Technical Problem Solving

Technical Problem Solving

We talk a lot about analysing from the racket to the feet and correcting from the feet to the racket, but how does it work in the training? In the first place you have to realise that there are many ways to analyse, you have the game analysing witch is mostly tactical and strategic. You can have a conclusion that problems are technical and that there for the player can not follow the tactical plan or instructions. 

This type of analysing is most known and is to be considered has the most important, most coaches only working with this way of analysing, and is only done in game situations. A far more important way to analyse is the technical one and this one is done in the daily training, if a player can’t be on time to the shuttle most coaches would say well you have to move faster (is this sounding familiar?)  It is also the easiest way to a player this kind of things, I do understand why this happen because club coaches have very often to many players to analyse in detail and if you are not doing this type of analysing on a regular basis you will have great difficulty seeing the problems. For 99% of the problem of getting too late to the shuttle is a mistake in the footwork, so you start to look at the situation, where the feet in the wrong position and did the opponent there for played against the feet? If this was the case did my player made a correction step order to get in the right feetline towards the shuttle again? If he did not react at all with an attempt to make a correction step you have to ask yourself why, did the opponent make a deception in his stroke? If this is the case your player have to make a new split-step inorder to correct the wrong bodyweight point of gravity. And at last you have a look if the feet where following the racket or did the racket followed the feet? If the feet are following the racket it is very often a controlled move, while when the racket is following the feet it is more a reflex in an unexpected situation. If the player was too late to the shuttle was he still able to hit the shuttle and did it had the right flight? If a stroke on the FH side was going out then the racket blate was not in the right position and therefore the conclusion has to be that the player used the wrong grip. Because when you are late at the shuttle your position towards the shuttle is not perfect and somewhere on the line a compensation have to be made, if you are too late to make that compensation in the footwork you have to correct it later in the chain of events and in the end has the last solution it will be a grip correction. Grip corrections are made following two different lines, the line in front of your body towards the net high are from left (BH grip) to right (FH grip), low and under pressure at the net it is often helpful to change the grips the other way around. So FH grip on the BH side and vice versa. Grips also change in diagles, from BH grip on the BH side of the net in front of your body and on your FH side in the back behind your body and the same on the other site FH grip on your FH site of the net in front of you and in the back on your BH site behind your body. This grips in the back make sure you can play the shuttle in to the court even when you are under pressure. 

We have now been going true several step of analysing and the solutions of correcting from the feet to the racket when looking at the problem of coming too late to the shuttle. This is one of the more easy situations and something most coaches can relate to, analysing how ever can be done in many different ways. And some of the things I use to come to a conclusion are, the sound a stroke gives tells you how clean the shot was, if you want to have a powerful smash and you hear something of a cut you know that it is not max power and in a normal FH grip you will always have a little cut in the stroke because in this grip you will have a little angel in your racketblate  when hitting the shuttle so for more power you need to make a little compensation in your grip. Most players will also have a movement with the hand pulling the shuttle towards the left instead of in a strateline also her you need a small correction this time against the hand but doing this to much will result in less power again. All this information you can pick out from the sound and the result of the strock and it is something I use in the daily training, I also make my players listen to the sound of there stroke and the sound in the swing towards the shuttle. If the sound is consistent in the swing towards a smash then there is no acceleration and therefore less power: I even worked with analysing footwork and strokes on video with audio graphics below the video, so I can see the sound in relation to the footwork. I have done that in BH clear situations where it looked like in videos that the players with power put their feet down on the floor IN the stroke movement, but when you look at the sound graphics you can see that the feet are on the ground when the sound peak in the graphics show the time when the shuttle was hit. If you believe that the opposite motion of putting you feet down in the stroke moment and are telling this to a player you will telling him the wrong information and the stroke will never be powerful. You would think this is a small detail but it is not and many former top players who started to give training make very big mistakes in their instructions, in other words they don’t do what they tell them self I even found a mistake in an instruction video that Victor Axselsen made. He is showing a BH stroke and give instructions with the stroke and the two things are not the same on a very essential part. Working this way in your training is of utmost importance because it will prevent injuries at your players due to overcompensation after making footwork mistakes, it is up to us coaches that this is not happening. 

I hope I have been giving a little inside info about the way we are analysing from the racket to the feet and correcting from the feet to the racket, it is very difficult to tell this in 1½  A4 while it is a subject of several days in our coach education.