Newton's third law in Badminton

5 maart 2020 - Gia Tân 2, Vietnam

To be  faster at the court you need to keep a couple of things in mind, first you need to read the first 3 laws of  Newton but the 3th one is the most easy to understand: Newton's third law is: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Split-step general:

This means that if you want to go forwards to the net you need to have an action to start this reaction, in badminton this is the split-step. If you stay too high up in your legs there is no action to start the reaction, if you do it too early the power is gone and if you do it too late you can never be on time. See the footwork in Badminton has a dance, in this dance timing is very important, if you miss the beat of the music everything looks wrong so use your feeling of ritme to do the timing of your footwork, if you are not down in your legs when the beat come’s (the sound of the opponent hitting the shuttle) then you are out of ritme.  The split-step is only used in defensive situations or when you have to change direction, this are also the times where you are low in your legs. When you take initiative you will be high on your legs and no split-step is needed.

Selective Split-step:

A split-step can be used has a tactical advantage and if you do so you can always do the opposite has well (The anti tactics). If you want to get a drop you stay a little further away from the net to create space, the split-step will make up for the time you have lost by creating space for your opponent to play the drop. Players who are not doing this will have an upper body movement backwards before they can go forwards (Newton’s third law), this movement you avoid by making the split-step. When you look at your opponent and you see that he is not doing a split-step you should play a drop, it will be very hard to get for your opponent because he will lose a lot of time the backwards movement of his upper body and this will create space for your drop. On the other hand when your opponent makes a split-step it is better to play a clear, it will be a little harder to get to this shot but the most important reason is that you don’t give him what he wants “the drop or any other initiative stroke”. 

Direction determined split-step:

This pri set split-step in your preferred direction gives you extra time and space, but also has a risk. The risk is that your opponent can play against your feet and there by locks your footwork. Example: you play a high service from the right side of the court to the outside line, expected a longline clear. You do a pri set direction split-step with your right feet in front,  a cross drop or smash will now be against the feet. In order to get out of the pri set direction split-step you need to make a correction step followed by one or two fast chasse steps. All this is of great use when you have an opponent who is not looking at what you are doing in your footwork. This is why we focus a lot in our academy on looking at the opponent, is he doing a split-step, does he keep a foot in front all the time? And after this analysis we make a plan to play the opponent.