October 2, 2012
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Badminton 101
I went to play badminton with some of [CM]‘s classmates on Sunday. Some observations on things that people could do to improve their game, that they don’t really think about when they’re just starting out playing:
Move your feet.
The biggest single thing that most people can improve about their game, including beginners, is footwork.
Often, players resort to overextending (reaching) or jumping to hit a bird that’s just out of their reach. Instead of overreaching, get your body into the proper position on the court, and have as good posture as possible to hit the appropriate shot. There’s several reasons for this.
If you’re late, and your body is out of position because you’re overreaching, you probably will be forced to power through a shot by using extra wrist or shoulder action (which could also lead to injury). In contrast, if you’re in the right place and have a good posture for hitting, you can spread the power requirements of a shot across all the muscles used in a proper technique. Using your body’s rotation and abs are important multipliers for power, for example.
If you’re late, the mental stress is going to affect your accuracy. Accuracy will also be affected because of the limited muscle groups you can use to generate the power necessary to deliver the technique.
Further, your recovery time will be poor because your body is probably leaning and you still have a lot of momentum. This means that after you hit the bird, you’re probably going to still have a lot of kinetic energy going. One of the easiest things for more advanced players to exploit about beginners is the exessive momentum they have after they perform a shot– one of the most damaging counter that an opponent can use against someone who has excessive momentum is to fire a shot in the direction they were coming from. This is called wrongfooting.
This is actually what leads to a lot of frustration in beginners– because they’re wrongfooted, they’ll increasingly be late to get to birds. If they’re late for birds, then they’ll hit from disadvantaged positions– and that’s when people hit bad shots, into the net, out, or too high, or too weak, etc.
Move sooner, not necessarily faster.
There’s something to be said about grace. But you don’t need to necessarily be faster in your movement speed. As in, in most cases, your ability to travel X metres per second does not have to increase. What you need to do, actually, is decrease the amount of time it takes for you to START moving after the opponent hits the bird. What I’m saying is, oftentimes, the opopnent hits a bird, and then you just kinda stare for a moment before deciding to start running to where it’s heading (assuming it’s not coming straight at you). Reduce this time, move sooner, and you won’t need to move as quickly.
This is largely about concentration, as in, simply, you need to learn to concentrate. However, there are also physical cues you can use to ‘jump start’ your reaction time. The simples of which is…
Ready Position
Like martial arts, you wouldn’t face your opponent who was imminently going to clash with you without having your guard up. In the same way, when you’re playing badminton, you need a ready position that allows you a range of possible movements to respond to your opponent’s actions. The two simplest things you can do as part of a good ready position are: keep your racket up; and keep your knees bent.
Keeping your racket up doesn’t necessarily mean over your head, it depends on the situation. However, it should never be limp and hanging idly by your side. Again, this follows the previously mentioned philosophy of moving sooner, not necessarily faster. If someone is going to punch you in the face, even if you’re not fast enough to parry it, you have a higher chance of a useful result if your hands were high and generally protective than if they were down and scratching your ass. Same goes for badminton.
Keeping your knees bent is a generalisation, but it follows the same concept– you’re more likely to be able to get somewhere if you’re posture is half-cocked than if you’re standing perfectly straight. Standing straight means that when your opponent hits the bird, it’ll take you an extra beat to bend your knees, load your weight, and spring. Ideally, you’ve done the loading just as your opponent is winding up, and at the moment of his/her racket contact, you’re already in mid-spring, and just have to chose a direction.
Stop smashing / hitting hard shots (with the exception of clears).
I mostly say this because, first of all, most beginners are pretty bad at smashing to begin with. I don’t just mean raw power– they’re also probably not hitting the right angles, or the right targets. But most significantly, most people are smashing when they’re vulnerable.
By vulnerable, I mean again what I said about being out of posture, or reaching, or having leftover momentum. Vulnerability means your susceptability to counter attacks. If you hit a bird hard, the bird will travel very quickly to it’s destination, which means that the return will come fast as well. If you’re vulnerable, you will have a harder time getting to that return.
I’m not saying that you should never smash– but, many beginners have smashes that are easily countered (often even by other beginners, in a technical sense) but lead more to being countered or losing advantage than success.
In the beginning, especially guys, badminton is hard to get better at because there is too much reliance on hitting harder and out-physiquing the opponent. The truth is, it’s hard to get physically stronger and faster in a way that translates to badminton in a noticeable way.
Instead of using your upgrade points in Strength (hitting harder) or Agility / Dexterity (Increasing your speed, or flexibility of hitting positions), put it in Intelligence. Slow down. Think about what you’re doing. Don’t ADD to your bad habits– reduce them.
Initially, you’re at a great time in your badminton career– your learning curve will be amazing. You don’t need to become stronger or faster to progress to intermediate play level. You don’t need to “add” things, in most cases. Mostly, what you need to do, is “reduce” bad things. Don’t become faster– just stop doing the things that slow you down. Don’t hit harder– put yourself in a position to hit more effiiciently. Don’t scramble to get to those birds that are just out of your reach– slow down your own shots, so the returns will come to you slower.
Get in the habit of shouting.
Especially if you play doubles. Call out birds that you think are yours, that you think are your partners. Call it out when you think the opponent’s shot is going to go out. Call out “YES” or “GOOD SHOT” when your partner does something good. Fighting spirit is one of the most important things that you can train. Your effectiveness in a pinch will severely degrade if your morale is down, and shouting (appropriately) is one way of generating spirit. (It also saves you and your partner the embarassement of breaking eachothers’ rackets by hitting them together, or missing a bird because neither of you went for it)
