THE BADMINTON CLOCK

The clock of defense  in Badminton creates time and space for you

The last couple of years we have introduced the CLOCK in defensive training in badminton, to make it very simple for players and coaches to see what we expect from them in this training. When you are in a defensive position you will do the splits step. You can do this everywhere on the court where needed but to make it easy to explain this way of working with the clock we place the player in the middle of the court.

Now imagine yourself has the middle of the clock, 12 is right in front of you and the 6 behind you, on the right hand you have the 3 and on your left hand the 9. When you look at most players you will see them play the defensive strokes from these last two numbers, on their FH side they play the shuttle back from the 3 o'clock position and on the BH thy play it back from the 9  o’clock position. The reason why we do this can be explained has a short cut of the way your brain is working, your brain has made a calculation of where the shuttle will land and that is the point you want to be with your racket. It is very well the same thing has the fact that you don’t need to see the shuttle landing after a hard clear you know it is IN or OUT, you can be wrong a little sometime but most of the time your feeling is right. 

Well what is wrong with this automatic reflex to be at 3 or 9 o’clock you would ask then I would say A LOT, if you do it just to save the shuttle because you are simply to late or the smash is to hard then it is fine but your opponent also know this and they will move in a follow up to you long-line  return. Just because you play the shuttle from the 3 or 8 o’clock position you will return the shuttle 9 out of 10 times long-line back. At this 3 and 9 o’clock points is the border line, from now on you can not play a cross shot anymore without having to play against the hand. The more you take the shuttle behind these two points  the more against the hand you have to play if you want to play a cross shot. This has also a very large consequence for your tactical plan, because you are now limited to play in only 2 corners, this gives your opponent time and space while you lose this time and space.

In order to get back this time and space you have to reset the clock in your brain and ignore the reflex you may have to go to 3 and 9 o’clock with your racket. You change this position to 2 and 10 o’clock, in the training I call it  from a quarter past and a quarter to change to 10 min. past and 10 min. to. Has the points where you want to hit the shuttle. From these positions you have all your 4 corners back again, cross shots will be with the hand and very fast while long-line shots will be against the hand and therefore have a deception effect. The chain of events when taking the shuttle at a quarter past and to is very negative while the chain of events at 10 min past and 10 min to is extremely positive with may options creating a lot of time and space.

Technically the stroke also changes from a one movement stroke to a stroke you can split up into two parts. It still looks like one movement when it is played right but has a coach it is a lot more easy to explain it in two movements. The normal reflex is to wait and let the shuttle come to you or to the place you are expecting it (At the quarters). Now your first reflex have to be to move your racket to the 10’s this is what I call the first part of the movement, the second part is the movement that is the return stroke of the shuttle. If the smash is coming from the long line a with the hand movement cross is the best option to gain control of the situation again, when the smash is coming has a cross a long line return is the best option. In both situations you have several options when you take the shuttle at the 10’s positions, on cross smashes you can play long line short, push stroke to the middle and long in the back also cross strokes are possible but they are more risky because you give space away on your own long line side so cross returns have to be seen has deception options. From a long line smash you can play at all 6 points where longline shots are the ones against the hand and therefore also the deception options.

Last week I explained this clock defense to young players from Vietnam who are not speaking English, without talking and just 12 shuttles in a circle and chopsticks. All the kids (U13 and U15) did understand what I wanted and could do it perfectly.  

Next week we will place an explanation video about this clock defense training on our FB site Viet Nam Danish Badminton Academy. In Holland you can find out more about the “Time and Space” way of thinking in the coach education program “Badminton Specialist” from the VBO. Email: [email protected]