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Helping a young beginner who tries to serve but always misses: Usually this is caused when the player drops the shuttle and swings at the same time. Time after time they will think that they must swing quickly if they want to contact the shuttle before it reaches the floor. The result is always the same, the racquet shaft and not the racquet head passes through (or by) the shuttle and the service is never delivered. Stand behind the youngster and have them hold the shuttle and their racquet. Hold the wrist of the shuttle hand and the hand of the racquet hand.

On the count of 1, move the shuttle hand as though you were releasing the shuttle.

On the count of 2, shift the player's weight forward via the hips/knees.

On the count of 3, start the racquet moving forward to serve.

"1-2-3 over the net" can be repeated during the action. Emphasize a rhythm similar to dancing e.g. "1-2-3, cha-cha-cha"

Teaching the scissor kick (scissor movement/round-the-head)

Many hours may be wasted by coaches trying to get beginner and intermediate players to learn this movement. Coaches, on your own time, try breaking the movement down into its major components:

1. racquet foot on the ground towards the rear of the court with the non-RF off the ground, weight back, non-RA in the air, RA lowered but with the racquet pointed upwards 2. jump with trunk rotation, landing on other foot Your students will remember the movie Karate Kid I where the young hero practiced the "Crane" movement for hours on a rock. That is almost the same movement that we are asking them to do in badminton. Have fun, pretend that the player(s) is the Karate Kid. Have them practice standing in position 1 with their racquet. Then switch to position

2. After they feel comfortable with balance, have them swing the racquet as they are in the air moving from position 1 to position 2. Add the movement to and from the corner AFTER they master the jump and weight transfer. Children are easily able to learn this complex movement at a very early age.

Advice in the 5 minute break

This is a terrible situation for a coach. But it often happens that you have too many players at an event to adequately watch all games and no available, more experienced players to help you watch the others. Most coaches would initiate a problem solving session with the player to assist them establish their own game plan. But some coaches of junior players are aware of certain "developmental" trends with young players in general, I repeat, in general. They will often try to determine if certain skills are strong or weak in the opponent by asking the player direct questions. In general, players have problems in the following skill areas:

Under 12 players -strength from the back of the court

Under 14 players -weak backhands

Under 16 players -weak movement to the rear forehand corner

Under 18 players -poor forecourt coverage; both defending against fast drops and taking the shuttle high at the net and doing something useful with it This being the case, coaches would be advised to help their player determine if the above skill could be exploited or not.

The converse, of course, is to work harder with the players you coach so that they do not fall into one of the above categories.

Avoiding Racing Around the Court "Speed" in badminton is not as difficult to learn as it appears to be. Young players are in awe of the better players, especially the internationals, because they appear to move effortlessly, never racing, always getting to the shuttle. Yet, of course, that is the skill to learn and try as they may, the amateurs can never seem to avoid being rushed. The secret lies not in generating speed, but in generating momentum. Think about it. One only really has but a few steps to take in any direction in order to return a shuttle.

The court is quite small, especially when the player starts from a central base, or close to it. Initiating movement is the skill to be practiced. Leaving your mark. Exploding from the base. A player who "explodes" from the base with 1 or 2 rapid, short steps will have no difficulty in reaching the shuttle (in theory). Simple, eh? Practice moving in and out of the central singles base. Avoid rushing back to the base each time. Time the return so that ONE foot only touches into the base area at the same time as the imaginary opponent hits the shuttle, push off with 1 or 2 quick, short steps and slow down as you get closer to the corner. It's tough to get that momentum going when both feet are rooted on the floor.

Returning "Flick" Serves This is not my tip, but I'll pass it on. Players of all ages seem to have trouble properly preparing to return a flick serve in doubles. They like to stand at the very front of the court with their toe practically touching the front service line, but just can't get to the rear of the court to return a "flick" or "wrist" serve.

Tell the players to "Lean forward and think backwards". Works well!

Article was written by Gord Smith (
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Summary
In the first part of this series of badminton skills articles, you discovered the different style of player. In part 2 I shared my thoughts on identifying your opponents strengths and weaknesses via a skills audit, albeit most of the time, an on-court, in the game, test your opponent type of audit.

In this third and final part of the series, it’s time to bring the pieces together and help you understand yourself as a player, your partner, how to be a winning team and how to design badminton tactics to beat your opponent(s).

Let’s Begin With Style…

Yes, we’ve covered this in part 1 but not like this.

In singles, whatever happens on the badminton court, it’s down to you, your skills, your strengths and weaknesses and whether on that day, you have all the pieces to defeat your opponent.

The first element of changing the game will depend on whether your style is getting the result against your opponent. Either they play the same style as you and therefore are better or worse at it than you.

Secondly, within the realms of style are skills. Is your opponent better equipped skill-wise than you are?
Having answered these questions, if you are in a commanding position, then there’s no need to change. However, if you are losing, then your ability to change your style and introduce new elements into the game and win will depend on two things…

1) Your ability
2) Your opponent’s ability to adapt to these changes.

It gets far more complex when you’re playing doubles. In this discipline, consideration must be made to both yours and your partner’s styles. Are they compatible or is this a recipe for disaster? E.g. if you’re an aggressive attacker and your partner is a defender thinker, then you’ve got such a mismatch it’s going to be difficult to gel as a pair.

There would need to be a good deal of compromise in order to find a tactical place to win points from.
So ideally, you need to choose your partner based on similar or complimentary styles.

Take a good look around your club members for a level and mixed doubles partner that would potentially fit this ideal. Do you know who they are? Have you partnered them in the past and played well together?

And What About Skills?

Just as important. Again, look for similar and/or complimentary skills. Why?

Whenever you partner a player, it’s important that you play the best combined game you can. To accomplish this, you need to maximise your strengths and minimise your weaknesses, however, you should always look to play to your strengths first and impose this game on your opposition.

In top class badminton I raised the point that the Defender Thinker style is obsolete. I’ll take this point further and suggest that the Aggressive Defender style is also obsolete because in the modern day game, matches are won based on the quality and consistency of the attack. Yes, player’s defences are becoming stronger, however, partnerships cannot afford to sit back and defend anymore.

A classic complimentary partnership at the moment is current All England Champions Jonas Rasmussen and Lars Paaske. Rasmussen is the big hitter in this pair and prefers to play at the rear court. Both are excellent defenders. However, the partnership works because Paaske is by far the better server, is almost unstoppable from half court forward and sets up so many opportunities for Rasmussen. He also has a masterful tactical brain.

Rasmussen is the more nervous of the two players and tends to suffer serving jitters during big points. He’s also prone to the most unusual, kamikaze attacks at times which are extremely high risk and subject to a high percentage of errors. But, it keeps their opponents wondering what’s going to happen next.

In this case, one is a more aggressive attacker but is complimented by an Attacking Thinker.

What About Lower League Badminton?

In league badminton where most of us play, all styles are still prevalent and effective, depending on standard of the players.

There are styles which do not work well together or are not particularly complimentary, however this doesn’t mean they won’t win a few games. Do you know which ones fit well together and which ones are a complete mis-match? Let’s take a closer look…

Aggressive Attacker + Aggressive Attacker = match (very hard to beat)
Aggressive Attacker + Attacking Thinker = match (superb combination)
Aggressive Attacker + Aggressive Defender = mismatch (but has possibilities.)
Aggressive Attacker + Defender Thinker = mismatch. (too many differences)
Attacking Thinker + Aggressive Defender =- match (but need to define their tactics)
Attacking Thinker + Defender Thinker = match (a good understanding is needed here)
Aggressive Defender + Defender Thinker = mismatch (but can win against a poor/disjointed defence)

Each of these combinations has potential to win but this will depend on the style and skills of their opponents.
I see a lot of aggressive defenders and defender thinkers in club level, more than I do aggressive attackers. I don’t know why this is, but it would seem there are many players who like to counter hit rather than attack with intent.

Adapting Your Badminton Style

Having discussed the relative differences in style in earlier articles, one of the key elements in a good badminton player is the ability to adapt. In my opinion, the attacking thinker player is the most adaptable and that’s why they can fit other styles, albeit with a degree of compromise.

You see, sometimes you’re selected for a team and told who you’re playing with. Whilst you’d like to play your game, more often than not you also have to be aware of your partner’s style and skills and adapt to their game in order to win.

You almost have to compromise your game to fit into a partnership. And that’s why some partnerships don’t work. The players are incapable of adapting and gelling together to make a good pair. At times like these, the only thing to do is look elsewhere.

How Do You Design Badminton Tactics?

The first thing you need to do is work out your strengths and weaknesses as a pair. A high degree of honesty and realism is required here because once you’re on court, all of your skills are on display. Despite having a “bad day” you’d be expected to fulfil your role on court without too many surprises for your partner.

Second, you need to agree what is your strongest formation when you’re attacking. This begins to dictate the shots you will play to retain or gain this winning formation.

No surprises to guess that you ask the same questions of your opponents. What is their favoured formation? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Having assessed this information, you design tactics based on moving them away from their favoured formation, focussing on exploiting their weaker areas. By understanding what these weak areas are, you therefore know where to place the shuttle to obtain the response you are looking for.

This means you play shots with INTENT, to cause a desired response. That’s what playing tactically means. So rather than your normal reactive response to a situation that your opponents have caused, you are now being far more direct in what you are trying to achieve, which is to obtain a weak response or error. From this the point is either lost by your opponent or you win from the intended set up.

Let’s look at an example…

You’re playing a mens doubles and you’ve been partnered with a Defensive Thinker style. You’re an Attacking Thinker style. You’re both strong defensively and your best combination is you at the rear court and your partner at the net.

You’re facing an Aggressive Attacker and Defensive Thinker. Their weakest formation is to move the Defensive Thinker away from the net. You certainly don’t want to lift the shuttle to the Aggressive Attacker because this will play to their partnership strengths.

So with this partnership, you decide to lure the Aggressive Attacker forward by taking the pace off the shuttle which they don’t like. Then you get the shuttle behind them to the rear court so that their weakest combination is on show. Your tactics are working. Now you need to pin the Defender Thinker into the corners, keeping his partner out of the game (this will test their mental strength because they can’t hit the shuttle hard).

From this position, whilst you may be defending, you are ready to pick up any loose shots and also quickly change your defence into attack. You may have worked out that if you drive the shuttle back from a smash, your partner immediately moves his base towards the net to counter a block here, therefore pressurising your opponent to lift and provide you with your favoured formation to attack.

As you can imagine, there are too many scenarios to play out here, but you get the idea don’t you? Your analysis of the opponents playing styles, and strengths and weaknesses, in addition to the analysis of your own game, allows you to design the responses you make in order to gain the advantage and take control of the game by adopting your favoured formation.

What To Do Next

Before you go on court with your partner, why not change your approach to the game. Instead of walking on, knocking up and getting on with it, have a serious chat. Work out how to play your best game together and a brief analysis of your opponents.

Design your badminton tactics around the information you share and then play the game from the first point with intent to win points by the design of your shots.

I expect you’ll make a few mistakes getting used to this kind of game. However, I also believe that if you get it right, you will take the game off your opponents and they’ll leave the court wondering what happened.

This concludes my 3 part article designed to improve your tactical awareness on a badminton court. I really hope you’ve found it useful and you continue to develop in this area and surprise your opponents in the future. It’s been fun writing it, and I hope you’ll send in your comments when you’ve tested it to let me know how it’s working for you.

Article was written by Paul Stewart, Badminton Coach, UK.

Performing a well executed deception can be used both as a useful strategy and part of your several "shots bank" that can give you the winning edge while playing. As valid as executing other shots such as a smash or drops, it also makes how we see badminton beautifully played since it a technical skills that is an art by itself.

In regards with the way we play badminton now, which emphasize on speed and power, there are still place for deception since the millisecond of breathing space produced while executing it can be part of the preparation as a winner and theoretically it should be part of the coaching module. So can deception be coached?

The answer is yes but its not easy. Before coaching a player to execute the correct technique about deception, that player must understand first on how to execute all the full range of normal shots using the correct technique. The other important ingredient to successfully execute a deception is to have a fair degree of forearm and wrist strength since they are used ultimately to energize for the late arrival of the racket head to the shuttle upon hitting it. Your eyes also needs to be very sharp and always alert so that you can have a clear vision and awareness on how you move your racket in refer to where is your opponent positioned in order to properly coordinate the next hit in ensuring the deception is a well executed one.

As long as badminton has exist, the types of deception also has evolved since it is part of the badminton evolution. Therefore, there are a lot of deceptions available now and only "your fantasy" can be the limit to what available types of deception that can possibly exist. Personally, i have a lot of type of deception under my belt and frankly speaking, I've used them quite often and it helps me a lot as part of my winning edge in numbers of tournament. I've coached them also to my students as part of the advance module in the coaching program and i can see its psychological advantage and positive breakthrough on how they are playing and i want to share this knowledge to you.

Teaching deception theoretically using words and sentences is not easy since, it is the applied technical part that will give the full effect on how the correct technique should be executed. Therefore, by having the correct knowledge, continuously practice on perfecting the technique so that it can eventually be executed correctly. Learning deception is one thing but perfecting it require full dedication and concentration because it is an art that you cannot master overnight.

Deception 1 - Hold and Hit

1. Intro

Arguably among the most common deception used, the hold and hit type deception can be a lethal maneuver by itself if executed well. The "hit" portion can either end as a flick or net (if you're retrieving the shuttlecock as a net play) or a drive or drop (if you're retrieving the shuttlecock as a drive shot) depends on where your opponents reacts and moves. Its the combination of both "hold", that makes your opponent mind thinks it is going to be hit at that particular shot hence reacts to it and the "hit" portion where the direction of the shuttlecock upon hitting it will go to the opposite direction that act as a deceptive moves that eventually leaves your opponent stranded. One recent maneuver was performed by Peter Gade yesterday against a Japanese player, Yamada in this year WC.

2. Type

The "hold" and "hit" deception has two type of maneuver, the back swing follow through and no back swing follow through. These two different type exist because it is referring to the different technique applied in its "hold" component. This thread will only concentrate on teaching the "back swing follow through" "hold" and "hit" type of deception since this is the most difficult and among the most deceptive shot available.

3. "Hold" and " Hit" - The back swing follow through

3.1 Components

The differences between the back swing follow through and no back swing follow through is at its "hold" component since it requires for the player to extend the forearm as like retrieving the shots but then, there are no immediate "contact/hit" perform yet. This is because the player needs to do a reverse movements or back swing of his forearm as to allow a synchronize movements backwards of the racket head in refer to the shuttlecock to create a time frame delay before hitting the shuttlecock at the last possible moments. The no back swing follow through will have minimal or no back swing movement and the time frame delay will be more shorter.

3.2 Technique

This deception has 4 phase which include preparation, the hold phase - retrieving, the hold phase - back swing follow through and finally the hit phase. Below is the diagram of all the phases and the explanation on what are techniques to executed them.

a. Preparation

- Always hold the racket head level high. By doing this, you can address/retrieve the shuttlecock earlier and to make enough room for your forearm to extend.

b. Hold - Retrieving

- Extend your forearm as like your going to address the shuttlecock to hit it but don't hit it yet. The earlier you address is better since it will make more room for you to perform a back swing later.

* As mention earlier, it is important also at this point to be clearly aware where is your opponent positioned.

c. Hold - back swing follow through

* This is the most tricky part as you need to have a good coordination to synchronize the forearm back swing movement with the shuttlecock travel trajectory together with the split second awareness where is your opponents position and his movements.

- Do a reverse movement of your forearm/a back swing of your racket and synchronize its movement together with the speed and direction of the shuttlecock . This back swing action together with the shuttlecock movement and the wait to hit the shuttlecock until the last moment will in fact create the delay.
- At the same time, coordinate this movement together with a clear awareness on where is your opponent moves.
- The deceptive moves depends hugely on the amount of delay performed. The more room in performing a back swing will results in a more longer delay to hit the shuttle thus making your opponents clueless to where your going to hit it and at the same time will give you enough time to observe his reaction towards how you address the shuttlecock. This is why you need to address the shuttlecock earlier.

d. The Hit

- Once your opponent has react on how you address the shuttlecock and at the same time, you are also clearly aware where is your opponent moves, then at this last moment, you hit the shuttlecock to any opposite direction leaving your opponent possibly stranded.

Article was quoted from Badminton Central