LEE - MOMOTA

This week I did something that I very seldom do. I shared a video from some top players, usually I don’t do that because the things they do are things most players are not able to do. So in our training I try to distinguish between what our players are able to do and what top players are doing. We take some small part out of the game of top players and put that in our technical training, it is not even that I expect that our players can use it in a game right away but it is like a kind of pri technical training (you put some movement information into the nerve system that you can use later in your development). 

The video clip that I shared from momota - Lee is special for us in our academy because in one rally they use 5 technical strokes that we have been focusing on in our training. When I normally look for examples I’m happy if I can find 2 in one rally, so this video is something special for me as a very technical/tactical coach. First of all the rally started in a way I like a lot has a tactic in the middle of the court at the net. I like that because you ask the opponent to play a ½ cross wherever he play the shuttle to, and ½ a cross is a lot more easy to intercept. The lift to the FH corner is also a tactical choice because the FH corner is a lot less dangerous that the ARH corner. Lee plays a cross drop from his FH corner, and he makes a little miscalculation. He wanted the shot to be closer to the net and tricker a net drop. You can tell this by the footwork, in a fast follow up. The cross drop was a little to far into the courtand this made it possible for Momota to play a deception lob, if the drop would have been 50 cm longer this would not have been possible and Lee would have done different footwork with the focus on going to his ARH and NOT to the net. 

This cross shot with a specific length is a part of our daily training in the academy, because the specific length is a part of predictable badminton, play it short to the net you will get a net drop, play it 20 to 30 cm past the service line and you get a lob. 

The deception Momota uses looks like a netdrop but he turns the racket head at the very last moment upwards and with a push shot plays it into the BH. This is also a stroke we do in our daily technical training, on both the FH and BH side.

Lee has a great reaction to the deception, and due to the fact that he has to take the shuttle far behind him he need to change his grip and turns it far inwards and make a cut stroke in the almost uppersit direction of the cross corner (Newton’s third law this time in technique). Believe it or not but it is a big focus point in our training, and please don’t believe me let the player tell you about it :-)

Both players use what we call wipe over strokes, this are fast with the hand cross movements and they are again 20 to 50 cm past the service line. These strokes are obviously taken before the body, you can also take them next to or behind the body but they will lose speed and it will not be a wipe over. Wipe over training we do a lot, players are not so good yet to use it in the game but again it is all about bringing the information into the nerve system and nurture it to come out. 

The cross on cross that the players are using, is a part of our tactical training, and it is all about breaking the rhythm of expectation of your opponent, it has a very strong effect on the footwork of your opponent and you will see many times that they will take a very strong outside curve in the footwork making them lose their balance and there by the control of the rally.

The rally ends with a great example of a body deception where Lee is moving away from the shuttle cross/backwards and play the shuttle has a longline netdrop. Specially our 13 year old Vietnam boy Duy is very good in this stroke, and our coach from India told me “But Sir top players never use this” YES they do and the ambassador of this strokes was Peter Gade (but all the top players do it too).

I can go a lot further into details about this rally but that was not the intention of this article, the point that I try to make is that we have to focus a lot on technical difficult situations and strokes and be able to explain all level players what is going technical wrong or right. Coach education is missing out on this part almost everywhere in the World, and yet it is the way to make our next generation of top players.

Look at the video's on this website to see the rally or go to our FB site OroDenmark