I agree, there is an improvement. One of the actions looks quite good. Unfortunately, I am on a smartphone. When I get to my computer, I will give you the time of which one it is.
Let's put aside the footwork and concentrate on the stroke. The sequence starting from 0.23 are probably the best overhead strokes. I slowed it down to 0.5x speed on my PC. At 0.25,0.26 your right hand is not quite behind your head - it looks like it is slightly to the right of the head and body. As I wrote earlier, for a beginner, I would train people to have it behind the head just to train good habits. If you get into this ready position and look into a mirror in front of you, you should not be able to see you hand. The second thing is your right elbow is a slightly low. In the old days, this would be fine but I am seeing the elbow taught to be slightly higher. You will get a faster stroke with it being higher. The third thing is try to have the racquet shaft vertically upwards. Again, good habit and it will help you develop a faster stroke for the future. 0.27 - look very carefully at the slow motion. Can you see your body move forward first before the elbow goes up? Now look at your shoulders. We would like you to instead start the movement with a very slight stretching of the chest - try pulling the shoulder blades towards each other at your back just for an instant - and at the same time start the raising of your elbow to reach up higher. Then start the hip rotation. After that do every thing as you have been doing in the video. I think you should make a considerable improvement in stroke and throwing technique. This stretching of the shoulders is also the same as in the baseball throwing technique that @DarkHiatus posted. 0.56 This sequence definitely has a wrong stroke. What you have down when you introduce the big leg movement is you use muscle to pull the racquet behind your body - you should be relaxed so when the elbow goes up, the racquet will naturally drop a bit behind the body. You also use muscle to hold it in that position for a fraction of a time behind your body - no need to hold it there. You only hold it for a fraction but it's noticeably too long and unnecessary. You see a lot of social players having developed this habit - it makes the stroke awkward and your potential for power is actually less.
Watching these, I still feel like there's too much wrist flexion. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe it's the camera position or whatnot.
It's true but don't give information overload. If the starting point and initial movment is incorrect, it's harder to correct the rest of the stroke.
There isn't too much wrist flexion and certainly nothing to be worried about from a safety point of view. However, worth pointing out you would get more power with a "rebound" strike of the shuttle than the large follow through with the full wrist bend (and hence, it would just be the normal amount of wrist movement that everyone agrees is correct - hooray). That aside I agree with Cheung - the moment you stopped moving your feet, the shots look absolutely fine as a very promising foundation for a high level stroke. So for now, I would recommend just moving quickly to the shuttle and hitting without worrying too much about what the feet are doing. If you practiced that for a few months, as well as learning to quickly move to get the next shuttle, your footwork will develop a bit too, but you will importantly build a really good foundation overhead. As cheung pointed out the last few strikes are going in the wrong direction from a body sequence point of view. You are doing a massive kick through, you swing is way too late and not coordinated at all with the turning of the shoulders or the jump - the movement is completely pointless. Not to mention you are on your way down as you strike the shuttle. If you want to jump, give a little hop on one leg that allows you to just reach a little bit higher - that will be fine. I like to encourage people when learning the kick through to jump upwards (not forwards) and to swing as you are jumping, and then all you need to do is land primarily on the non racket foot and you have completed a good kick through. But I find the hopping "upwards" rather than forwards really helps people get the sequencing right - not sure if it will for the OP, but may be worth a go.
I suspect you couldn't 'feel' the correct stroke and then getting confused with many variations. Hence, the latest video was very useful for us.
Yes that is exactly correct. I will try to implement your suggestions and then make another video to just double check its right. Once it looks Ok then I'll practice it a lot to build proper muscle memory
I have one question regarding my racket facing vertical. Should this happen by me "preloading my wrist or by me just having my forearm vertical?
At the moment I think your racket arm preparation is a little exaggerated (you're stretched up quite far and that'll make muscle activation hard), but you are starting to lead with the elbow so that's good. EDIT: You do still want to stretch up when you hit, it's just in the preparation phase I don't think you want to be stretched up quite so far. I think if you practice this, when you go on court you'll end up self-correcting anyway because it'll feel more natural not to start quite so stretched up.
Okay great! I was definitely exaggerating to make sure my arm and elbow were up Also was I pulling my shoulders back enough ?
It looks ok, if you think you can do more then try it. My coaches described it more as 'opening your chest' than 'pulling your shoulders back', if that makes sense. Cheung or MSeeley might be able to give more feedback on that as they're the ones that raised the issue. With your racket arm, try reducing the angle in your elbow (so your forearm is a little closer to your upper arm), lead with the elbow, and then open the elbow as you hit. So when you hit, your want your arm extended nice and high, but don't lock your joint out.
What Charlie said... about pulling your racket shoulder back and opening your chest in wind up. Then use your non racket arm/shoulder to start your trunk rotation to throw your racket shoulder and leading elbow into the shot.
Even with me practicing my swing with no racket, i can feel a huge difference in it when I open my chest( pull shoulders back) my swing feels more effortless yet seems to have more speed to it That’s a great cue for me to have! Should I be opening up my chest on all overhead shots even drops and basic clears ?
Yes. Try to keep that for dropshots and basic clears. This will help you to disguise your shots in the future by having the same preparation. From the video, it looks a lot better but still some fine areas to improve. When you have raised the racquet and hand, the racquet is pointing upwards. However the angle of forearm and upper arm at the elbow is just over 90 degrees. Try to have it around 70-80 degrees. Secondly don't have the racquet strings facing the front. If you look at every decent player, the racquet face does not start facing the net. The classic position is (as a right hander ) for it to be facing slightly to the left.
Sure, this is my first attempt at putting a youtube video into this forum, so lets see how it works. "yi, er, san" is chinese for 1,2,3. Notice the second position the racket is almost touching his spine. The OP is still missing that step and as a grl with less natural power I can't stress that enough. You need to be a bit quicker to get it so far back and then up but it really adds a lot of power to your shot without using any extra muscles. Also notice how close his feet are to the wall and how his body rotates but doesn't flare out at any point. That's an important part to it too. Then you need to go back into the #1 position from the #3 position still without hitting the wall. Also just ignore my weird chinese at the end, I was asking him a question but I cut off the video before I finished, haha. So it's not part of the strategy.
Do you have a picture of the starting position or video of this starting position? Also when I go back into the starting overhead position , when should I open up my chest ? Right before the shot or immediately as I go back into the the overhead starting position?
