough time to get in position.