That is quite a bit of improvement. I still think your base is too far forward after you play the clear. Your rear court round the head options are rather limited. You tend to be a bit late on the shuttle. I would say you definitely need the flying step movement to the round the head shots. The lack of it is making you lose a lot of advantages. For a description, I think we covered it in one of @DarkHiatus threads.
You should take notice of what happens at 1:28 in the singles game. You start off with a smash without any rotation of the body and almost no power coming from kinetic energy. However your second smash has more power as you use a scissor kick of some sort, which results in better rotation and more kinetic energy. Another way you can get more power is by "being less stiff". You can sometimes get more power in your shots by doing the strokes slower, while making sure that you use your arm as a whip. An example could be when you see the pro's warmup with clears. They will do more of a fluid motion than wait and smack it with a "stiff" arm. Try to work on leading with your elbow in your shots and the whipping motion
I'll have a read up and work on that, thanks. I know for sure my backhand corner is my weakest both in terms of speed of getting there and technique/shot capability. Thanks, rotation I'm always trying to work on. I realise I'm still hitting a bit behind me in a lot of shots as well so maybe just getting back a half step so I can properly rotate into it without hitting it too high/flat.
Please keep in mind that body rotation may not always be possible. E.g. when opponent's reply is flat, you may only have time to do a stick smash. In forehand corner, it's also not always desirable to do scissor kicks. There're actually two types of footwork.
Actually, these points are also covered in @DarkHiatus ' threads. As well as the flying step, scissor kick backwards and striking the shuttle slightly more in front of the body, for short high lifts, there is the walk backwards, double leg jump up and jump smash, follow into the net for kill movement. @Razor-BladE , Are you practicing any of these doing routines or just playing games.
Wow! Lots of improvements, good work Razor-BladE! At the moment you're moving with reasonable confidence, and are capable of playing a good variety of shots. Right now I think there are a few things to look at with your game, but they are generally subtle improvements to help keep you progressing. 1) Service action - I feel like your service action is too long for the backhand side. You see to move your wrist back as your forearm is moving forward, so by the time you hit with your backhand, your wrist couldn't be any further back. Shorten the motion so you don't need your wrist as cocked, this will help improve your ability to respond to return of services. Not only that, it will improve how consistent your serve is. 2) Flying step in the round the head position is coming along, it wants to be a little more dynamic so you're ready to move back to the centre. At the moment you seem to prefer playing high clears from this position, so it's working right now, but strong players will note that and use it to put you on the defensive. 3) You're biasing your position a little too much for the next shot. I understand what you're doing and why, this is how a lot of professional players will do things. I think you should bring it back just a little bit, reduce the rotation and keep your options available. Again stronger players can use this to keep you wrong footed. 4) Defensive position does not seem to be present in your game, at least not as we would expect. You really need to lower those legs, widen your stance, and keep yourself ready to retrieve. At the moment you're very upright, and while it works against Ray here as he likes to clear, anyone with a strong smash will punish your current stance badly. 5) You'll need to go out of your way to train this one. Net consistency. You're making quite a few errors at the net, there's no quick fix. Other than taking the shuttle low, there are no glaring errors to me. But yeah, this just requires drills and practice really. You've improved significantly and I hope you continue to improve. Most of the above are refinements rather than anything significantly incorrect if that makes sense.
Thanks Charlie. I've taken on board the service action and changed that slightly and that's improved a lot (I'll post the singles video in a couple of days). I've tried to focus more on a deeper base stance and the flying step, which I think is improving but I can see from the videos I took yesterday that they're probably not deep enough. Here's an update on our doubles play.
Here's a 'mixed'. We'll be playing a friendly mixed tournament together. This was right at the end so didn't have time to finish a full game unfortunately. Here's a few singles games: Campbell played for the Cambridge county team until he moved to Bristol recently, so quite a level up from me.
One thing I notice in your match against Campbell is your shot accuracy. A lot of your shots to his rear court seem to be down the central third of the court. Admittedly it's a little hard to tell with the camera angle. Sometimes practising accuracy for accuracy's sake is worthwhile, and I think you would benefit from it. In your game I noticed something else that is making your game-play life more difficult. From the rear court you basically have only two shots. Clear or smash. You are losing out on so much variation by not making (more) use of drops. Firstly it makes it more difficult for opponent to position their base. Secondly, using more drops will move your opponent around more. Thirdly it will open up more opportunities/space at their rear court. I know you played a few drops, but they were straight down the middle and applying virtually zero pressure to your opponent. If you can introduce fast drops to either front court corner from either side of your rear court I'm sure you will see the benefit in short order. Of course the cross-court is more aggressive and you need to be better balanced in order to be able to recover suitably fast - experiment with it. Fast drops can be deadly when the opponent slightly misses their length and they don't know if a clear or drop is coming. I should know - it is (or rather was) my bread and butter.
Had a quick look since I am only a smartphone. Some general comments to make. I think you have made a great improvement compared to your first videos. Of course, there are technical issues to work on improving but these are starting to be the finer details which separate you from being an average player to a competitive player at county second or third. Your partner is a little weaker but has got better. Getting past this stage will be harder to do on your own. So, maybe you will have to think about getting coaching. I would not recommend a BAofE level one coach for you unless it happens to be a expert player moving up the coaching system. Perhaps you can discuss with your partner sharing the cost of coaching sessions, putting in about 4 hours a week. With a coach who understands body movement, balance and footwork, you can strengthen your basic techniques and consistency. I can assure you the results will very satisfying after six months.
I like to play 'safe', so I guess I definitely need accuracy practise to get comfortable playing right into the corners/down the tram lines more. I didn't quite realise how little drops I do but looking back at the videos yes you're right! I'll try work on that more. Drop shots are imo one of my weaker 'basic' shots so I'll get some practise in on those. Thanks. Yeah I'm level 1 qualified myself so know how 'easy' it is to get qualified. We have talked about getting a coach and we agreed to do so, but I nothing has come of it at the moment, I'll bring it up again with him and we'll get on that. I know the person who coaches the Avon junior and senior county players so if they're too busy, at the very least they should know of other good coaches.
This is more of a getting something on record, as I haven't improved that much since last time. I still need to work on lower stance, making use of those corners more, and hitting down trams more, and of course as always consistency. I'd say don't bother watching the first game, it's terrible, and a waste of your 4 minutes haha. The second set from 4:20 actually has some rallies.
So it's been a long time since I recorded doubles games. I have been playing twice a week since my last video but rarely singles and no specific training but I think my game has improved. Due to working on Saturdays, I unfortunately haven't been to any tournaments since that last one back in 2016! My Saturdays have freed up now (yay) so hopefully next season, I'll enter in a few (if we're back to normal then!). Improvements wise, I don't make as many unforced errors, and I think I vary my shots a bit more. My backhand isn't too much of a liability now. Things I know I still need to improve: I know my racket carriage is quite bad and my body position/stance still needs to be lower/wider. When I'm front court, I have a habit of trying to anticipate the cross lift and move out when I shouldn't leaving the front open sometimes. Also, defence although better in my lifts, need to stop just lifting and get those defensive drives in to counter attack. Anything else you lovely folk think I need to work on, either technically or tactically? February 2020. I'm in red. Many thanks. Stay safe all.
Defend with left leg forward instead of right leg forward for doubles Try to lower your shoulders and upper body slightly forward of your hips when waiting for a shot.
Some good games. Good downward pressure. But I'd like to see more use of down the middle of your opponents when dropping, smashing or clearing. That would create some poor returns or even outright points. Sent from my SM-G988W using Tapatalk
There's something odd about your forehand overhead technique, I think it's that your arm straightens very early in the swing so you don't lead with your elbow and to compensate there's a 'forced' (i.e. not natural) pronation just before impact.
I recognise that venue from playing against teams there. Unhappy memories of having to hear the judo and loudest ever circuits classes using the other courts at the same time...grrrr...and those damn curtains are a liability. If you are interested in finding coaching and can travel then I think there are (will be again) occasional Sunday sessions in Yate and possibly Gordano. I've moved away so don't know what the current venues and arrangements are but can certainly message you some details and numbers.
When he prepares the racquet for an overhead, the arm and racquet are at hip height. Oddly enough, when he plays a quick stick smash, he raises the racquet up with a much better form. An opponent will watch this and predict his shots.
