Hello everyone! I am a high school doubles player. Here are some videos demonstrating my (probably very bad) smashes. Any advice? And by the way, I'm very interested to learn the powerful jump smashing technique where you kinda kick out your legs as though you were doing some splits and landing on one foot. Hopefully I don't sound ridiculous with that question haha.
Your jump smashes are not bad - you are getting behind the shuttle in good time, are preparing yourself and executing the stroke. There are a number of refinements you can do however. 1) your jump is more of a hop than a jump on many of your jump smashes. The aim of a jump smash is to gain ANGLE which means you need VERTICAL, not just bending your knees. 2) your smashes are quite flat for a jump smash due to (1) above and also because your contact position being low. Slow down to 0.25x speed and you can clearly see that your arm is bent on contact, and also that you are contacting the shuttle reasonably outside your body rather than in line with the shoulder. Watch the YouTube video of Fu Haifeng teaching you to jump smash. You will see he contacts the shuttle almost directly over his shoulder by leaning his body to the side slightly. By doing this he gets even more height, and also has a straighter arm which means more racquet head speed. Just remember that the key to a good jump smash is ANGLE, not power. Angle means jumping high and contacting the shuttle high and early. Power will come by itself if you get the height (where else is all that energy from your jump going to go?) Good smash for high school play - you'll be slinging out 350kph+ smashes like Fu Haifeng soon Edit: video I mentioned. Not going to link a time because the whole video is gold.
No comments on your smashes but you're in America and play badminton? In high school? Big thumbs up for that. I'm always keeping an eye on what is happening in America and I'm heartened by what I see! (I'm american but living in China) Do you guys have a big team? Do you play competitions with other high schools? Anyway, keep it up!
That is some great advice, DarkHiatus, thank you so much! I've actually seen this video before for inspiration; after all, Fu Haifeng is my idol. I noticed that his smash is one continuous stroke, how he jumps with nondominant arm raised and legs slightly bent and almost simultaneously smashes, straightening everything out. My smash however kinda looks very clippy, the kind of smash you get from tutorials online where they divide it into steps. Any comment on that? Any exercises or drills to get height? Thanks a lot!
Hi Borkya! Well, to be fair, I live in the Bay Area of California where we have a predominantly Asian community. Badminton actually is a very commonplace high school sport in California. And don't be fooled by what you hear about badminton in America; it's actually gaining widespread popularity even in states like Texas and Ohio. Give it maybe 10 years and it will overshadow tennis with all the coverage it's been getting. Our team in school consists of around 60-70 members, technically around 120 if you don't count those who have been cut from tryouts. We play a lot of competitions regularly against rival schools in our league for both Varsity (advanced flight) and Junior Varsity (beginner-intermediate flight). My partner and I was the top Junior Varsity at the time, and we hope this season in spring to advance to the Varsity team.
This is mainly because your smash is delivered almost solely from your shoulder upwards. In order to get the timing right, you therefore have a slight "hang time" before you smash with a short stroke action and the result is a stroke that looks abbreviated (because it is). In that video above, FHF shows you how much of his core he is engaging. Watch how much he curls his abs even on a standing smash. If you use more of your body including your abs, you will have to start your stroke earlier, and as a result the movement will look more continuous because it's now a full stroke from jump to contact. If you look carefully enough, there isn't actually a "hang time" when the pros execute a jump smash. It just appears like it because engaging large muscles e.g. abs doesn't make much movement even though they are doing a lot.
That's great to hear. I'm from the east coast where tennis is king and badminton is only a child's backyard game. I really hope it will overtake tennis one day. But glad to hear it is so big there even in high school. Good luck rising up the ranks and hope someday you get top varsity.
You really get some strength into your shot already! I think that one of the areas you should probably look at is lower->upper body rotation ex. going from sideways->straight on->slightly more sideways. I might be wrong, but that seems to be what really sticks out from the Fu Haifeng example. Notice how your body is relatively straight on both before, at the hitting phase and at the end of the stroke. I definitely believe that this will make the stroke feel more fluid and also add a lot of kinetic energy into your shot
Hello guys , I'm an amateur Badminton player. Just started learning ( by myself ) from few months . So far I'm comfortable with the basic shots but I struggle a lot with timing the jump smash . I can time the normal smash ( without jump that is ) almost correct always . But when I do jump , I'm either too early or too late . So I miss time it completely and even miss the shuttle in most cases. How can I improve on this ? Is there any analogy or thought process that would help ?
repeatitive what you need but not in games but stroke exchange. The same as how you can time your swing so you could hit the shuttlecork. On warming up with friend like when doing clear hit exchange, add jumping on each overhead stroke. No need to smash but jump & clear, jump & drop.
