That's an interesting video. I'm not sure what he is demonstrating, since I can't speak German. If he is demonstrating a normal, power smash, however, then I don't find his demonstration at all convincing. The smashes are weak and flat
Well, it's about how in his opinion is the grip by smashing: first as, you can see, very loose, then when you hit you grips very tight. And you can see too that he is using a "LJB" grip.
I think he might be even farther towards panhandle than LJB. I wouldn't say "very loose", but his grip is relaxed, and then tightens during the stroke. This part of his technique is certainly "standard".
You might want to study the position of his hitting point in relating to his shoulder. Example the grip position will change if you choose to power smash with hitting point infront of your shoulder, and quick angled smash with the hitting point behind your shoulder. If he is gripping close to panhandle; it might indicate that his natural optimum power smash position is far infront of his shoulder and may be at the lower angle of elevation and thus account for flatter smash.
This may well be true; yet the smashes look like they would be easy to return: since the angle is so flat, a drive return would regain the attack. They are not even especially fast, so the defenders should have no trouble controlling the drive return. From that midcourt position, when the shuttle is high enough, the right stroke choice is obvious: a powerful, steep smash. Perhaps he means to demonstrate the situation when the shuttle is too low to perform a steep smash In that case, his technique is useful. It might be more meaningful if I understood the language properly; but to be honest, I find it an entirely unconvincing demonstration. Indeed, his technique looks like something I would try to correct if I saw one of my students using it!
Quote: Many top players learn to make a slight adjustment towards panhandle for some smashes. Yet this is easily over-exaggerated if you deliberately learn a "smash grip". A further danger of learning this smash grip is that you will probably start using it for clears and dropshots. Clears from the forehand rearcourt are likely to go out the side, or to be heavily sliced. Dropshots will lack "feel" because this grip limits the interaction of thumb and first finger Although I do not agree with Lee Jae's "smash grip" teaching, my respect for him as a coach is not at all diminished. He remains an inspiring coach and I have learned many new ideas from him. Yet I believe it is foolish to elevate anyone to a godlike status, where his views are beyond doubt. I believe it is better to look for a consensus than to follow the opinions of a single person. LJB stated quite clearly the reason why he rotated his grip is because this slight rotation will allow him to hit the shuttle square when he smashes. He did not mention using the same rotated as the universal "neutral grip" or for clears or drops. I tried rotating in both directions and decided for myself that for my stroke, the neutral position is fine. Coach #091027 on the other hand clearly failed to understand the essence of this rotation and decided, obviously without trying the variations, that he would embrace the rotation as a fixed angle for everybody. That is until Daddy came along and told him that is "rubbish" and if he wanted to keep his little piece of wall paper to show everybody that he is actually a "recognized coach", then he would have to hold his racket the way Daddy wanted him to do. I have never seen anything so absurd. A real coach should be an accomplished palyer who is teaching his own style of the game. This of course will not suit everyone's style, and that's why there are other coaches who have other styles and therefore will better suit some other players. This idea of one style and one teaching dictated by a central authority is utter nonsense, and it may explain why England is not a badminton powerhouse. Quote: Yes, I accept that I have changed my views on grips. I have also given good reasons for this change of opinion. I do not agree that the change is "180 degrees" Which is better: to be honest when you change your views, or to cling to your old views to avoid losing credibility? I am confident of my credibility, both on Badminton Central and in my personal coaching. I prefer to tell the truth. The short answer is "neither". If you are not even sure about such basics as the grips you are not qualify to be a coach. You have no credibility hiding behind Daddy. Are you now refunding all your students that you taught the rotated grip? Does the LJB grip command a higher fee to learn than Gollum's Daddy's grip, since LJB is clearly closer to God than coach #091027 in the world of badminton. Quote: You are espousing what I like to call "bohemian badminton". Bohemian badminton is a groovy, laid-back school of teaching. It says that there is no right or wrong way to perform a stroke. Instead, there are lots of alternative techniques, which all are equally good. The techniques are as individual as the player. This is utter rubbish, of course If you genuinely think that there is one shoe that fits all, then you are even worse than I gave you credit for. Surely Chinese shoes are different from Indonesian shoes and different from Korean shoes.... It has nothing to do with being groovy or being right or wrong, just different. I doubt that many accomplished players in this forum actually hold the racket the way you do, with or without the LJB rotation. There are simply many way to get the same job done, whether you realize it or not. You will be a much better student of this game the sooner you drop your arrogance.
Wow, the technique from that video looked terrible to me. First of all, his elbow position is so low, it looks as though his contact point could be much higher. As a result he's missing out on getting better angle, and earlier contact. Second of all, his shoulder rotation leads his hip rotation. This means he gets no leg drive for his shot. In fact, he barely moves his legs at all - notice when the feeder tosses a bad one, he ends up swinging at it from out of position, leading him to hit a bad shot. I suppose you could define smashes (or any overhead shot) as being hip dominant, shoulder dominant or forearm dominant. Hip dominant would be the ones that rely mostly on good footwork, weight transfer and kick from your legs to initiate the stroke. While providing potentially the greatest maximum power potential due to the long stroke length, it also requires the most preparation and recovery time. The power of this stroke comes from the fact that energy from the hips is transferred through the body, engaging the stretch reflex across the shoulder and the forearm and the velocity summing up at contact for a very high contact speed. Forearm dominant strokes would rely on wrist action (i.e. pronation) to generate the majority of the racquet speed. While not having the same total power potential as the hip dominant shot, the forearms have the greatest effect on racquet head position, so it is only somewhat less powerful. Meanwhile, it requires minimal preparation and recovery time. Therefore, the forearm dominant stroke has high rate potential. The shoulder dominant smash is the one that relies heavily on internal shoulder rotation to generate racquet speed. This is commonly seen in beginners and evidently, this guy. The trouble with this stroke is twofold. To get good leverage with the internal rotators, the arm is abducted 90 degrees out to the side. This, as mentioned above, greatly reduces contact height. Secondly, it seems that this stroking style favours the use of the panhandle grip, or at least more panhandle than the other strokes. I'm thinking that it might be because at that shoulder joint angle, the body is already in a poor position to decelerate the racquet after contact without having to deal with the extra torque from an intense forearm pronation. So, to protect itself, your body puts limits on your force production, and people using this type of stroke find using a panhandle grip in this case to reduce the stress on the shoulder, and therefore, allow more force to be generated for their stroke. Ultimately though, the shoulder dominant smash offers neither the maximum power of the hip dominant smash nor the rate power of the forearm dominant smash. The lower contact angle also makes it much less effective. Why would one use a shoulder dominant smash? Well, it could be guessed that the person never learned any other technique. It is probably the easiest to learn movement of the three: the forearm dominant smash requires a precisely timed high speed wrist action, the hip dominant smash good full body control and sequencing, whereas the shoulder dominant smash is relatively simple (action is mostly at the shoulder joing) and has a large margin of error in timing because of the longer swinging arc. Quite commonly, when I'm tired my overhead strokes degenerate into a shoulder dominant stroke - it could be related to overhead shoulder fatigue. Also such popular upper body strength exercises as the bench press and the push-up work the pectorals -an internal rotator of the shoulder, while the shoulders are abducted at 90 degrees. The most common upper body pulling exercise is the pullup - the lats are also internal rotators. With these muscles becoming ever stronger, the body will tend to use more internal shoulder rotation in its power stroke. A sprint coach once said "If it looks right, it flies right." While this guy appears to be comfortable with his stroking style, clearly we can see how unimpressive his smashes are. At that range, he should easily be able to have the bird hit the ground at mid-court without sacrificing power. I suppose every player is allowed to have some "personal variations" in their strokes, but if it means hitting smashes like that guy, I'd rather stick with the more standard techniques.
AKFT, I suggest that you read this post: http://www.badmintonforum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=34268 . Your behaviour towards me is aggressive, sarcastic, and generally unpleasant. This behaviour encourages vicious personal attacks instead of respectful, rational debate. I will not respond in kind, because I am sick to death of flamewars. If you want an exciting mud-slinging contest, then go somewhere else. I may say that I am extremely skilful in mud-slinging, but have since retired from competitive play due to my distaste for the sport So say you. I don't agree. Coaches who teach their own style of doing things are not really coaches. They are just players passing on what works for them. And sometimes, what the coach thinks he does is not actually what he does. In this case, he ends up teaching a technique that he doesn't use. These coaches also often fail to appreciate the crucial distinction between understanding a technique and teaching it. In so far as there is something wrong with English coaches, I believe it is this: some of them seem to ignore their coach education and teach non-standard, esoteric techniques. On my level two course, there was a very nice lady coach called Mary. Mary said to me, "I don't know about this split drop thing. I think it slows you down." It became clear that she didn't teach the split drop. Okay, so she doesn't use the split drop in her own play. That's fine. But it is not okay for her to exclude it from her teaching. That is the problem with some coaches -- that they don't listen to their instructors, or that they listen just enough to pass the exam and then forget what they were taught. That is the arrogant way to coach: to think that you know better than the national coaching body. Please note that I have tried all the variations of grip discussed here. I played with Lee's smash grip for many months before changing to Badminton England's grip. If I believed Lee's grip was better, I would still be using it. In any case, I hope that in the new version of the grips guide I shall be able to treat this issue of smash grips to the satisfaction of most of my readers. I intend to represent Lee Jae Bok's views, although I will also explain where I disagree with him and my reasons. I have no intention of witholding information or ideas from my readers, but I will try to structure the guide so that the depth of information does not confuse players or lead them to adopt techniques that I, or Badminton England, consider harmful. Ultimately, of course, the reader may make his own choice. I doubt that you will be satisfied in any case, but that is of little import.
Just a quick note to say Thank you to Gollum for his many contributions in the forum ... AKFT has interesting ideas ...which will no doubt enrich this forum.... It would be great to cut out the personal remarks which does no one any good at all.
I guess this brings up the intereting topic of coaching certification versus practical experience. In the strength training community, many personal trainer certifications are not seen as being very useful because of the poor information they provide. Yet in most commercial gyms, you will find these kinds of trainers relaying this poor training information to their clients. The general consensus, however, is that it is good to get the certification, just not to see it as the end of the learning process, but rather as an introduction to the material which will be better understood with more practical experience. In my town, my coach is seen (or at least he used to be) as the one who teaches the "unconventional" technique - the use of the forearm dominant short stroke instead of the full body rotation swing. I've actually heard another coach refer to him being unconventional in style. The funny thing is, my coach is the one with the coaching certification, the other coach the one without. Having trained under both of them, guess which one I had better results with ? As I've learned more about coaching theory, I see the little things that my coach does (and what the other coach doesn't do) which ultimately has an effect on my learning and development as a player.
Well, it's not just about the certificate. Obviously a good coach is not a robot who mechanically follows a set routine prescribed by Badminton England. Every coach has something individual to bring to the game. Where I have a problem with individuality is this: when it directly contradicts some fundamental element of the coach's instruction. I think this is a bit like a strength trainer failing to teach basic, safe ways to lift heavy weights. The strength trainer might also give information about alternative training regimes -- perhaps different regimes for different trainging objectives -- that are not directly taught to him in his certification. This is fine; he is making use of his extra knowledge to improve his coaching. But it is not okay to contradict some fundamental tenet of the coaching he has been taught. Standards matter; this is one reason that Badminton England are converting their coaching awards to the UK Coaching Certificate structure. It is important to make sure that coaches are actually teaching what they are supposed to be teaching, and that players can expect a certain standard of education when they employ a coach. In other words, standards provide accountability. At the very least, it is the responsibility of accredited coaches to explain clearly when they are teaching something that this not canon. If players employ a Badminton England coach, then they should get Badminton England teaching -- or at least they should know when the coach deviates from the teaching, and he should also show them the "official" technique. I certainly don't see the certificate as the end of the learning process! That's one reason that I have been corresponding with Badminton England over the development of the grips guide: because I want to improve my understanding. I have asked them many questions about grips -- some a little provocative, perhaps -- and their detailed answers have improved my understanding. Lee Jae Bok's coaching has also improved my understanding, and that's why I will represent some of his ideas in the guide.
hey guys, im a bit confused as to the new grip gollum has introduced, if it is a rotation away from the panhandle, surely u cant hit smashes from the same contact point (in front of you). im guessin ud now hit them further back, say above your head, otherwise ud end up slicing the shuttle......btw gollum ur contributions are very useful! one other thing, the thumb going under the index finger in LJBs - i really cant see how this is a better way of allowing the thumb to grip the handle tightly during impact, it still cant 'curl around the handle' to get a secure grip on it. thankyou
i havnt tried this "outward" rotation grip yet, but in my imagination, it looks really awkward. I watched the LYB videos awhile ago, and use his grip for smashing and sometimes clearing(obviously depending on position and power needed) personally, i find the grip to be excellent , and it really improved my smashing power, as it encourages you to twist the arm hard. A neutral grip doesnt give as wide a range of motion for the forearm spin/pronation etc. for me. so for me anyway, isnt a even half as powerful. i dont use the grip for anything else really, as it would result in awkward slicing and inaccuracy etc, but as a functional grip for overhead powershots, i think its really good. give it a try. takes a few days to settle in, but once you get the hang of it, it gives alot of power.
An update on this popular topic: Badminton England teaches* four primitive grips: basic, thumb, panhandle, and bevel. For forehand overheads, BE teaches the use of the basic grip. BE does not teach a "smash grip". Clearly, the grip will need to change depending on the position of the shuttle. Lee Jae Bok is correct that the grip must be adjusted slightly towards panhandle, when the shuttle is in front of the body in an ideal position for a smash. I have confirmation from BE that Lee Jae Bok's technical analysis is correct. Nonetheless, BE discourages coaches from teaching this "smash grip" on pedagogical grounds. Players tend to move towards panhandle anyway. The difficulty is getting them to stop! You must be very careful about "allowing" any panhandling; unless the player has already mastered overhead hitting with the basic grip, "allowing" him to play around with panhandle variations is likely to undo your other coaching. * Or rather, they will teach these grips when the syllabus changes. I don't know whether this change has made it into the new UKCC levels 1 and 2; we might have to wait for level 3.
This was my previous grip before using the neutral basic grip (V centered between the side and front bevels). I find it gets a lot of power, but in order to use it, you have to use your whole body to clear, your whole body to smash, etc, because you dont' have pronation working for you to get a lot of power. The basic, grip, while weaker than the LJB grip at first, seeing as I was using it before, gives actually more power when you need it because instead of using your whole body to power every smash, you can use just forearm and wrist to give a quick surprise smash, then add body rotation, and faster upper arm movement to add even more power.
Any other similar site? I found this site very helpful. Even my local coach didn't know all the tricks I got from these videos. http://www.ibbs.tv/home/home.aspx Any other similar sites?
