VIDEO - Badminton Footwork: 2 Different Footwork Techniques for the Rear Court Forehand Side
The right footwork is the most important thing to learn in Badminton - most of the mistakes made or the shuttles not reached is to improper movement on the court. This articles present some insight into that and shows to ways of moving into the rearcourt forehand corner.
A few years ago I took part in a coaching conference of different national coaches from different game sports and I was surprised that the performance director of table tennis put footwork as most important point in their order of coaching priorities. Without any deeper understanding of professional table tennis, I can now fully understand his statement. For me now in Badminton it is the same. Let me explain it shortly.
What is obvious is, that without reaching the shuttle played by your opponent, you cannot play it over the net. This is simple. What is also clear, that without proper positioning your body and your racket to the shuttle, you will not be able to execute the best shot. What seems a little difficult to believe is, that most mistakes Badminton players do is because their movement and position to the shuttle is not correct. Sometimes players are still moving to the shuttle or even started to go back from the shuttle, so that there is no stable base for the shots. Or one or even more tiny steps are missing for a better positioning, and the shuttle by this is giving some momentum in an unwanted direction (most of the times more downward) and so leading to an easy mistake.
By why is this happening? I my opinion a lot of technic talk in Badminton is done over Badminton strokes and Badminton stroke techniques. Few talk and also fewer resources, written or videos, are available over Badminton footwork and footwork techniques. This is a key component that is missing here.
The other component is more “human”. Beginners always ask “how do I move in that corner” or say “but my coach said I have to move like that into that corner” – but this is, unfortunately, to simple. There are numerous different situations require different footwork solutions. One needs to understand this. If understood, one has to practice different tactical situations and proper footwork for that situation.
Let us take the rearcourt forehand corner for example: there are many possible ways of moving to that corner – depending on how much time there is and how much energy you want to put into that stroke. If you watch Lin Dan or Lee Chong Wei moving or had an impression of the already retired Pete Gade from Denmark - three of the best "movers" in Badminton, the used multiple footwork techniques in on corner - from jumpsmash as definetly the most aggressive style to a lunge step as a defensive option when they may have struggeld before in the ralley and have just to survice and work themselves out of a bad situation in the deeper forehand corner.
In the following two videos, two different footwork are presented.
The first video shows a footwork we call china-jump – it is parallel jump into the forehand corner used in situations with little or medium time were you still have the opportunity to make a counter or defensive shot. Most of the times, this footwork is also used by – not only – beginners, also when there is enough time to do a more offensive footwork, which is presented in the second video. Here a scissors jump is used in the same corner. This type of Badminton footwork allows the player to be even faster out of the corner and transfer more energy from the legs, hip and torso into the shot itself – so far more offensive and fast shots like a full smashed can be performed with this footwork. You need little more time while performing it – this is the key difference between there to kinds of footwork.
For beginners, I would suggest to learn the second type of footwork first. You have to be more active here and if this skill is mastered, to learn the china jump Badminton footwork is quite easy – but if you learn it the other way around, players tend to used the china jump far more often than actually needed – and so stay to passiv on the Badminton court.
Enjoy,
Diemo Ruhnow
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About the author:
Diemo Ruhnow is currently working as Head National Coach Doubles for the German Badminton Federation. In his free time he writes for his websites http://www.badminton-training.com (English), http://www.badminton-training.de (German) and other Badminton journals.
